Equator P2 Flies Out of Ground Effect

Dean Sigler Batteries, Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Following a decade of development, Tomas Broedreskift’s Equator P2 Excursion prototype made its first flights out of ground effect, a significant step in flight testing. It flew in ground effect just above the runway on March 29, 2018.  This helped verify the center of gravity and enabled further tests under audit by the Norwegian Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), which gave its release for full test at the end of February.  In a brief email, Brodreskift told your editor, “After 8 years in development it was about time!” Two flights on March 29 and March 31, 2019 gave the team the assurance that all systems are “go” for further testing.  Everything, according to test pilot Eskil Amdal, was more than acceptable.  He is one of the most experienced test pilots in Norway, flying everything from WWII aircraft to his current mount, an F-35.  Flights took place at at Eggemoen Technology Park in Norway.. A serial hybrid, the Equator takes its power from a water-cooled …

Kryptonite – As in MARVEL Comics?

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Ed Warnock, CEO of the Perlan Project, passed this on from Michael Coates, head of Pipistrel USA.  Despite its celebrated author and totally credible source, the following press release is open to scrutiny and will no doubt receive some rabid criticism. “Pipistrel ALPHA Electro completes 24 hour flight on a single charge! “The Pipistrel ALPHA Electro aircraft has successfully smashed the world endurance record for electric aircraft by completing its first 24-hour flight on a single charge! “Pipistrel engineers have recently tested different fuel cells and generator units to supplement the ALPHA Electro’s current 1-hour range. “Hugh improvements in electrical generation have unfolded with the recent (2016) re-discovery of Kryptonite in Northern Siberia and under the stepped Pyramid in Egypt. “Kryptonite in its purest form is just amazing, a true MARVEL producing almost unlimited amounts of perfect DC energy, ideal for powering an electric aircraft noted a leading Pipistrel engineer, Prof D.C. Currant. “Prof Currant explains, that less than 1 …

Superionic Batteries – Are We There Yet?

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Tohoku University, near the northern Japanese city of Sendai, finds, in a recent paper, “…The development of complex hydride solid electrolytes that exhibit high ionic conductivity at room temperature will be a revolutionary breakthrough for all-solid-state batteries employing a lithium metal anode.”  Researchers at the University lists the potential energy density for a battery using these so-called “superionic” materials as greater than 2,500 Watt-hours per kilogram “at a high current density of 5,016 miliAmps per gram.   This energy density would result in the fabled 10X battery – ten times the energy density of a conventional lithium-ion battery – that has been the subject of international research for the last decade. Tohoku’s press release states, “Scientists from Tohoku University and the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization have developed a new complex hydride lithium superionic conductor that could result in all-solid-state batteries with the highest energy density to date:”  Led by Sangryun Kim from the Institute of Material Research (IMR) and Shin-ichi …

Structural Battery Doubles Flight Time

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Aircraft Components, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Structural batteries, structures which are also their own energy storage devices, are being looked at with increasing frequency.  Your editor has long been a proponent of integrating aircraft structures and the means of generating, storing and releasing energy – something he calls “the Grand Unified Airplane.”  Joe Faust, a hang glider pioneer and designer of energy-gathering kites, put the idea of including batteries in an airplane’s structure into your editor’s mind.  This video from the 1970’s shows Joe was not only athletic and adventurous – he was clean.  His Wikipedia page is even more fascinating. 40 Years Later at Case Western Following Joe Faust’s lead, Case Western professor Vikas Prakash has demonstrated the potential or structural energy storage at model size.  In what was described as an “otherwise unremarkable” craft, Prakash inserted “structural battery” components inside the six-foot wingspan on his unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Pre- insertion, the craft had been able to fly for 91 minutes before the batteries …

Silicone Wrinkles Can Be Beautiful

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 Hanqing Jiang, a professor in ASU’s School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, has come up with a clever and inexpensive way to fight dendrites in lithium batteries.  Since these spiky little outbreaks can lead to battery fires, his team’s findings might lead to safer batteries.  The approach involves silicone. Many of us put up a (usually futile) fight against wrinkles, our youth culture spending fortunes to avoid the inevitable.  Scientists at Arizona State University, however, are encouraging wrinkles in their lithium-metal batteries, and pouring cheap silicone goo over their anodes to discourage dendrites from popping up. This novel approach to crafting lithium metal anodes for batteries is something Arizona State University scientists are working on, with surprising results.  Hanqing Jiang, a professor in ASU’s School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering  Silicon or Silicone? Live Science explains an important distinction.  “In short, silicon is a naturally occurring chemical element, …

