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This discussion relates to Technology Review's article Battery Breakthrough?.

Discussions: Business: Battery Breakthrough?

Bobdeverell

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03/19/2007 12:34 PM
Gas killed the EV

Kitk, on a point of accuracy. I was always taught that the EV whent the way of the dinosaur simply because their main advantage over gas/steam, the ability to charge from the public supply, was lost with the transition from Edison's DC to Westinghouse's AC. Clearly gas engines soon developed to better EVs but initially I don't think performance was the cause of the demise as EV were clearly equal or better !
Bob Bangkok
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Elroch

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03/22/2007 06:10 AM
Impressive energy density

The company is claiming 1MJ/kg energy density. To put this in perspective, this would be enough energy to raise the temperature of 1kg of water by around 240 degrees centigrade, or to raise 1kg by 100 km vertically! Admittedly, still a few times less energy dense than chemical fuels, but allowing for the much greater efficiency converting electrical energy to mechanical energy, this is really highly competitive.
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afiarafiq

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04/07/2007 10:19 AM
Will it work?

Oh well can it help in hoverboards? please comment i am very curious to know what do u all think about it?
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banrjeer

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04/27/2007 11:00 AM
Barium Titanate breakthru

Wonder if EESTOR is doing something similar?

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/04/new_nanocomposi.html#more
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- qh234
  
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  06/16/2007 09:59 AM
  Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
  
  I dont see this thing as anything fundamentally breakthru as I have been working on this thing myself and I can confirm that if you google "high dielectric constant polymer ceramic" (or breakingdowns of this phrase) you will find many scientific papers on this phenomena. Similar research on different materials have been investigated by many other groups in the past years.
  
  Their inspiration for this research may be as follow:
  BaTiO3 is very high dielectric constant material but not highest in terms of dielectric strength
  Coat it with some material with better dielectric strength
  mix in polymer for better coating/pasting ability on different electrodes
  
  It is something like material A has very good property a
  B has good property b
  C has good property c
  combine A, B, C and expect to have good properties a,b,c of the composite.
  But in most of the cases, you cannot get the best of all properties a, b, c.
  So G.A tech group is very reserved in claiming their finding as most scientists and engineers do. They do not say anything about "product" yet. i believe their capacitor will work for few volts potential, not thoudsands of V as for the case of EEstor
  
  For the case of EEstor, they need to show more evidences to support their case at patent office.
  
  their material consists of 3 layers, 1 BaTiO3 (dielectric constant 33,000) and 2 coating layers (dielectric constant 10). If somebody studies Electrodynamic will know that the equivalent dielectric constant will drop far lower than what they claimed (somebody explained it in one the posts above). if some special effect happen here they need to show it by experimental evidences to the patent office. I am amazed how they got the claim patented.
  
  not counting the fact that dielectric constant is not really a constant when you apply very large voltage as it normally drop as higher voltage
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  - Bobdeverell
    
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    06/27/2007 04:03 AM
    Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
    
    Let us think about ways it might work rather than trying to constantly prove it does not. The patent never said this was a single capacitor. I can imagine several ways EESTOR might work. First, assume their store is divided into trays of say 1 Farad. So 31 trays are needed for 52KWh or 10 for 15KWh. Very scalable.
    Each tray might be arranged in a series/parallel matrix of say 1020x1024 elements.
    The dielectric strength would only need to support 3.4 volts per element.
    We know these guys are from the semiconductor industry. Why should they not use that manufacturing technology, why do they have to use a legacy capacitor approach.?
    Bob Bangkok
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    - CapacitorMan
      
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      07/09/2007 07:31 AM
      Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
      
      The 4 volt device would not be a sub-micron memory element that would fit into a IC-like matrix. Even with EEStor's claimed (unbelievable) characteristics, they would be large, something like an inch cube.
      
      If you decrease the voltage by a 1000, you have to increase the capacitance by a million ( E=0.5 CV^2)...which means a net part that would fill an average bedroom, weigh tens of tons, and cost over a million dollars.
      
