For the last 60 years, your editor remembers the oft-repeated advice from garage mechanics and now lithium-ion advocates that slow charging is the way to make your batteries last for many cycles. Where does this put Tesla, for instance, with its 20-minute Superchargers? Are you damaging your expensive cells by being in a hurry? In yet another example of counter-intuitive thinking at work, researchers at SLAC, the National Accelerator Laboratory at located on the Stanford University campus have challenged several tenets of conventional battery wisdom. According to PC World, their work, “published on Sunday in the Journal, Nature Materials, challenges the commonly held notion that slowly charging a battery helps prolong its life and that it’s damaging to a battery if a large amount of energy is withdrawn in a short time.” William Chueh, a senior author of the paper and researcher at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES), told the magazine, “’We’ve always thought of a …
Formula E, Complete with Obligatory Crash and a Glycerin Chaser
Aside from Lucas di Grassi and Audi Sport ABT winning the first Formula E race in Beijing, China over the weekend, it would have been almost unremarkable except for the last-lap, last corner collision between Nicolas Prost and Nick Heidfeld. The spectacular crash was TV news worthy, and despite the initial friction during and after the crash, Prost and Heidfeld both sent mea culpa apologies to each other via social media. Formula e races, so far, seem fairly civilized affairs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV5Fri0gTX0 35 of the other 40 starters, all essentially alike aside from their team paint jobs, crossed the finish line unscathed and having burned nothing but rubber during their 45 minutes around the 3.44 kilometer (2.13 miles) track. Even the charger used to “fuel up” the racers burns pollution-free glycerin provided by Aquafuel, a British-based specialist in renewable fuels, according to Formula E Holdings. Aquafuel explains that, “Glycerin is a by-product of biodiesel production. For every 9 gallons of biodiesel, 1 …
Cheap Hydrogen, Anyone?
Researchers in Glasgow and at Stanford University have devised ways to decouple oxygen and hydrogen from water without resort to expensive extraction or storage techniques. Both breakthroughs involve low-cost materials, low-energy requirements, and the production of clean hydrogen through what should be renewable energy resources. The latter overcomes one major objection to hydrogen production. As Professor Lee Cronin of the University of Glasgow’s School of Chemistry explains, “Around 95% of the world’s hydrogen supply is currently obtained from fossil fuels, a finite resource which we know harms the environment and speeds climate change. Some of this hydrogen is used to make ammonia fertilizer and as such, fossil hydrogen helps feed more than half of the world’s population. “The potential for reliable hydrogen production from renewable sources is huge. The sun, for example, provides more energy in a single hour of sunlight than the entire world’s population uses in a year. If we can tap and store even a fraction of …
Where Are They Now? The Electric Phoenix
MGM COMPRO, a Czechoslovakian motor and electronics supplier, announced that they had participated in finally making the Phoenix motorglider an electric machine. Jim Lee and co-pilot Jeff Shingleton had originally intended to fly the airplane at the Green Flight Challenge three years ago, but contented themselves with competing in the Rotax-powered machine and “only” winning third place in the event. Their competing did elicit a great deal of interest in the machine, though. MGM says, “We are very glad that we can present you a very successful project, [the] U-15 Phoenix of the Czech entrepreneur Martin Stepanek. MGM COMPRO plays a decisive role in a development of industrial controllers for this fully electric aircraft. As described in the blog three years ago, the electric PhoEnix is a “nice airplane,” and one that would take many willing pilots on many cross-country jaunts. Martin originally planned to use a Czech industrial motor for power, but ended up developing his own powerplant that …
Recycling Tires for Battery Anodes
Old tires are hard to get rid of, and left in small mountains in salvage yards, can self-incinerate, causing massive clouds of dangerous smoke and lakes of toxic goo. Fires can last for months, virtually unassailable by fire fighters. Some still structurally sound tires can be re-treaded and gain a new life on the road. Others, well past their usable life, are shredded and added to an asphalt mix to have a new life as the road. They might also end up lithium-ion batteries. According to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, “Recycled tires could see new life in lithium-ion batteries that provide power to plug-in electric vehicles and store energy produced by wind and solar, say researchers. By modifying the microstructural characteristics of carbon black, a substance recovered from discarded tires, a team is developing a better anode for lithium-ion batteries.” A team led by Parans Paranthaman and Amit Naskar is developing a better anode, the negatively-charged electrode, for lithium-ion batteries. …
What Did You Do Over the Labor Day Weekend?
