[Timo]

I'm not sure the best place to post this, but batteries and electric cars seems to be an appropriate fit. It seems researchers at MIT have made a pretty big leap in battery technology that's also applicable to electric cars. I know it's a feable excuse to admit that i'm not a scientist of any kind, and for the very reason i won't try to re-hash the science behind this development. I'll just say that it bodes very well, both for cars and for the larger grid fed by renewables. Oh, and this new tech is also very inexpensive.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aenm.201100152/abstract

[Frank]

Some of the earlier posters seem to be making an assumption about fuel cost and availability. Don't forget about peak oil... Even when fuel gets more expensive it may not be possible to get all you want. There's more in the equation than cost.

EV's can be fueled by rooftop PV panels (mine are.) Maybe I don't have the unlimited range of an ICE vehicle but I know I can still get to the store on energy produced on my rooftop.

[JRP3]

What man? You can have a NEV, or make it a trike and register it as a motorcycle for full functionality. Or just pick a small lightweight car and do a proper conversion. If your needs are limited it won't cost much at all.
Related, more news from DBM and their potential breakthrough battery:
http://www.evuk.co.uk/news/index8.html
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he industry is aiming to supply batteries by 2015 that can run for 200-300 km under normal day-to-day conditions. We've proven that that much - and more - is already possible today.

[Quinny]

I seem to remember someone on PO had posted a thread about refurbishing lead acid batteries but can't seem to find it. Can anyone else point me in the right direction or provide link to good advice?

[kublikhan]

Here you go. For addition info you might want to google "Desulfation" or "Desulfator". It seems your best bet would be to buy a lead acid battery conditioner(Desulfator). There seems to be some controversy over whether or not conditioners/additives provide any long term benefit. Also, it seems that for batteries that are very far gone you will only see marginal results. You might see better results using a battery conditioner over the life of the battery and not waiting until it is dead to try and revive it. I believe some chargers have a built in conditioner function as well, might be worth going that route.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ere is a post
I had a desulfator for every two 6 volt battery and ran it across the twelve volt series, and it seemed to work our batteries didnt seem to age in the motor home after that, but since it takes the same time to desulfate and it dose to sulfate, I just left it hooked up all the time (it takes very little power)

here is something I found.
Excerpt: ... battery sulfation has been with us for a very long time. The problem is that in a typical wet (sulfuric acid) battery, the lead plates want to be exercised. That is, they want to be charged and discharged on a regular basis. If they just sit there, the acid slowly, slowly builds up a film of sulfide that eventually causes the battery to "go weak".
This "weak" has everything to do with the fact that lead sulfide is a fairly good insulator, and as the sulfide layer builds and builds over weeks and months of disuse, the internal resistance of the battery goes up and up.
Finally it gets to the point where most of the voltage of the battery is dropped in the internal resistance of the battery and darned little gets to the point of intended use…like the starter motor. ...

4. There are going to be some batteries that are so far gone that leaving the desulfator on charge for a month will only get you four weeks and change. In my experience with these circuits, if you get the battery right when you notice that it is laboring to turn the starter, you have half a chance to make the desulfation process work. If it is so far gone that it won't even pull in the master switch relay, the odds of being able to save it are slim to none at all. See photo #6 for an example of a battery that will probably never be able to be brought back to life.

5. The sulfation process took weeks or months to develop. The desulfation process will take the same order of magnitude of time. Don't expect to put the battery on desulfate today and back in the airplane tomorrow. I've left batteries on this system for a month before I was happy with the end result.

and a pretty good site:
http://www.dallas.net/~jvpoll/Battery/a ... urvey.html

[homeboy]

Costco sells cheap batteries and has easy warranty.

[Graeme]

New material possible boon for lithium ion batteries

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')atteries could get a boost from an Oak Ridge National Laboratory discovery that increases power, energy density and safety while dramatically reducing charge time.

A team led by Hansan Liu, Gilbert Brown and Parans Paranthaman of the Department of Energy lab's Chemical Sciences Division found that titanium dioxide creates a highly desirable material that increases surface area and features a fast charge-discharge capability for lithium ion batteries. Compared to conventional technologies, the differences in charge time and capacity are striking.

"We can charge our battery to 50 percent of full capacity in six minutes while the traditional graphite-based lithium ion battery would be just 10 percent charged at the same current," Liu said.