      Now, go in the other direction, increase the voltage rating by a thousand fold, and you can fit it all into a C size flashlight cell! You could power a third world village with a single cell!
      
      Oops, wait a minute, you can't keep the terminals far enough apart to not arc over...oh well, maybe eestor has a way around that too.
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      - HealthyBreeze
        
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        07/18/2007 07:07 PM
        Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        Y'know...there's not a lot of point in insisting this can't be done. This is a stealth-mode company that is not asking you to buy products or shares. If and when they ship a 15 Kwh unit, and it lets a little ZENN car go twice as far, we'll know. Kleiner et al says this is a high-risk investment. Fair enough.
        
        I'm wondering why ZENN? That is, why have an exclusive agreement with ZENN for curb weights of below 1400 Kg? My guess is either, 1)The agreement doesn't apply to Plug-in Hybrids, or 2)It's only exclusive for long enough to prove the technology, and license new manufacturine OEMs, or 3)It's only exclusive for the cells that eestor themselves produce. Anybody else got any suggestions?
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        CapacitorMan
        
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        08/01/2007 09:40 PM
        Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        how about;
        
        4)Real engineers at real car companies recognized the promise as a pipe dream? or
        5)It's kinda hard to pump up GM's stock with silly announcements
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      - Bobdeverell
        
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        08/07/2007 06:40 AM
        Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        Capacitor man, I was trying to keep within EESTOR's patent dimentions. In my model, each 1F x 3500v tray (1024x1024 elements) would need to fit within approx 4000 cm3 and weigh 12 kg. Why is this not possible if the BT permittivity is 18000 as claimed. Surely 4 volt elements would overcome the dielectric saturation issue ?
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        bot_feeder
        
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        08/13/2007 12:48 AM
        Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        I am an electrical engineer, although I do not have specific expertise with ultracapacitors.
        
        Based on my semi-educated opinion, I must say I am very skeptical about the ultracapacitor because it seems likely to me that at least one if not more of these alleged flaws is indeed a show-stopper:
        
        1). reduction in permittivity with increased voltage
        2). reduction in permittivity with increased temperature
        3). dire consequences if a short circuit develops at a spot within the capacitor
        
        That being said, I would love to see their product to turn out to be for real.
        
        But if I were betting on future electric car technology I'd put my money on the A123 and Altairnano lithium batteries.
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        bot_feeder
        
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        08/13/2007 01:26 AM
        Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        dchemist said:
        
        I find that the naysayer’s sometimes have a hidden agenda, such as an interest of some kind in oil. But if this does turn out to be practical I see it being bought out by oil interests because controlling energy is control of the country. They will not relinquish this power. Kind of negative, but years ago I bought a book with over 200 patents for the "100 Mile Per Gallon carburetor". All were owned by oil companies, very interesting.
        
        -----
        
        Well, if I tell you I am a skeptic and I tell you that I own quite a bit of stock in oil and natural gas companies, I guess that will confirm your suspicions.
        
        But let's look at the matter in a bit more depth:
        
        You bet that new energy technologies that may have potential are liable to be bought out by the oil companies.
        
        After all, oil is running out. If they want to stay in business they need to either develop or buy out the new sources of energy. Then they can continue to be the major players in the energy business.
        
        If your point is that they would buy them out to suppress them (like the mythical 100 mile per gallon carburetor), I would point out, if they know full well that oil is running out, so that the oil business is a dying business, why would they want to hang onto a dying business rather than go into something new that could provide them with a means to make money in the future?
        
        When you say "they will not relinquish this power". Why in the heck would they want to relinquish the power of being the dominant energy companies?
        
        In fact, the oil companies are the most logical entities to run the energy businesses of the future, because they have the money to fund the new sources.
        
        Only problem is, all of the new energy sources that are out there are pretty pisspoor energy sources compared to oil.
        
        So, the oil companies have understandably had a strategy of continuing to drill for that last drop of oil.
        
        But there's not much more oil left to find.
        
        So, whether they like it or not, the oil companies are going to have to get involved bigtime in alternative energy development. And why should one be against that, for God's sake?
        
