NAWA’s Straight Line Electrode to More Power

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Aircraft Components, Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Most battery breakthroughs are five years in the future, following the basic rules of scientific journals and Popular Science magazine.  The usual refrains are, “Further research is required,” and “Researchers expect commercial development within the next decade.”  Rather than wait for the future, NAWA Technologies claims the world’s fastest electrode today and production now. NAWA’a brochure explains their Vertically Aligned Carbon NanoTube (VACNT) architecture is “key to its next-generation energy storage.”   Think of a forest of carbon nanotubes through which current can flow.  In the jumble of usual battery materials, an ion would have to clamber over boulder-like obstructions and possibly get hung up in the random intersections of conductive material.  The VACNT architecture allows ionic flow as though they are cruising down a well-maintained interstate freeway. Constructed from carbon and graphene, VACNTs hold the promise of a “quantum leap” in battery performance.  NAWATechnologies foresees “revolutionary improvements in power, energy, lifecycle and charging time.”  Their Ultra Fast Carbon Electrode contributes …

Two New and Unique Energy Storage Solutions

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

Lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries of various brands provide energy for Teslas, Leafs, and Bolts, but continue to disappoint by stalled energy density, power density, and safety concerns.  Two relative newcomers to the field might have answers to these concerns.  Unlike many other newcomers, production might be less than five years away. Enovix Corp. Ken Rentmeester, a good friend and retired chemical engineer, volunteers in the local TeenFlight program run by Dick VanGrunsven.  He shared his copy of the IEEE Spectrum containing an article about a new battery company that may have some answers to problems common to lithium batteries. The company’s claims for their Enovix battery are impressive.  “Patented 3D cell architecture, a patented 100% silicon anode, photolithography, and wafer production increases energy density and eliminates thermal runaway.” Making thermal runaway go away would make the Enovix battery a much desired energy source, especially for electric aircraft.  A recent fatal collision of a Tesla Model X with two other cars …

Supercapacitors? It’s a Wrap

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Recent entries in Electricvehiclesresearch.com alerted your editor to a novel combination of batteries and supercapacitors to gain power and energy – usually mutually exclusive in energy storage devices.  The Paper Battery Company (an intriguing name) makes an extremely thin supercapacitor that can be literally wrapped around a battery or structure to make a hybrid energy storage device that allows the best features of both. Their PowerWrapper™ Supercapacitor is a half-millimeter thick (or as Paper Battery insists –thin) 4.5 Volt device that can be flexed to fit over or around “your device, folds, bends or cut outs.”  This conformability still allows hundreds of thousands of charge/discharge cycles, supercapacitor longevity being one of their big selling points. Others, according to the firm’s web site include: Voltage up- and down-conversions as either continuous streams or pulses at high power from any battery chemistry to maximize its extractable energy. …Electronics integration of advanced high energy battery chemistries without conventional large, noise-inducing converters. … High …

Are Ultracapacitors Ready for Prime Time?

Dean Sigler Uncategorized 1 Comment

A January 3 article in Automotive Engineering International Online highlights the potential for ultracapacitors to take some of the battery market for vehicle power.  The positive side of ultracapacitors would seem to demand their use over that of batteries.  They can produce up to 10 times the power of batteries – important in acceleration.  They handle temperatures down to -40°C (-40° F), something which drops battery power outputs to near uselessness in many cases.  They last forever compared to batteries, can be charged in minutes as opposed to hours, and can even be recycled more fully than batteries – some of whose chemistries are toxic. Prices are dropping quickly.  A 3,000-Farad ultracapacitor sold for $5,000 10 years ago.  Today, it sells for $50.  Battery prices have come down only 30 to 40 percent in the same time.  Such a device can store 3,000 Amp-seconds of energy, meaning it could discharge 3,000 Amps at one Volt for one second.  More logically, …

Hybrid Hopes or Hype?

Dean Sigler Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Batteries are achieving increasingly high capacities and outputs, though at a frustratingly slow pace, especially for those of us who want that much hoped-for lightweight power pack that will make the electric backpack helicopter of our dreams a practical reality.  For cars, a viable and attractive alternative to pure battery use in hybrid propulsion is described in an Earth2Tech entry supplied by Dr. Seeley.  That entry describes a three-step approach to making ultracapacitors and batteries into friendly allies in propusion. First, ultracaps should not compete with batteries, but enhance them. “Second, get creative to bring costs down quickly. Third, embrace the niche.” The big problem with batteries is being able to take in or put out large amounts of power without reaching a thermal meltdown point. Batteries are good at storing energy, though.  Capacitors can take on or release large power bursts, but have only about 5-percent of the energy storage capacity per weight of the best lithium batteries at …