Compared to commercial lithium titanate material, the ORNL compound also boasts a higher capacity – 256 vs. 165 milliampere hour per gram – and a sloping discharge voltage that is good for controlling state of charge. This characteristic combined with the fact oxide materials are extremely safe and long-lasting alternatives to commercial graphite make it well-suited for hybrid electric vehicles and other high-power applications.

The results, recently published in Advanced Materials, could also have special significance for applications in stationary energy storage systems for solar and wind power, and for smart grids. The titanium dioxide with a bronze polymorph also has the advantage of being potentially inexpensive, according to Liu.

[JRP3]

Seaweed makes better batteries:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f silicon particles are used as the basis of the electroactive powder, the battery's anode can hold more ions. But silicon particles swell as the battery is charged, increasing in volume up to four times their original size. This swelling causes cracks in the PVDF binder, damaging the anode. In research published today by Science, the Georgia Tech and Clemson scientists show that when alginate is used instead of PVDF, the anode can swell and the binder won't crack. This allows researchers to create a stable silicon anode that has, so far, been demonstrated to have eight times the capacity of the best graphite-based anodes.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')r Xie and his team have developed a membrane that not only promises greater cost-effectiveness in delivering energy, but also an environmentally-friendly solution. The researchers used a polystyrene-based polymer to deposit the soft, foldable membrane that, when sandwiched between and charged by two metal plates, could store charge at 0.2 farads per square centimeter. This is well above the typical upper limit of 1 microfarad per square centimetre for a standard capacitor.

The cost involved in energy storage is also drastically reduced. With existing technologies based on liquid electrolytes, it costs about US$7 to store each farad. With the advanced energy storage membrane, the cost to store each farad falls to an impressive US$0.62. This translates to an energy cost of 10-20 watt-hour per US dollar for the membrane, as compared to just 2.5 watt-hour per US dollar for lithium ion batteries.

Dr Xie said: "Compared to rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors, the proprietary membrane allows for very simple device configuration and low fabrication cost. Moreover, the performance of the membrane surpasses those of rechargeable batteries, such as lithium ion and lead-acid batteries, and supercapacitors." The discovery was featured in Energy & Environmental Science and highlighted by the international journal Nature.

The research team has demonstrated the membrane's superior performance in energy storage using prototype devices. The team is currently exploring opportunities to work with venture capitalists to commercialise the membrane. To date, several venture capitalists have expressed strong interest in the technology. "With the advent of our novel membrane, energy storage technology will be more accessible, affordable, and producible on a large scale. It is also environmentally-friendly and could change the current status of energy technology," Dr Xie said.

[JRP3]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')

"We can charge our battery to 50 percent of full capacity in six minutes while the traditional graphite-based lithium ion battery would be just 10 percent charged at the same current," Liu said.

[kildred590]

I think he means wall current at the socket e.g. 10 Amps.

The actual current would have to be higher.

[JRP3]

That doesn't work either. To charge a battery quickly you need high amounts of power from the wall, at these levels it's going to require high voltage and high current. All newer battery materials can do is allow faster charge acceptance at high power levels without suffering internal damage, the power from the wall will still be high. In fact to take advantage of the faster charge acceptance of the batteries the power from the wall needs to be even higher. For example to charge a 30 kWh pack in 6 minutes would take 300 volts at 1000 amps, or 600 volts at 500 amps, not counting losses. Nothing inside a battery can change that.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')tanford researchers have used nanoparticles of a copper compound to develop a high-power battery electrode that is so inexpensive to make, so efficient and so durable that it could be used to build batteries big enough for economical large-scale energy storage on the electrical grid -- something researchers have sought for years.

In laboratory tests, the electrode survived 40,000 cycles of charging and discharging, after which it could still be charged to more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity. For comparison, the average lithium ion battery can handle about 400 charge/discharge cycles before it deteriorates too much to be of practical use. "At a rate of several cycles per day, this electrode would have a good 30 years of useful life on the electrical grid"

A lot of recent research on batteries, including other work done by Cui's research group, has focused on lithium ion batteries, which have a high energy density -- meaning they hold a lot of charge for their size. That makes them great for portable electronics such as laptop computers.

But energy density really doesn't matter as much when you're talking about storage on the power grid. You could have a battery as big as a house since it doesn't need to be portable. Cost is a greater concern. Some of the components in lithium ion batteries are expensive and no one knows for certain that making the batteries on a scale for use in the power grid will ever be economical. "We decided we needed to develop a 'new chemistry' if we were going to make low-cost batteries and battery electrodes for the power grid," Wessells said.