        Do you think the government, whose idea of energy research is to give corporate welfare to agribusiness to ludicrously produce ethanol from corn?
        
        (If you have not followed the debate about corn ethanol, the problem is that it takes virtually as much energy to produce it as you get out of it. It is like if you have two glasses of water, one full, and one empty, and you pour one into the other, and you claim you have "created" a glass of water. And the government pays Archer Daniels Midland and the rest of them a pretty penny for creating these "glasses of water".
        
        OK, I'm rambling. Where was I. Oh yes, the oil companies.
        
        So anyway, I own some stock in oil companies. But I also hope to see these new electric car technologies be successful, and as soon as possible.
        
        Because the oil is running out. I don't care how fast electric car technology advances, the price of oil is going to be high and the oil companies will make good profits. Actually, the bigger threat to the oil companies is if the demand outstrips the supply so fast that the price of oil skyrockets and the the government loots all the profits from the oil companies, so that they turn out to be a rotten investment.
        
        So, in my opinion, it is actually in the best interest of the oil companies for electric car technology to advance as fast as possible.
        
        And I am very encouraged by what A123 and Altairnano have been coming up with as far as advanced lithium batteries, that sound like they are now at the point where they will render electric cars truly a viable replacement for the internal combustion automobile.
        
        And if ultracapacitors can achieve that too, I'm all for it. But on technical grounds, I am very skeptical.
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        Bobdeverell
        
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        08/17/2007 05:05 AM
        Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        Bot_feeder. Take a look at Tavrima.com to see production ultracapacitors powering a drag racer and also starting heavy duty diesel engines. Tavrima's units are single medium voltage devices (300v), unlike more conventional Maxwell stacked low voltage supercapitor assemblies. Their performance is quite an eye opener though Capacitorman is likely to point out they are an order of magnitude lower voltage than EEstor claim.
        Bob Bangkok
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        rtaite
        
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        08/21/2007 08:33 PM
        Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        I'm really curious why more haven't looked at their background as a clue to how they might have done it.
        
        From what I gathered Weir comes from the world of hard drive technology.
        
        Imagine this for a moment: millions and millions of small barium titanate capacitors layered on many hard disk like platters. They look like thousands of extremely thin compact discs spaced just a few millimeters apart. A special device which resembles a hard drive head retrieves or stores charge by making contact with many of the capacitors at once. This might explain the high voltages described -- the reading device connects the capacitors in series for discharging thereby increasing the voltage.
        
        A microprocessor keeps track of all areas of the capacitor filled discs which have been charged or discharged and just like a hard drive retrieves or stores charge as needed by moving the "head" to the appropriate area of a platter which needs charge (if recharging) or contains charge (if discharging).
        
        Doesn't that seem reasonable given their background in hard drive technology?
        
        I wonder if some of the big ultracapacitor companies have considered taking that route as a way of increasing the output voltage of their devices.
        
        I still have my doubts about whether they could reach the charge densities (i.e., KWH of energy stored for the weight they've claimed), but I tend to think people don't invent things out of thin air. They often make connections from previous ideas which have been used in a different way. And this seemed like such a logical use of hard drive technology -- to keep track of and logically organize charge on an extremely capacitor dense barium titanate disc platter.
        
        Ralph
        
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        CapacitorMan
        
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        08/27/2007 10:38 PM
        Re: Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
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        buck_wheat
        
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        09/03/2007 11:04 PM
        Re: Re: Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        This whole chain of responses is pathetic !
        Not one of you have the intelligence to design, let alone comprehend, a technology so vastly different to the present day understanding. So just go back to sitting in your dream-no-comprehension chair in your plain jane, no accomplishment life, and wait to see if you can buy this sophisticated work of art when it comes to a store near you! But remember … since you’ve not achieved any special status in life, to-date, you’ll have to be patient until the successful people drive the cost of this technology down for you to your acquisition capability level. The next time you respond to such foolish rhetoric, in the quest to impress each other with what you don’t know AND can’t understand, do it on the telephone so that others don’t have to be subjected to such nauseous writings !!!!
        
