Almost four years ago, this blog reported on Dr. Yi Cui’s “painted battery,” a method of coating even paper with carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires, with the coated paper being able to store energy. Adding origami to the concept, Arizona State University researchers have folded a paper-based lithium-ion battery and managed to demonstrate a 14-fold increase in areal energy, or energy density per unit of area. This has serious implications for batteries that can be printed on roll paper and which have the requisite flexibility. More rigid batteries might crack under the strain, for instance, and achieve negative results from being folded. “’Foldable batteries may be useful for powering devices that have limited space on board,’ coauthor Candace Chan, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Arizona State University told Phys.org. “’Furthermore, with the development of foldable paper-based electronics demonstrated by other research groups recently, a battery that also can be folded may become important for integration of the …
Eva and Bill Do It Again
Eva Hakansson and Bill Dube’ are a husband-and-wife team with a deeply-felt need for speed. Bill races Killacycle, only recently unseated as the fastest electric drag racing motorcycle in the world, capable of seven-second, 170 mph quarter-mile times and speeds. His zero-to-60 time is under one second, somewhat like an aircraft carrier launch in terms of acceleration and the accompanying forces. Eva now holds the record for the world’s fastest electric sidecar motorcycle – beating her previous record on the Bonneville Salt Flats. A sidecar in this case is a two-wheeled, streamlined two-wheeler with an outrigger, but not a rider, as on a traditional sidecar. In-cockpit videos show the finesse with which Eva keeps Killajoule on the straight and narrow with the only indicators of speed being the course markers flicking by. Here you can enjoy their light-hearted banter about the very serious endeavors in which they invest their considerable intellects and skills. Eva builds the battery packs for their …
Chip Yates Breaks His Own Speed Record – Twice!
Your editor was on hand Saturday, October 5 at the California State Airshow at Mather Field, 20 miles east of Sacramento, mainly to see if Chip Yates could break his own electric aircraft speed record in his Long-ESA (Electric Speed and Altitude). He did break his previous Guinness Book of World Records speed of 202.6 miles per hour (and more recent speeds) on Saturday, but topped that on Sunday, with a quiet run of 216.9 mph. One Facebook fan wrote, “Incredible Plane… it’s a miracle.” The California Capital Airshow featured the usual crowd-pleasing noisy acts, with Chip being silently towed to runway’s end during fly-bys and aerobatics. His takeoff drew a hush from the crowd, straining to hear the soft whirring of the airplane’s Catto propeller. After a few runs in both directions over Mather’s main runway, he landed, taxied in, and took the airplane back to its display tent at the entrance to an aviation-related kid’s playhouse. He drew …
Toon Jacobs Lost in Crash
Toon Jacobs, recently congratulated in this blog for his creation of the fourth electric Cri-Cri, died in the crash of his aircraft on September 21. An experienced pilot and builder of several aircraft, Jacobs was reported to be conducting high-speed taxi tests when the accident occurred. He had converted the aircraft to electric power after having flown it for several years with internal combustion engines. We will report more on the incident when authorities release a final report. The CAFE Foundation extends our heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Jacobs.
