Really Cool Battery News from NREL – Really

Dean Sigler Batteries, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Plaid Fire Car fires are scary.  Airplane fires are even more so, since you can’t just pull over and hop out.  Scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and NASA, and in England and France may have come up with a way to stop electric car fires.  Owners of petrol-powered autos will have to continue to check for leaking flammable fluids, greasy engines, and sources of the 140,000 car fires in the US alone every year. There aren’t that many electric car fires, but they make the news.  One in particular, a brand new, low-mileage Tesla S Plaid, melted down after self-igniting.  Reportedly, the $130,000 car briefly trapped the owner inside. The Verge reports, “Luckily, the driver escaped alive. It’s also important to note that this could be a flaw with the design, but further investigation is necessary to confirm or refute this possibility.” A headline fire like this draws headline legal attention – in this case from Mark …

SAS 2019: Larry Cooke and NovaSolix

Dean Sigler Solar Power, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Laurence H. (Larry) Cooke, Chief Technology Officer for NovaSolix, a California-based solar panel manufacturer, discussed a way to make what are essentially radio waves into efficient, inexpensive solar power.  His biography includes this indicator of a productive life. “Larry “Cooke has written one book, multiple papers and have over 100 granted US patents. Cooke is currently CTO and Chairman of NovaSolix, a revolutionary Carbon Nanotube Rectenna array based solar cell start-up.” NovaSolix separates its approach to capturing solar energy from the “traditional” solar cell, solar panel method. “The Old Way” Thoughtco.com says, “Any device that directly converts the energy in light into electrical energy through the process of photovoltaics is a solar cell.”  Such devices have a longer history than your editor anticipated.  Antoine-Cesar Becquerel noted a voltage drop when light fell on a solid electrode in an electrolyte solution.  It took until 1839 for Charles Fritt to develop the first genuine solar cell, by coating semiconducting selenium with an …

Sustainable Aviation Symposium 2016: Would You Believe Eric Darcy Deliberately Blows Up Batteries?

Dean Sigler Batteries, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Eric Darcy is NASA’s go-to guy for battery safety.  He is Battery Group Lead for Projects & Integration at NASA-Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and consults frequently with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. His talk at the First Sustainable Aviation Symposium was titled, “Passively Thermal Runaway Propagation Resistant Battery Module That Achieves > 190 WH/KG.”  The output may not sound like much, being at the middle-to-high end of lithium battery performance: but the promise of passive thermal runaway resistance is all-important.  Remember, too, that larger output numbers are usually for individual cells.  Putting cells into a battery pack with battery management system (BMS) components, wiring, etc. usually reduces overall performance per weight. A few years ago, Dr. Darcy told his table at lunch during a symposium, that by matching batteries closely (to a fanatical degree, it seemed), overseeing their production under conditions exceeding six sigma quality control levels, and testing them intensely, he had built battery packs for space …

EAS IX: Short Circuiting Batteries on Purpose

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

Recent news from the world of insurance claims adjustors brings us back to ways inspired battery designers might reduce or eliminate certain types of claims, and make electric flight safer. Even when international agreements don’t make progress along those lines. Insurance Claims and international Agreements With recent news of Federal Aviation Administration interest in lithium-ion batteries arising from fires caused by thermal runaways, shipments of large numbers of batteries may be banned.  Claims Journal, an insurance industry news line, quotes Angela Stubblefied, an FAA hazardous materials safety official, as saying, “’We believe the risk is immediate and urgent.’ She cited research showing the batteries can cause explosions and fires capable of destroying a plane. “FAA tests show that even a small number of overheating batteries emit gases that can cause explosions and fires that can’t be prevented by current fire suppression systems. Airlines flying to and from the U.S. that accept lithium battery shipments carry 26 million passengers a year, …

Transformative EV Range Expansion?

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 2 Comments

In what may be eventual good news for future electric aviators, the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) will award approximately $36 million to 22 projects to develop transformational electric vehicle (EV) energy storage systems using innovative chemistries, architectures and designs.  ARPA-E also uses the term, “revolutionary.” The series of awards is part of the RANGE program (Robust Affordable Next Generation Energy Storage Systems), intended “to enable a 3X increase in electric vehicle range (from ~80 to ~240 miles per charge) with a simultaneous price reduction of > 1/3 (to ~ $30,000). If successful, these vehicles will provide near cost and range parity to gasoline-powered ICE vehicles, ARPA-E said.” “Transformational” comes straight from the CAFE phrase book, a hoped-for direction that goes beyond evolution to revolution in what comes next.  A 3X battery at 1/3 the price would certainly be transformational, especially in aircraft use, making even ultralights plausible, and Light Sport Aircraft truly functional.  …

Peel-and-Stick Solar Cells Make Debut

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The U. S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Stanford University have teamed up to create what may be the thinnest of thin solar cells – a peel-and-stick decal. One micron thick, the decal-like  peel-and-stick, or water-assisted transfer printing (WTP), technologies were developed by Stanford researchers and have been used for nanowire based electronics.  Meeting at a conference where both made presentations, Stanford’s Xiaolin Zheng talked about her peel-and-stick technology, and NREL principal scientist Qi Wang spoke on his team’s research in thin-film amorphous solar cells. Zheng realized that the NREL had the type of solar cells needed for her peel-and-stick project, according to the NREL announcement. The NREL press release explains, “The university and NREL showed that thin-film solar cells less than one-micron thick can be removed from a silicon substrate used for fabrication by dipping them in water at room temperature. Then, after exposure to heat of about 90°C for a few seconds, they can …