KillaJoule is the world’s fastest electric motorcycle with a top speed of 241 mph (388 km/h) so far. About 80 percent of this sleek bullet is the design and work product of co-owner and driver Eva Håkansson, who has graced the stage at two Electric Aircraft Symposiums, the last appearance with her husband and crew chief, Bill Dube’. Their web site explains, “KillaJoule is really eco-activism in disguise. The only purpose of this 19 foot, 400 horsepower, sleek, sexy motorcycle is to show that eco-friendly doesn’t mean slow and boring.” Over the Labor Day weekend, Eva lowered her petite frame (she’s about five feet tall) into the cockpit of her speedy sidecar to break her old world record and set a new mark 25 miles per hour faster than anyone else has gone before in or on a motorcycle. The sidecar definition comes from the outrigger wheel and platform that thankfully, doesn’t require a rider for these speed attempts. The …
EAS VIII: Avetik Haryutunyan and Lithium Storage Capacity in Large Nanostructures
Although “large nanostructures” may sound like the same kind of oxymoron as “jumbo shrimp,” such things are relative even at the smallest of scales. Dr. Avetik Haryutunyan, Chief Scientist in the Materials Science Division of Honda Motors in Columbus, Ohio, shared a small part of the knowledge contained in his numerous publications and patents with the audience at the eighth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium last April. He reviewed experimental approaches to creating high lithium storage in carbon nanostructures, with the ideal of providing scientists and commercial developers usable materials and products. He reviewed the many experimental approaches to enhancing energy storage with lithium, attempting to achieve reproducibility and irreversibility, two touchstones of scientific validation. Dr. Haryutunyan explained that with 14 Terawatts of energy consumption in the United States today and an anticipated requirement for 30 to 60 terawatts by 2050, we would have to build one or two nuclear plants every day for the next several decades to meet the …
Sakti 3 Announces Significant Battery Breakthrough
Dr. Ann Marie Sastry, CEO of Sakti3, Inc. of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been quietly working on a high-energy-density battery that would use mass production platforms with “fully scalable equipment” that would take us to the next level of development. Sakti announced this week that its new battery can store over 1,100 Watt hours per liter (Wh/l) in volumetric energy density, about two to four times that for conventional cells. Scientific American reports 1,143 Wh/l. According to Sakti’s release, “This translates to more than double the usage time in a wearable device like a smartwatch, from 3.5 hours to more than 9 hours. It also translates to almost double the range in an EV like the Tesla Model S, from 265 miles to 480 miles.” Besides the performance improvement, Sakti claims to be able to produce the new, solid-state battery that would rely on a “full scale plant layout to avoid any high cost materials, equipment or processes.” Professor Wei …
WATTsUP at Pipistrel
No, that’s a statement and not a question. Taja Boscarol of Pipistrel sent the following announcement this morning. WATTsUP, their new two-seat electric trainer took its maiden flight on August 8th. As part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, Pipistrel will display the airplane at the Salon de Blois airshow, France, on 30-31 August 2014. This is the third announcement of an electric trainer by a major aircraft manufacturer, counting Airbus with its anticipated e-Fan developments and American Electric Aircraft Corporation (AEAC) with its Sun Flyer. We could count four with Adventure Aircraft’s EMG-6 under development in California for the ultralight market. This would mark a potentially historic turnaround for General Aviation, with promised operating costs significantly lower than for internal-combustion powered machines, and by inference, lower rental costs for student pilots. One of the most exciting parts of the announcement – the price: “Pipistrel expects to bring the final product to the market in 2015 with a target price below …
Electroflight, Williams to Field F1 Electric Air Racer
The StroudLife headline reads, “Williams F1 boffins link-up with Nympsfield world record electric plane bid.” A boffin, in English parlance, is “a person engaged in scientific or technical research,” or “a person with knowledge or a skill considered to be complex, arcane, and difficult.” Two years ago, the Blog reported on the TEACO Bat, a Formula 1 race plane to be powered by batteries and set to take on the world speed record for electric airplanes. Since then, the company has changed its name to Electroflight, partly because Internet inquiries often sent inquirers to TESCO, a grocery retail company. There should be less confusion now. The Stroud, UK newspaper reported, “Electroflight is linking up with Williams Advanced Engineering to build an electrically-powered aeroplane capable of more than 300 mph. “The ‘current’ speed record for electrically-powered flight stands at 220 mph but the tie up means they are aiming high. “Williams Advanced Engineering is the technology and engineering services business of the Williams group …