Deformable Flexible and Conductive – A Great Solid Electrolyte

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

Reporting on a new material that doesn’t seem real, a joint research team from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and Seoul National University in Korea says it has developed a “highly-conductive, highly deformable, and dry-air-stable glass electrolyte for solid-state lithium-ion batteries.  If those characteristics seem mutually exclusive, the electrical performance helps dispel skepticism. Assisted by colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Brookhaven National Lab, the researchers prepared the electrolyte using a “homogenous methanol solution,” and wetting exposed surfaces of the electrode active materials with the solidified electrolyte. Eureka Alert! quotes Professor Yoon Seok Jung  (UNIST, School of Energy and Chemical Engineering) , “The research team also developed a material for the solid electrolyte by adding the iodized lithium (LiI) to the methanol liquid which is the compound (Li4SnS4) based on tin (Sn). The compound’s ionic conductivity was originally low, but it got increased by getting mixed with LiI. Consequently, by combining two materials together, it became possible to …

Bosch Doubles Down on Solid-State Batteries

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

Bosch, the German electronics giant, is making a strong showing at the Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA), and showing off its solid-state Li-ion battery technology.  It recently acquired Seeo, Inc., an American startup that has been developing such a battery for several years, and will add Seeo’s research to its own expertise and exclusive patents. Encouragingly, the company says it will be able to double the energy density of Li-ion batteries while cutting prices by half.  Perhaps discouragingly, Bosch says this will take until 2020 to bring to production. Green Car Congress quotes Dr. Volkmar Denner, chairman of the board of management for Robert Bosch GmbH, claiming a breakthrough.  “Bosch is using its knowledge and considerable financial resources to achieve a breakthrough for electromobility. Solid-state cells could be a breakthrough technology. Disruptive start-up technology is meeting the broad systems knowledge and financial resources of a multinational company.” Coupling the acquisition with its 30 production projects “related to electromobility,” Bosch has been …

Dr. Yi Cui’s Latest, a Solid-state Electrolyte

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Green Car Congress reports that, “Stanford researchers led by Professor Yi Cui have used ceramic nanowire fillers to enhance the ionic conductivity of polymer-based solid electrolyte by three orders of magnitude. The ceramic-nanowire filled composite polymer electrolyte also shows an enlarged electrochemical stability window.” With solid-state batteries coming to the fore through efforts by Ann Marie Sastry at Sakti 3 and Qichao Hu at Solid Energy Systems, an improved solid electrolyte would seem to offer greater battery safety and stability “when compared with conventional liquid electrolytes. The abstract for the Stanford researchers’ paper in the journal ACS Nano Letters explains that “Currently, the low mobility of lithium ions in solid electrolytes limits their practical application. The ongoing research over the past few decades on dispersing of ceramic nanoparticles into polymer matrix has been proved effective to enhance ionic conductivity although it is challenging to form the efficiency networks of ionic conduction with nanoparticles. In this work, we first report that ceramic nanowire …

Buy Silkworm Futures Now

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We tend to think of batteries as being inanimate objects, even though they expand, contract and flex their electric muscles within their cylindrical or pouch forms as they charge and discharge.  This type of internal wiggling helps reduce and finally destroy the battery’s ability to make our remotes change channels or keep our airplanes flying. Researchers at the Beijing Institute of Technology have found a way to use the product of much internal and external wiggling, natural silk that is “biomass-derived” and processed to form carbon-based nanosheets that might be used in lithium-ion batteries and other energy storage devices. The American Chemical Society reports that Chuanbao Cao and his researchers worked with the idea that carbon is a key component in commercial Li-ion energy storage devices including batteries and supercapacitors.  They wanted to find a natural and sustainable alternative to graphite, which has limited specific energy and eventually granulates into a fine powder, causing the battery to fail. Cao and …

Boeing and Embraer Embrace on Biofuels

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Brazil may become a central research and manufacturing site for biofuels, with Boeing and Embraer opening a joint sustainable biofuel research center, something that will rely on Brazil’s fertile land to supply non-food plants with which to make jet fuel.  Working in the Boeing-Embraer Joint Research Center in the São José dos Campos Technology Park, opened in January 2014, the companies are continuing to “focus on technologies that address gaps in creating a sustainable aviation biofuel industry in Brazil, such as feedstock production, techno-economic analysis, economic viability studies and processing technologies.” Boeing’s Research & Technology-Brazil (BR&T-Brazil) Center, one of the company’s six international advanced research centers, leads the collaboration with Embraer and works with Brazil’s research-and-development community “to grow Brazil’s capabilities and meet the country’s goals for economic and technology development while supporting the creation of innovative and affordable technologies for Boeing’s business units.” This is one of several biofuel development projects in the U. S., the Middle East, Africa, …

Will VW Take on Tesla?

