Flow Batteries at Stanford and in Lichtenstein

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Dr. Yi Cui is a Stanford University associate professor of materials science and engineering and a member of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, a joint institute with SLAC, the National Acceleration Laboratory.  He has spoken at three Electric Aircraft Symposiums, and has worked for at least the last decade on various technologies and tactics to bring battery science to a high level. His latest effort involves “a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid,” according to a press release from SLAC.  Dr. Cui says, “We believe our new battery may be the best yet designed to regulate the natural fluctuations of these alternative energies.” Of concern to drivers of electric vehicles and future pilots, the electrical grid may have trouble keeping up with recharging needs of large numbers of cars, buses and even Boeing SUGAR (Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research) Liners.  Wind and solar have the …

Dr. Cui’s Pomegranate-inspired Battery Bears Fruit

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Dr. Yi Cui seems to get inspiration from food.  A few years ago, his research team came up with a “yolk-shell structure” that helped contain the high amount of lithium that silicon anodes were able to absorb.  That battery design promised much, and an embellishment of that design seems to hold even greater promise. His newest effort, working at Stanford University with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, features an electrode “designed like a pomegranate – with silicon nanoparticles clustered like seed in a tough carbon rind.”  This approach, according to its inventors, overcomes several remaining obstacles to the use of silicon in a new generation of lithium-ion batteries. Yi said the battery’s efficiency and longevity are promising.   “Experiments showed our pomegranate-inspired anode operates at 97 percent capacity even after 1,000 cycles of charging and discharging, which puts it well within the desired range for commercial operation.” Cui’s team has been working on preventing anode breakup for the …

Batteries That Heal Themselves

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Alert reader Colin Rush provided this breaking development in battery science. Regular readers will remember Dr. Yi Cui’s name.  He’s a Stanford University scientist who has worked with paper batteries, much more powerful electrodes, and means of helping batteries stay together under the continuous strain of expanding and contracting during charging and discharging.  He explained that at the third annual Electric Aircraft Symposium at the Hiller Aviation Museum, and has since adopted several tactics to overcome that problem.  One commercial outgrowth of his work, Amprius, is working on commercial production that benefits from his insights. Since that internal flexing eventually leads to cracking of electrodes, Dr. Cui’s latest announcement brings some hope that such things can not only be overcome, but literally healed.  Just as our bodies have internal resources to fight diseases and repair muscle and bone, batteries can be made to be self-healing. Dr. Cui has been a proponent of using silicon as a major component in electrodes, …