Lithium Gets a Good Wrap
Shadi Dayeh, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, has been designing new electrode architectures that could solve one of lithium batteries’ biggest problems. When lithium diffuses across the surface of a lithium-ion battery electrode, it causes the electrode to expand and contract depending on its charging or discharging. This eventually leads to cracking and ultimate disintegration of the anode or cathode – weakening and finally disabling the battery. Dayeh, working with colleagues at the University and Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories, came up with nanowires that, “Block diffusion of lithium (Li) across their silicon surface and promote layer-by-layer axial lithiation of the nanowire’s germanium core.” Seeing possibilities beyond his current research, Dayeh says the work could lead to, “An effective way to tailor volume expansion of lithium ion battery electrodes which could potentially minimize their cracking, improve their durability, and perhaps influence how one could think about …
Designing Airplanes That Shape Shift to Fly Electrically
Dr. Brien Seeley has a dream, often repeated in this blog, of bringing pocket airparks into our neighborhoods. But the ideal of commuting by small two-seat aircraft and alleviating the crushing gridlock on our highways can only be realized with aircraft that are quiet, able to land and take off within a football field (much like ultralights), and yet cruise at up to 200 miles per hour (much like high-performance lightplanes). This amalgamation of Quicksilver and Lancair might seem unlikely, but Dan Raymer showed attendees at this year’s Electric Aircraft Symposium a possible solution to the dichotomy. Raymer, head of Conceptual Research Corporation and author of Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach, and Dan Raymer’s Simplified Aircraft Design for Homebuilders, is an internationally-recognized expert in RDS, or robust design strategies. RDS is defined as a systematic approach to finding optimum values of design factors which result in economical designs with low variability. As a recognized expert in this area, Raymer brought his …
Going After New Records and New Adventures
Already holder of all the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) world records for light electric aircraft, Jean-Luc Soullier of AeroSkyLux has announced his latest endeavor, the Etlantic Project. Since he achieved these records in a microlight MC-30 with a Lynch-type Electravia motor, he has searched for a higher-performance airplane and power system. SUB-CLASS TYPE OF RECORD PERFORMANCE DATE CLAIMANT STATUS ID RAL1E Speed over a straight course 189.87 km/h 2012-09-29 Jean Luc Soullier (BEL) ratified – current record 16638 RAL1E Altitude 2366 m 2012-02-27 Jean Luc Soullier (BEL) ratified – current record 16497 RAL1E Distance over a closed circuit without landing 50.13 km 2012-02-27 Jean Luc Soullier (BEL) ratified – current record 16496 RAL1E Speed over a closed circuit of 50 km 136.4 km/h 2012-02-27 Jean Luc Soullier (BEL) ratified – current record 16495 Working with Windward Performance in Bend, Oregon the Luxembourg-based organization has developed a version of the Duckhawk sailplane that will be “exclusively powered by clean energy.” According to the …
Cheap and Dirty Fuel Cells – Good News for Hydrogen
Hydrogen fuel cells would be just about the most wonderful power producers in the world if they weren’t so expensive and so finicky about their diet of hydrogen. Their catalysts, usually made of costly platinum, can be destroyed by impurities in the gas. Making high-purity hydrogen is an exacting task and adds to the expense of operation. Two studies by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory; one in conjunction with researchers at South Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), show that it may be commercially possible to make less expensive catalysts with available materials, and in one case, use “dirty” hydrogen that would otherwise destroy fuel cells. The reduced price of making such hydrogen would further add to operational economies. Green Car Congress reports that Brookhaven and UNIST have discovered, “a new family of non-precious metal catalysts based on ordered mesoporous porphyrinic carbons (M-OMPC) with high …
Plasmonics – Not a New Rock Group
A good deal of what we see in life is counter-intuitive – things like pushing forward on the control stick when the airplane stalls and is headed downhill already. Plasmonic metamaterials as designed by University of Pennsylvania scientists have counter-intuitive properties, such as breaking light that strikes them into surface plasmon polaritons with shorter wavelengths than the original incident light. This quantum-like reaction occurs when, “Light hitting a metamaterial is transformed into electromagnetic waves of a different variety—surface plasmon polaritons, which are shorter in wavelength than the incident light. This transformation leads to unusual and counterintuitive properties that might be harnessed for practical use. Moreover, new approaches that simplify the fabrication process of metamaterials are under development. This work also includes making new structures specifically designed to enable measurements of the materials’ novel properties. Furthermore, nanotechnology applications of these nanostructures are currently being researched, including microscopy beyond the diffraction limit.” Scattering,rather than gathering light rays, seems counter-intuitive, but the scattering …
Tehachapi 2013 – Baby Bowlus and Silent Electro
Tehachapi is a one-time railroad stop, 4,000 feet in the high mountain desert near Mojave, California. Trains don’t stop there very often these days, but multi-engined, two-mile-long bearers of cargo and commerce run over the tracks 50 times a day, making the long haul toward Bakersfield or Mojave. Hawley Bowlus helped build the Spirit of St. Louis and later taught the Lindberghs to fly sailplanes, with some lessons taking place in the high desert air above Tehachapi. Today, the once bare hills are covered with over 5,000 wind turbines, their giant rotors pointed into the prevailing westerlies. At the base of these hills, Mountain Valley Soaring has a base, and Jeff Byard has a hangar that hosts the annual meeting of the Experimental Soaring Association. Members gather to hear talks on the history, technology, and joy of soaring – and get in some flying between – or instead of – lectures . This year, the Labor Day weekend centered on …