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Volkswagen just bought a five-percent stake in a startup company called QuantumScape, a commercial spinoff of work done at Stanford University’s Nanoscale Prototyping Laboratory for Energy Conversion and Storage.  The Labroratory’s head, Fritz B. Prinz, Finmeccanica Professor of Engineering and Robert Bosch Chairman of Mechanical Engineering, explains: “Our team creates, models, and prototypes nanoscale structures to understand the physics of electrical energy conversion and storage. We are exploring the relation between size, composition, and the kinetics of charge transfer. We are also interested in learning from nature, in particular by studying the electron transport chain in plant cells.” (Note that the QuantumScape web site is curiously without detail, showing only four pretty pictures and making three or four non-controversial statements.  The most information comes on the Contact link.) Whatever they are doing, the Lab has caught the interest of not only Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn, but produced a flood of often speculative articles from Bloomberg, EV World and other sources, …

Transformative EV Range Expansion?

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 2 Comments

In what may be eventual good news for future electric aviators, the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) will award approximately $36 million to 22 projects to develop transformational electric vehicle (EV) energy storage systems using innovative chemistries, architectures and designs.  ARPA-E also uses the term, “revolutionary.” The series of awards is part of the RANGE program (Robust Affordable Next Generation Energy Storage Systems), intended “to enable a 3X increase in electric vehicle range (from ~80 to ~240 miles per charge) with a simultaneous price reduction of > 1/3 (to ~ $30,000). If successful, these vehicles will provide near cost and range parity to gasoline-powered ICE vehicles, ARPA-E said.” “Transformational” comes straight from the CAFE phrase book, a hoped-for direction that goes beyond evolution to revolution in what comes next.  A 3X battery at 1/3 the price would certainly be transformational, especially in aircraft use, making even ultralights plausible, and Light Sport Aircraft truly functional.  …

A Milestone on the Road to Dr. Cui’s 10X Battery

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Seeing the Amprius web site, one would never know that some “dramatic improvements” promised in the terse announcement might mean so much in terms of true breakthroughs. Neatly centered, Amprius’ total web site is a few  lines of discrete text. Amprius is a leading Lithium-Ion battery developer Amprius’s silicon technology was originally developed at Stanford University and enables dramatic improvements in the energy density and specific energy of Lithium-Ion batteries. Amprius is backed by some of the world’s leading investors, including Trident Capital, VantagePoint Venture Partners, IPV Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Dr. Eric Schmidt. Amprius, Inc., 225 Humboldt Ct. Sunnyvale, CA 94089 But the battery manufacturer has two first-generation product offerings with volumetric energy densities of 580 Watt-hours and 600 Watt-hours per liter.    Most lithium batteries fall into a range from 250-500 Wh/l., putting the new cells at the upper limit of such batteries.  Both Amprius batteries are now in production and available to original equipment manufacturers, …

Better Batteries: Nickel Cobalt Manganese from Ricardo and Axeon

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Ricardo and Allied Vehicles, a British engineering firm known for its work with racing vehicles and KERS technology, has announced an alliance with European battery manufacturer Axeon to produce a Nickel Cobalt Manganese (NCM) battery which would reputedly provide 35-percent greater range to electric vehicles than “existing technologies at the same weight.” The new battery would require “50 percent less volume and 30 percent less mass when compared to Lithium Iron Phosphate chemistry at cell level,” according to the Richardo fourth quarter, 2011 newsletter. Green Car Congress reports, “Electrochemically, the performance is superior to Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) and Lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) in terms of capacity and therefore energy density. In  terms of rate capability and therefore power density the electrochemical performance is better than LiCoO2 but not as high as LiFePO4, Axeon says.”  The chemistry compromise allows lower costs for these batteries. With a Ricard-designed battery management system (BMS) the NCM pouch cells, new technology for EVs, can be …