Mixing It Up With MXene

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Aircraft Materials, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Over the years reporting on battery developments, we’ve seen paper batteries, spray-on batteries, structural batteries and many types of material mixes.  Drexel University has tossed all the above intone big hopper and come up with MXene, a potentially dynamic way of making batteries, supercapacitors, antennas, and structural elements that can be conductors, semiconductors, and insulators, among myriad applications. Going Through a Phase MXenes are formed from layered MAX phases, defined by Drexel as forming, “A large family of ternary(composed of three) carbides with the general formula Mn+1AXn, where n = 1–3, M is an early transition metal, A is an A-group element (mostly IIIA and IVA), and X is C and/or N:”  That level of chemistry is two quantum leaps above your editor’s pay grade, so you’ll have to work out the implications for yourself. Or, you can read the more understandable explanation in this link. Drexel explains, “MXenes are made by chemically etching a layered ceramic material called a MAX phase, to remove a set of chemically-related …

Is Ionic Propulsion Plausible?

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Ethan Krauss responds to MIT’s Ionic Flyer Coverage There seems to be great interest in ionic propulsion.  After we published “MIT’s Ionic Flyer – Solid State All the Way,” our editorial offices (otherwise known as your editor’s kitchen) received a comment from Ethan Krauss, who corrected the historical record.  He explains, “MIT was NOT “the first ion propelled aircraft of any kind to carry their power supply, as their video and paper say.  They don’t use less voltage, they are not more efficient, they are not the largest. Size was not the limit in the past.” Click on image to see video of MIT’s first flights. “They are the second in the world to be able to claim that they built an ion propelled craft that can carry its power supply. Their craft however, was launched with the assistance of a bungee cord, and large wings thereby reducing the power needed for its 10 second flight.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer …

Purdue Flow Battery: Safer, Less Expensive

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Promising enough to catch NBC’s attention, new flow battery technology from Purdue University promises quick refueling and up to 3,000 miles range in the electric car of the future.  If volumetric and gravimetric factors can be brought into line, this could be a useful energy storage medium for future aircraft. John Cushman, Purdue University distinguished professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences and a professor of mathematics and partner Eric Nauman, professor in mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, and in basic medical sciences, co-founded IFBattery Inc.  The pair developed a “safe and affordable” patented technology that requires replacing fluids in their battery every 300 miles, and then swapping the anode material every 3,000 miles “taking less time than is needed to do and oil change” and costing about $65.  This calculates to about 2.167 cents per mile, considerably less than the 11 cents per mile your editor’s small econobox requires just for fuel. Cushman further explains the economics from the infrastructure perspective: “It’s a game-changer for the next generation …

Astigan HALE Flies British Skies

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Ordnance Survey Established in 2014 by Ordnance Survey and private investors to develop and commercialize the UK’s first commercial sub-orbital Earth Observation High-Altitude Pseudo Satellites (HAPS), Astigan is both the aircraft company and product of that partnership with OS. Ordnance Survey produces maps for private, government and business users, including pre-printed print maps and custom charts downloadable to PCs or mobile devices.  These can be as elaborate as items containing “fly-throughs” of requested routes for hiking, biking, driving or even flying trips.  3D modeling enables users to visualize the terrain and essential elements before committing to a flight. Astigan HALE To enable accurate mapping and application development, the team has created a 38-meter (124.7 feet) wingspan, twin-motor high-altitude, very light machine that will not only chart the landscape, but provide data for environmental, analysis of changes in the geospatial landscape, monitor agricultural factors such as soil erosion or crop yield, provide a communication link in remote areas and in disaster …

Polyplus and SK Team on Glass-Encapsulated Batteries

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Polyplus, a Berkeley, California-based battery developer, has teamed with SK, Korea’s” first and largest energy and chemical company,“ to produce and test prototype cells to demonstrate increased volumetric and gravimetric energy density and cycle life relative to existing Li-ion cells.”  Just reported,  “The PolyPlus lithium-water battery has achieved the highest recorded energy density of 1,300 Watt-hours/kilogram, or an almost 10x improvement* over current lithium-ion batteries. Polyplus projects the energy density for commercial lithium-air batteries to be 1000 watt-hours per kilogram.”   As with many recent partnerships, the alliance between Polyplus and SK provides “muscle” for the smaller partner.  Polyplus, with 18 bay area employees, will benefit from the far more sizable SK’s financial and managerial expertise.  Between the two firms Polyplus’ 135 issued and 40 pending patents should receive proper support. According to Green Car Congress, “SK selected PolyPlus as partner for its global consortium.”  The collaboration is focused on PolyPlus’ solid-state lithium anode laminate that has the potential to double the …