Graphene 3D Lab, Inc. has demonstrated that graphene can be easily mixed with thermoplastics commonly used in fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printers. The company has demonstrated a mixture of plastics and graphene that can be turned into nanocomposite material filament which can then be used within any standard FDM 3D printer. They have managed to craft a functioning battery which may be incorporated into a 3D printed object during printing. These filaments show good thermal and electrical conductivity and are shown in the video forming a 3D printed battery. Different components require separate “printings” at present, but company CEO Dr. Daniel Stolyarov explains that future iterations of the process will be able to simultaneously produce multiple material parts. His corporate biography lists significant accomplishments. “In his previous role at Energetiq, Dr. Stolyarov and his team won the 2011 Prism Award for the Laser-Driven Light Source they developed. He has also co-authored papers with Nobel and Kavli prize winners, as well …
Solar Impulse Wrapping Up Flight Tests before Heading to Abu Dhabi
Solar Impulse 2, HB-SIB, flying now for several months, is being readied for a trip to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and host city for Solar Impulse’s around-the-world flight. From there, early in 2015, it will embark on its around-the-world flight, alternately flown by Bertrand Piccard and Andre’ Borschberg. The program continues the drive and immense logistical planning evidenced by Solar Impulse 1’s across-America flight last year. “What better way to demonstrate the importance of the pioneering, innovatory spirit than by achieving ‘impossible’ things with renewable energy and highlighting new solutions for environmental problems?” This attitude will be necessary to overcome the challenges of five-day, cross-ocean flights each pilot will face, and to meet the meteorological conditions following the equator much of the way. The bigger, heavier SI2 will cross deserts, the Great Wall of China, and repeat its journey across America on its five-month circumnavigation of the globe. Beginning in March, 2015 from Abu Dhabi, …
Chip Yates Awarded Louis Bleriot Medal by FAI
Chip Yates, founder and head of the Flight of the Century, has been honored by the Federation Aeronautique International for records set in 2013. Chip’s web site announced the honor last week. “Record-setting entrepreneur and pioneer Chip Yates will be honored on October 16 by the World Air Sports Federation (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) for changing the course of aviation history. “Yates has been selected to receive the FAI’s Louis Bleriot Medal for his record-setting flights in 2013, which established new international landmarks in speed, altitude and distance for electric flight. “The award will be presented at the Opening Ceremony of the FAI General Conference in Pattaya, Thailand, where Yates will become part of the distinguished list of honorees since 1936 who have made outstanding contributions to aeronautics and astronautics. Prior honorees include the inspirational Dick Rutan and other aviation greats from the US, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, Italy, Finland, Australia, the UK and elsewhere. “Yates paid tribute to those who have worked with him …
ORNL Makes It Two for Two
Oak Ridge National Laboratory has announced that their researchers have built and demonstrated a high-voltage (5 V) lithium, solid-state battery with a usable life of more than 10,000 cycles, at the end which test the battery retains more that 90-percent of its original capacity. That makes two such claims in a week, with ORNL’s battery comparable to that developed by Nanyang Technology University (NTU) and reported on in this blog last week. ORNL points out that, “For a given size of battery, the energy stored in a battery is proportional to its voltage. Conventional lithium-ion batteries use organic liquid electrolytes that have a maximum operating voltage of 4.3 V. Operating a battery above this limit causes short cycle life and serious safety concerns.” “In this latest study, the Oak Ridge team replaced the conventional liquid electrolyte with a ceramic solid electrolyte of lithium phosphorus oxynitride (Lipon), and used a LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 cathode and Li anode at a charge voltage to 5.1V.” The …
Audi Drives Hockenheim with “Bobby”
“Bobby” is Audi’s computerized “driver” for their RS 7, which they demonstrated before thousands of spectators in the grandstands at the 4.574 kilometer (2.842 mile) Hockenheim race track in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany on October 19. The video, despite the somewhat sometimes annoying narration, gives a good impression of the run, showing the acceleration, braking and cornering through all 17 turns from both inside and outside the car. The inside views belie the speed the car attains, looking a bit unearthly by the precise, smooth lines the car takes, the envy of any “real” race car driver. Green Car Congress reports, “The Audi RS 7 piloted driving concept car drove a clean racing line at the Hockenheimring—full throttle on the straights, full braking before the corners, precise turn-in and perfectly metered acceleration when exiting the corners. Forces of over 1.3 g occur during braking, and lateral acceleration in the corners can reach 1.1 g. Tests on the track in Hockenheim suggested an …
