Battery pioneer: Yet-Ming Chiang has a new battery design that could make electric vehicles much cheaper.
Yet-Ming Chiang
Founder of A123 Systems starts a new company to commercialize the technology.
A new startup company will attempt to solve the biggest roadblock facing electric vehicles today--the cost of their batteries.
The new company, called 24M, has been spun out of the advanced battery company A123 Systems. It will develop a novel type of battery based on research conducted by Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor of materials science at MIT and founder of A123 Systems. He says the battery design has the potential to cut those costs by 85 percent.
The battery pack alone in many electric cars can cost well over $10,000. Cutting this figure could make electric vehicles competitive with gasoline-fueled cars.
The new company has raised $10 million in venture-capital funding, and about $6 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which will fund collaboration between the company and MIT and Rutgers University. A123 Systems will work closely with the new company, and owns stock in it. The name stands for "24 molar," referring to material concentration levels that Chiang cryptically calls "technically significant" to the company.
Chiang isn't saying much about the details of the new battery--such as exactly what materials it's made of. But he does say that it uses a "semisolid" energy storage material (rather than the solid electrode material used in most batteries today), and that it combines the best attributes of conventional batteries, fuel cells, and something called flow batteries, while avoiding some of the disadvantages of these technologies.
One advantage of lithium-ion batteries--the kind used in laptops, and which will be used in a new wave of electric vehicles coming out starting at the end of the year--is that the electrode materials can store large amounts of energy. But the packaging required to handle that energy takes up a lot of space and adds cost and weight. "In a typical rechargeable battery, only half of it is actual energy-storing materials. The rest is supporting materials," Chiang says. "That's a problem I've been thinking about for years--how do you improve the efficiency of the design?"
Reducing the amount of materials isn't easy. To extract useful amounts of electric current from electrode materials, these materials have to be spread in very thin layers over sheets of foil, which take up a lot of volume inside the cell.
Companies need more consumer demand for electric vehicles to grow rapidly.
A startup hopes to commercialize a novel design that features fluid electrodes.
A123's new factory exploits automation and advances in nanotechnology.
Is this the magic bullet we have been waiting for?
I sure hope so.
Cutting the cost of hybrid or all electric vehicle batteries by 85%, if true, would be magic. One can only hope.
Tom G.
I sound good.
This will help us to protect the environment and using cheaper cars efficiently.
I hope I could buy a cars with this device.
I find it interesting that year after year, no,decade after decade, articles such as this appear, promising revolutionary breakthroughs, yet they never seem to make it to the commercial market. Why is this?
Because it's just hype. Or The Man shuts them down and erases the memories of all involved, because the corporate-imperial cabal that runs the world loves sending money to arabs and persians and russians for oil and gas.
Name a field that hasn't seen significant advances come to market in the last 3 decades.
I agree, if this technology is so remarkable to say the lest you would think that massive funding would be offered and red tape would be bypassed to get such technology to market but then again if it happens on a rapid time table it would upset the economy and we just cannot have that!
Sorry to say it's not about new tech and what it has to offer; the sad truth is it's about making money, how much and for who. One word to sum it up, greed!
is ok for "right now" but free hydrogen is scarce specifically because there isn't much of a market for it. We're consuming fossil fuels and wouldn't make much sense to make free hydrogen out of them, even tho every molecule of fossil fuels contains multiple hydrogen atoms.
Considering also that every molecule of water, either fresh or in the ocean contains two atom of hydrogen it certainly isn't scarce.
That it reacts readily with oxygen to form water is an advantage. Otherwise it would have long ago floated to the top of the atmosphere and diffused into space via the solar wind.
Some complain there is no 'hydrogen gusher'. Well there aren't oil gushers anymore either. It took billion dollars of exploring to create the gulf oil spill. The saudis are desperately pumping sea water into their oil fields to keep production up. Others have to pump large amounts of toxic chemicals into the ground. OPEC countries lie about their reserves so they can sell more immediately. The saudis have been pumping millions of barrels of oil for decades yet their declared reserves have actually gone UP! Other countries are the same. Mexico's production is plummeting and they may import oil soon. But hydrogen can be create on demand either at fueling stations, at solar farms or other electric sources or in cars by reacting metals with water to form the metal oxides plus free hydrogen to fuel the car.
advantages to factor into price comparisons are reduced delivery costs if you produce it in or near point of consumption. These use up huge portions of fossil fuels - the cost of distribution because of their uneven source locations. Probably similar to centralized electricity - 1/3 is wasted in transmission lines.
It seems we could start with remote locations and simple devices like PV or modular solar thermal to produce and store hydrogen with any excess electricity. All that would be needed is water for the chemical energy storage, releasing the hydrogen. An inventor in NJ currently powers his house and vehicle like this. Put together all the advantages and sell an integrated module that produces electricity and hydrogen if you feed it water. Just in my daily living I realize how horrible cars are. We'll be driving and truck fumes next to us. Even without trucks, the stench of even just a few cars, or one untuned car are obnoxious. I once had to change a flat tire on the side of the freeway. Leaning down close to the ground to look under the car, the vapors from the freeway just above the ground are like liquid gasoline, absolutely horrible.
Get rid of petrochemicals for transport. they should be used for making carbon compounds for plastics, medicine, chemicals, etc. Not for cars. We wont then need to spend trillions invading other countries or worrying about if PO'd villagers or greedy russian state-o-crats or crazy iranians will stop the flow. Nigeria has had 2,000 oil spills, greater in volume than the recent gulf spill in the last few years.
Just a few hijacked tankers or LNG blowup will send prices skyrocketing and we'll wish we hadn't kept using the stuff.
Hydrogen has it's inherent risks. It can be relatively easy to produce, but think about the reactivity of hydrogen. There would be an explosion if there was even a minor leak in the tank. Storing the hydrogen in a car is risky.
H2 risks are more complicated than you indicate. It's ignition energy is lower than gasoline, but its mix ratio with O2 is much narrower than gasoline to achieve an explosion. The latter is particular important given H2 will diffuse up and away rapidly in the event of a leak making it difficult to obtain the required ratio; no so for lingering gasoline vapors.
Can hydrogen be mixed with some other gas that will slow its' explosive properties?
Innovative Battery for Electric Vehicles
Good Improvement and Innovative,cost effective battery for Electric vehicles.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore (AP), India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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mkogrady
423 Comments
Grid - Tie Applications
"combines the best attributes of conventional batteries, fuel cells, and something called flow batteries" and costs much less -
If a model can be developed that is useful in Home Power Storage Applications, I'll buy.
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