An “Ideal” Battery That Looks Like a Sandwich

Dean Sigler Batteries, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Sandwich structures are common in aircraft, combining high stiffness, light weight, and structural strength.  Could such a structure be useful in enhancing energy storage?  Pennsylvania State University researchers think they’ve answered that question in a positive way. Sandwich-like Structures as Energy Storage Materials The blog has examined the possibilities inherent in incorporating batteries and supercapacitors into structures, but making the battery itself a sandwich structure could leave it as a discrete component within an electric vehicle, or lead to its being adapted as a full structural element.   Penn State University materials scientists have achieved the goal of making a “polymer dielectric material with high energy density, high power density and excellent charge-discharge efficiency for electric and hybrid vehicle use.”  Their battery resembles the sandwich construction of modern aircraft shells ranging from ultralight sailplanes to 787 Dreamliners.  The “sandwich-like structure that protects the dense electric field in the polymer/ceramic composite from dielectric breakdown,” according to researchers. Rather than relying on the …

Yi Cui and team Devise a 10X Anode

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

Batteries are complex things to design and make, with materials scientists and chemists facing unlimited numbers of options for materials choices, formulations and proportions, and manufacturing techniques that will make hoped-for performance attainable on a commercial level. Yi Cui and a distinguished array of undergraduate and graduate students at Stanford University have written 320 academic research papers since 2000, with the rate of publication seeming to increase every year. To put icing on that multi-layered cake, Dr. Cui has helped found his own battery company, Amprius, using his depth of knowledge to take batteries in directions interesting enough to draw the attention of well-known investors – including Stanford.  The only recent information on the web site today shows the firm is looking for a battery scientist and a battery engineer. His academic and research work continue, though, with his latest efforts producing a turn away from his work with silicon – ,making a novel lithium/carbon electrode with extremely high volumetric …