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        CapacitorMan
        
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        09/04/2007 11:13 AM
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        My, aren't we the pleasant one?
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        GTAlum
        
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        09/04/2007 10:30 PM
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        I did some calculations:
        
        Energy Density (100% efficiency) of Gasoline = 47 MJ/kg
        Inverse Specific Fuel Useage for (25 mpg) Gasoline Engine = 12 MJ/kg (or a typical car is 26% efficient in extracting chemical energy)
        
        This equals 9.3 kWhr per gallon of gasoline (of extracted energy). If we assume that we drive around 50 miles per day (18k miles per year) - we will use 19 kWhr of energy per day. An equivalent electrical motor with 100% efficiency (using brake momentum recovery) will need to charge 3000 watts for 6 hours (overnight). This will cost around $1.30 per day to drive (or equivalent to 65 cents per gallon). Not too bad in terms of cost vs. the current cost of gasoline. If you want to drive farther then you have to charge at a higher rate (e.g. 6000 watts - most likely the highest household charge rate) or for longer time periods (plus you have to have a high capacity electrical energy storage device).
        
        Bottom Line: You cannot charge an ultra-capacitor (to drive all day) for 5 to 10 minutes (this would require 100,000 watts of power!). At least not from a standard house. This would burn up any current housing electrical wiring.
        
        It is going to take all night to charge any kind of electrical storage device (battery or ultra-capacitor) from current home circuitry to drive a vehicle all day. One will have to charge overnight each night. The limiting factor is going to be the electrical wiring capacity.
        
        Unless we have a different way of charging (i.e. different home wiring but then safety becomes an issue) we will be limited to about 100 miles for an average electrical vehicle daily range independent of electrical storage device based on our capability to charge it.
        
        Let me know if my math is wrong. I don't think there is any magic here - it takes a lot of energy to move a car (electrical or chemical).
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        molecat
        
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        09/07/2007 08:05 PM
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        The math looks correct to me, good analysis. Perhaps some cap to cap transfer could aid in the buffering (e.g. 100 recharge paths rather than just one.)
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        GTAlum
        
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        09/08/2007 07:05 AM
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        There are a couple of actions to take to mitigate the problem. For example if one had four ultracapacitors in the auto that could store a days drive each (so you have four days of electrical energy or 400 miles) stored then one has plenty of capability to skip a charge cycle or handle a failure of one of the capacitors. Additionally quick charge (say 100 KW) stations could be built (commercial units) to give you a 5 minute charge to allow for another couple of hours on the road.
        
        I was only speaking to the problem of quick charging at home. Even a parallel path eventually has to come down to a single wire. Check out the largest draw at your home (say your dryer) - it has a 40 amp breaker or around 9 KW at 220 volts.
        
        The main breaker is 200 amps or 40 KW so the line running to the house is capable (of quick charging) but it would take shutting down all other electrical users.
        
        I don't see quick charging at home as a necessity.
        
        Slow charging overnight while sleeping is fine for 90% of what we do in terms of driving. Long trips can be handled with commercial charging stations.
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        jerryglen
        
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        03/11/2008 08:28 PM
        Charging issue
        
        I've thought about this. You have a point. Same point made in IEEE Spectrum, (even for commercial stations), a couple of months back. But what if the 'charge' station had several banks of ultracaps, batteries, or other storage medium, even a flywheel. The station could easily average out it's power needs over a 24 hour period and make rapid charging very feasible.
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        chuckyndeb
        
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        09/07/2007 07:55 AM
        Re: Re: Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        Buck_wheat doesn't understand what is going on.
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        smithsomian
        
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        09/05/2007 12:40 AM
        Re: Re: Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        Dude - the message about the hard drive being the impetus of this new technology was using the hard drive as an analogy. The author talked about hard-drive-like things and processes possibly being utilized in these new capacitors. He makes a good point about understanding the background of the inventors to guess how this new technology might work.
        
        Re-read it.
        
        And you might wanna think about not being so condescending in the future because now it's twice as funny.
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        CapacitorMan
        
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        09/05/2007 12:12 PM
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Barium Titanate breakthru
        
        You're right, I apologize
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