Direct Conversion of Sunlight to Hydrogen – Cheaply
We’ve witnessed several attempts to produce an “artificial leaf,” a device emulating the photosynthesis of plants, but providing hydrogen and oxygen that could power fuel cells in electric vehicles instead of plant sugars to make trees and flowers grow. One of the biggest problems so far has been the rare and costly materials necessary to generate hydrogen. Ècole Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne (EPFL) scientists have come up with a low-cost alternative, using abundant materials called perovskites and budget electrodes to produce hydrogen from water with a 12.3 percent conversion efficiency – a record for fairly common materials. Perovskites are a calcium titanium oxide mineral that come in a variety of colors and can be bog-common or extremely rare, approaching rare earth mineral status. The CaTiO3 used by Michael Grätzel is of the common variety, but that doesn’t seem to detract from its performance as a hydrogen-production agent. That, and the inexpensive materials used in the device’s electrodes cause Jingshan Luo, a post-graduate …
3D Printed Power Inverter Meets, Beats DOE 2020 Targets
Reduced weight and component volumes are important for both cars and aircraft, allowing lighter overall construction and greater flexibility in fitting those components into compact spaces. The U. S. Department of Energy has set 2020 targets for things like batteries and power inverters – the device that turns direct current from batteries into alternating current to run electric motors. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)used 3D printing and “novel silicon carbide (SiC) wide band gap (WBG) semiconductors to craft a prototype power inverter for electric vehicles that is lighter and can handle more power than current units. It nearly meets the DOE’s power density and specific power targets and exceeds the efficiency target handily. Metric DOE 2020 target ORNL prototype Power density 13.4 kW/L 13.33 kW/L Specific Power 14.1 kW/kg 11.5 kW/kg Efficiency >94% Power <99% DOE has put 1.45 million into integrating WGB technology, novel circuit architectures and advanced packaging into electric drive systems. …
Five Years, 685 Entries, Great Readers
Today marks the completion of your editor’s fifth year collecting and reporting on progress that will make electric aircraft and green flight a reality. It is only possible with the well informed, highly intelligent and unbelievably kind readers who respond to these efforts. Thank you for your continued readership and excellent critiques of fact and opinion. Let’s make the future of our dreams happen.
NTU Develops Ultra-fast Charging Batteries That Last 20 Years
Singapore is only 276.5 square miles, about 27 miles long, and has five and a half million people, according to Wikipedia. It’s an enormously productive country with an excellent education program from kindergarten on up to graduate schools. Recently, one of those graduate programs announced an “ultra-fast charging batter[y] that can be recharged up to 70 per cent in only two minutes.” This breakthrough from Nanyang Technology University (NTU) is also claimed to have a 20-year lifespan, 10 times that of existing lithium-ion cells. Part of the new battery’s success comes from replacement of the traditional graphite anode with a new gel materal made from titanium dioxide, “an abundant, cheap and safe material found in soil. It is commonly used as a food additive or in sunscreen lotions to absorb harmful ultraviolet rays.” Although naturally found in spherical shape, titanium dioxide was rolled into nanotubes thousands of times thinner than the diameter of a human hair by the NTU researchers. …
Speedy – and No Range Anxiety
Breaking a record that stood for 26 years, a team of University of New South Wales engineering students have gained FIA recognition for their 500 kilometer (310 mile) drive at an average speed of 106.966 kilometers per hour (66.32 mph) in their solar-powered Sunswift automobile. The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), world motorsport’s governing body, ratified the record for the run set by the team in July. The old record was 73 km/hr. (45.26 mph), making the new record a decisive advancement in electric vehicle technology. The new record is particularly impressive because it’s set by students, more than 100 of whom contributed to the project over the last two years. Students are now working on their fifth car, eVe, to be built and raced since the team was founded in 1996. The University’s press release noted, “’It’s not often you can confidently say you made history before you even graduated,’ Sunswift’s project director and third-year engineering student Hayden Smith …