The researchers chose to use a water-based electrolyte, which Wessells described as "basically free compared to the cost of an organic electrolyte" such as is used in lithium ion batteries. They made the battery electric materials from readily available precursors such as iron, copper, carbon and nitrogen -- all of which are extremely inexpensive compared with lithium.

The researchers need to find another material to use for the anode before they can build an actual battery. But Cui said they have already been investigating various materials for an anode and have some promising candidates.

[AgentR11]

Just an addenda to the above, if a reader doesn't know. Several renewable energy sources make lots of energy, but have the bad habit of making the power at the wrong time. The point of a grid-capable battery, and why size doesn't matter, is you stick such a battery with a wind turbine, and the electricity generated a 2am that would otherwise be useless because baseload sources already have the full demand covered get stored, then in the afternoon, even if the wind dies, the wind farm itself is able to contribute the power it generated earlier. As wind farms are usually cited in the middle of nowhere (no offense to nowhere), it doesn't even matter if the battery is the size of a mini-mall; as long as it is durable, efficient, and reasonably priced.

[Graeme]

40,000 Cycles — Nanotechnology Catapults Battery Technology Forward, Once Again

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')tanford University researchers have demonstrated a battery technology that is able to retain 83% of it’s charge after 40,000 cycles. (1 cycle is 1 charge and 1 discharge.) Lead acid batteries only last a few hundred cycles, and lithium-ion 1,000.

Please note that the cycle life of batteries is not the same as their shelf life. Some batteries, such as li-ion self-degrade even when not being used. Lithium-ion batteries would last 19 years if they did not self-degrade, due to the fact that they have a cycle life of 1,000 cycles, assuming that they are cycled once per week.

This new battery technology is similar to lithium-ion batteries but can use either sodium or potassium ions instead of lithium ions. Sodium and potassium are much more abundant and cheaper than lithium.

What the researchers did was start with a pigment called “Prussian Blue,” which is a compound of iron and cyanide, and they replaced half of the iron with copper, then they manufactured crystalline nanoparticles of the compound. Then they coated it on a cloth resembling carbon substrate. Then, finally, they submerge it in an electrolyte solution called potassium nitrate.

The electrodes exhibited 99% efficiency. “You want the voltage you put in during charging and the voltage you take out during discharge to be same,” Cui says. “Compared to any other battery material, this is absolutely the best.”

[Timo]

This discovery/development could really go a long way if they can figure out one last little detail. Cheap, immensely powerful, longer lasting batteries for the grid. They seem confident they can ultimately make this work. End result - significanly less need for fossil fuels. Renewable energy can be generated, stored, and used when needed.

Extreme Tech

Stanford, however, has developed a new battery electrode that can survive 40,000 charge/discharge cycles — enough for 30 years of use on the grid. Its ruggedness and longevity is a virtue of the material being used: copper hexacyanoferrate. This copper compound has a crystalline structure (pictured below right) that very readily allows charge-carrying ions to move in and out of the electrode. Further improving its performance, the copper compound is used in tiny, nanoparticle clumps of just 100 atoms. Much like the way that hole-punched graphene improves lithium-ion batteries, nanoparticles of the copper crystal mean that charge ions have less distance to travel.

[kildred590]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat doesn't work either. To charge a battery quickly you need high amounts of power from the wall, at these levels it's going to require high voltage and high current. All newer battery materials can do is allow faster charge acceptance at high power levels without suffering internal damage, the power from the wall will still be high. In fact to take advantage of the faster charge acceptance of the batteries the power from the wall needs to be even higher. For example to charge a 30 kWh pack in 6 minutes would take 300 volts at 1000 amps, or 600 volts at 500 amps, not counting losses. Nothing inside a battery can change that.

[JRP3]

Read the statement again:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;We can charge our battery to 50 percent of full capacity in six minutes while the traditional graphite-based lithium ion battery would be just 10 percent charged at the same current," Liu said.

[steam_cannon]

That's a discovery that could be great except it only solves half the problem of making it into a battery. Anyway, it's definitely a technology to keep an eye on.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he only problem is, a high-voltage cathode (-) requires a very low-voltage anode (+) — and the Stanford researchers haven’t found the right one yet; and so they haven’t actually made a battery with this new discovery. It’s an awesome battery in potentia. Stanford’s lead materials science engineer, Yi Cui, (who is a bit of a battery whizz), says they have some promising candidates for the anode, though.