Posted on 11/03/2018 12:15:15 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
Brightly colored molecular models line two walls of Yet-Ming Chiang’s office at MIT. Chiang, a materials science professor and serial battery entrepreneur, has spent much of his career studying how slightly different arrangements of those sticks and spheres add up to radically different outcomes in energy storage.
But he and his colleague, Venkat Viswanathan, are taking a different approach to reach their next goal, altering not the composition of the batteries but the alignment of the compounds within them. By applying magnetic forces to straighten the tortuous path that lithium ions navigate through the electrodes, the scientists believe, they could significantly boost the rate at which the device discharges electricity.
That shot of power could open up a use that has long eluded batteries: meeting the huge demands of a passenger aircraft at liftoff. If it works as hoped, it would enable regional commuter flights that don’t burn fuel or produce direct climate emissions.
Viswanathan, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, initiated and is leading the research project. He and Chiang are now collaborating with 24M, the lithium-ion battery manufacturer Chiang cofounded in 2010, and Zunum Aero, an aircraft startup based in Bothell, Washington, to develop and test prototype batteries specifically designed for the needs of an advanced hybrid plane.
High stakes
Eliminating greenhouse-gas emissions from airplanes is one of the hardest challenges in the climate puzzle. Air travel accounts for around 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions and is one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse-gas pollution.
But there are no clean alternatives today for more than a tiny sliver of air travel, because the batteries powering electric cars are still too expensive, heavy, and otherwise poorly suited for aviation.
More than a dozen companies, including Uber, Airbus, and Boeing, are already exploring the potential
(Excerpt) Read more at technologyreview.com ...
That sudden stop when the extension cord runs out...TWANG!!!
To heck with batteruy charged planes. It seems this idea might improve land-based batteries.
i just LOVE magic battery posts!
Another reason not to fly.
Bull$hit. It takes more power to charge up the batteries to power the plane than what is available in petroleum products.
They keep repeating the stupidity.
That gives me an idea: a combination of extension cords that automatically disconnects, with magnetic-induction catapults to get the plane moving along the runway (similar to new aircraft carrier catapults). That ought to reduce the amount of battery energy required onboard the plane during liftoff.
Heck, you might get 25 miles flight out of the plane. But the energy used from the ground sources would still be generating pollution, darn. Just shows that traditional liquid fuels currently carried on planes is the most efficient way to go, and has the most bang for the buck.
Check post 28, then run the numbers on jet A used at a big airport!
An Airbus A380 on takeoff, if hooked to electrical generators, could power a state. Not a city, a state.
An Airbus A380 on takeoff, if hooked to electrical generators, could power a state. Not a city, a state.
Relax! It will have had huge rubber band wound up inside and if the batteries fail all they have to do is remove the finger holding the prop and it will take over.
It just transfers the energy from a pollution source that’s needed to generate and store it to drive the motors.
On the next episode of Air Disasters....
A very useful technology, if developed.
Does little to reduce carbon emissions.
Not that reducing carbon emissions is necessary or useful.
Ok. Now I can’t stop laughing!
Let me know when they manufacture a battery-powered SR-71 Blackbird.
Here’s LAX;
48.6 million barrels per year
133,150 barrels/day
5,548 barrels per hour
233,013 gallons per hour
128,100 BTUs per gallon Jet A
29,849,054,794 LAX BTUs per hour
8747894427 watt/hr equivalent
8,747 MW/hr equivalent
Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant generates 2,256 MW of power.
It would take the equivalent of almost four Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants to charge electric airplanes equal those currently flying out of LAX.
“At least they are attempting to bring their batteries to market. Other that it joins the thousands of long forgotten battery claims I’ve seen over the years.”
And let’s not forget the Fish Carburetor on which GM supposedly bought the patent rights to keep in off the market. Fish Motto: Zip, Plus Mileage!”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.