Keeping battery fires at bay is a constant irritant, if not downright hazard, in the electric vehicle world. Battery fires are particularly scary in aircraft, where help may be 35,000 feet below. Three different solutions have been introduced by industry and scholars, though, and may reduce, or even prevent such unfortunate occurrences. That the three solutions were featured in the same day’s postings of GreenCarCongress.com is a bit astonishing, but heartening. The three contenders appear below. The Honeywell and Nexceris Sniff Test Honeywell has a strategic alliance with Nexceris, developer of the Li-ion Tamer (a horrible pun, as you may have noticed) lithium-ion gas detection solutions. Instead of waiting for things to heat up, as happens in thermal runaways, the Honeywell-Nexceris team will develop the proactive detectors, which “sniff” the fumes of an incipient battery fire before it can even start. Honeywell and Nexceris will work with EV makers to install Li-ion Tamer sensors “on their gas detection systems control …
The Lightest Material Encapsulated in the Sheerest
Scientists may have come up with a process to wrap hydrogen-trapping magnesium with an atom-thick layer of graphene, setting up a scenario to store hydrogen in a weight-saving way. Hydrogen seems to be a perfect fuel, but like all perfect things, an unattainable one. Its lightness and smallness make it hard to contain, and pressurization required to store it adds weight to its containers. Flying since 2009, the Lange Antares DLR-H2 has been a test bed for hydrogen-fueled flight. The DLR (Germany’s NASA) explains, “The developers selected a new, larger pressure vessel that, at 350 bar (5,076 pounds per square inch), now holds five kilograms of hydrogen to replace the previous tank in the external pod on the starboard wing, which provided a capacity of just two kilograms.” It takes a substantial container and high pressure to contain hydrogen as currently used in transportation. Reducing or eliminating that equipment would make H2 a more viable power source for aviation. That …
Rumpled Cathodes Benefit Lithium Sulfur Batteries
We like to think of things inside batteries as neatly organized, but Pennsylvania State University researchers may have come up with a less tidy way of making cathodes. Researchers synthesized “highly crumpled” nitrogen-doped graphene (NG) sheets with “ultrahigh pore volume” and large surface area (1,158 square meters– 12,465 square feet or about one-third the area of a football field) per gram. This large area and high porosity “enable strong polysulfide adsorption and high sulfur content for use as a cathode material in Li-sulfur batteries.” Interwoven rather than stacked, the wrinkled material provides ample room for “nitrogen-containing active sites.” The batteries, according to the researchers, “achieved” a high capacity of 1,226 milliamp-hours per gram and 75-percent capacity retention after 300 cycles. This demonstrated capacity and longevity is something other experimenters with lithium sulfur batteries have tried unsuccessfully to achieve. Green Car Reports quotes Jiangxuan Song, one of the researchers on the techniques used. “Lithium–sulfur battery cells using these wrinkled graphene sheets …
Carbon Fiber, Batteries and Clean Air from CO2
Creators of a one-step process called STEP (Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo) claim a world of benefits, including pulling carbon dioxide from the air and turning it into useful things, such as fuels, cement, and cheap carbon fiber. The process can also purify and desalinate water, according to many of the 300 peer-reviewed papers by Dr. Stuart Licht of George Washington University and his graduate students. The elevator speech regarding their research can be found on the home page for the group. “A new fundamental solar process has been introduced. STEP efficiently removes carbon from the atmosphere and generates the staples needed by society, ranging from fuels, to metals, bleach and construction materials, at high solar efficiency and without carbon dioxide generation. By using the full spectrum of sunlight, STEP captures more solar energy than the most efficient solar cell or photoelectrochemical processes.” According to the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), the sample of nanofibers Dr. Licht showed participants at the Autumn Meeting of the …