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 ...
Yes, last time I checked, they had about the same energy density as lithium batteries, but the problem is their "effective series resistance," which at least was pretty high, I haven't checked in recent years.
ESR made it difficult to get energy out of the supercap quickly, and you paid a high price in efficiency for charging and discharging.
The good thing about them is that they charge much faster than lithium batteries.
I think some Bluetooth earpieces use supercaps instead of batteries, but I'm not sure.
Spoiler! Now I'll never want to ride in a Tesla car. Let alone a battery-powered plane.
Actually I forgot about lead-acid “Gel Cell” batteries; 40 years ago, they had better energy density (on a volume basis) than any of the alternatives, and were easy to recharge. Their energy density on a mass basis (specific energy) wasn’t very good though.
Still, you saw them in a lot of UPSs for computers, emergency equipment, etc.
They’re still around, I see by Googling them.
Are they charged free from a USB port? < /sarcasm>
It would seem that Super Caps might have orders of magnitude greater recharging cycles than most rechargeable battery technologies, but I don’t know.
I would like to submit for review the following presentation. I’m not going to elaborate on, or summarize what it contains, but, the subject is most germane to the discussion at hand as well as how it - not may, but will - figure as an energy source in our future.
Part 1
https://vimeo.com/194678559
Part 2
https://vimeo.com/194618004
They should stick to playing with batteries in the lab. No understanding of aviation. I would want to see the kWh/lb and kWh/liter numbers along with the C rate. Doesn’t sound like they are close.
That's what someone once said to Orville.......
You might appreciate this, or, maybe not. Maybe it’s too advanced and engagement in nuclear physics at the level of the atom with consideration of the ‘force balance’ between proton and electron is not a subject you’re familiar with, nor wish to be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dCzVUnnL00
Exactly. Their batteries are charged by grant money. I’ve cleaned up the hazardous waste of two plants, both built with global warming grant money under Obama. Both went under within 24 months. One made mirrors for solar powered boilers and one made salt water batteries. We live in an area that gets fewer than 60 sunny days a year.
The perpetrators pay themselves exorbitant salaries, promise state and local authorities pie in the sky for tax breaks and subsidies, then boogie out of town when the technology is revealed to be a fraud. It’s an industrial scale version of a traveling con man that has been around since civilization began.
I flew all over Europe, Asia and Australia for business, in the 70s & 80s, and racked-up some impressive mileage points and rewards, but quit flying after TWA800 was shot down, in 1996. If I can’t drive to it, I don’t need to go to it.
Follow La. HWY. 1 south to just short of Port Fourchon, then follow the road as it takes a sharp left turn to the East. Can’t miss it.
P.S. If you see yellow and black helicopters, you’ve gone too far south.
Samuel Pierpont Langley tried steam engine aircraft on the Potomac.
Thanks for the limk.
Apparently now assembled for fun AND profit....
When I can buy one at Wal-mart, I’ll believe it.
The financials may interest you SargeK -
Third quarter 2018 progress update -
Excerpt:
The Energy Solution: SunCell®
• Continuous power source, developed with proprietary technology
• Non-polluting: by-product is harmless lower energy state of hydrogen called Hydrino®, lighter than air, vents to space
• System is sealed with H2O fuel injected with nonreactive, recirculated silver, absolutely safe materials and operation
• Capital cost estimated at $50 per kW at production power & scale, versus $3,463 for solar
• No Metering: Electricity sold at about $0.05 per kWh via a per diem lease fee.
• Low operating cost, only consumable is minimal amounts of water
• Scalable from 10kW to 10 MWs
• Initially heating applications, stationary electric, developing to motive
Used to be BlackLight Power. He's the "hydrino" guy.
I spent fifteen minutes listening to him basically telling the audience how much the world needs his technology, how great it will be when he gets it to work, and how no one else in the world is doing it.
In my opinion, more speculative than cold fusion. Much more speculative. Cold Fusion is at least not at variance with basic physics. Hydrino power is.
Try this for more current video. They tend to melt down their experimental projects. Perhaps they will tame the dragon?
Their Board of Directors abruptly shut down the public discussion forum about two months after word of an “energetic” development of possible military interest. Many years of back-and-forth with tidbits and hints erased in a single day. Not a peep since then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wvMmdF8gBM
re: “In my opinion, more speculative than cold fusion.”
You’re showing your naivete, or maybe you have not seen the technical reports on this tech in the last couple years ... it took me a year of reviewing the publications and reviewing the test methodologies to get the ‘big picture’ and come to grips with the science and test techniques needed to support his thesis and theories ...
If you have not sen the two vids I linked, by all means, see them before commenting much further.
He’s built product before that worked, it just didn’t scale economically to large commercial-scale plant size. You probably don’t know that ... it’s all in the video (and book) by Brett Holverstott.
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