HET: Quadrupling the Flux, Quintupling the Torque

Dean Sigler Electric Aircraft Materials, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Linear Laboratories operates (if you take their video at near face value) out of a barn in Texas and partners with Abtery in Sweden.   The partnership is significant, since Abtery is working on a Swedish regional airliner Elise (“Elektrisk Lufttransport i Sverige” or Electric Aviation in Sweden). The project is funded by the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova. And has multiple partners including Chalmers University.  Their goal is to apply the HET (Hunstable Electric Turbine) technology developed by Linear to real-world uses. Swedish Partners Anders Forslund, researcher at Chalmers in Gothenburg, Sweden, leads the development project Elise.  “We started a little later than they did in other countries but now we’re up and running probably faster than they do. Intensive research is ongoing around the world for a transition from fossil fuels to electric power in aviation, especially in countries such as the United States, China and Germany. It’s all about small start-up companies to big aircraft manufacturers like Boeing.” Sören Granath  of Swedish Radio …

Two Different Carbon Batteries

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

With lithium-ion batteries seeming to have topped out in their capabilities, battery researchers are looking at new ways of storing energy.  Zap&Go in England and Graphenano in Spain are exploiting a more common element  to good effect, crafting carbon batteries that charge quickly and last thousands of charge-discharge cycles.  Both attack their goals in very different ways. Zap&Go Carbon-ion Battery According to Microbattery.com, the Oxford-based organization Zap&Go has created and delivered a carbon-particle battery consolidating the superfast charging capacities of a supercapacitor to gain rapid charging and long cycle life.  Unfortunately, as far as electric vehicles go, it’s not quite ready for prime time.  The good news is that it’s on a well-structured timeline that will bring it to the vehicular world in the next few years. Auto Economic Times of India reports that Zap & Go follows the path many others with new technology often go down.  “’Today it’s a developing technology, so it’s not as good,’ Zap&Go’s chief executive Stephen …