IBM Invents EV Battery that Facilitates 500 Mile Range

 IBM Invents EV Battery that Facilitates 500 Mile Range  Energy, Energy Storage, Transportation, Zero Emissions  No Responses »
Jan 192012
 

Electric Tesla Roadster - Obtained with thanks from e-connected on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/e-connected/. Click image for the wallpaper sized 2298 x 1535 pixel version.

IBM discovered a new electrode for lithium-air batteries, and it facilitates driving electric vehicles 500 miles after each charge.

Lithium-air battery technology is recent, but not new. It does have the potential to store a significant amount of energy in a very lightweight package. This is otherwise known as a high gravimetric energy density. Gravimetric energy density is measured in Wh/kg of batteries, or watt-hours per kilogram.

Lithium-air batteries use carbon as their positive electrode (unlike typical li-ion batteries that use oxides of metals such as lithium cobalt oxide), and that carbon reacts with oxygen in the air to generate electricity. Batteries do not store electricity, they generate it.

IBM decided to start work on these batteries due to their potential and discovered that the oxygen in the air is reacting with both the carbon electrode mentioned, ans also with the battery’s electrolyte. This ruins the electrolyte.

So, physicist Winfried Wilcke and his colleague Alessandro Curioni at IBM’s Zurich research labs in Switzerland used the Blue Gene supercomputer to simulate extremely detailed models of the reactions using alternative electrolytes until they finally found a more suitable one, which is confidential.

Winfried Wilcke said: “We now have one which looks very promising,”, but there are several research prototypes t hat have been demonstrated.

Batteries with a higher energy density enable hybrid-electric and electric vehicles to drive further per charge because they are lighter. Lighter batteries weigh down the vehicle less, therefore, the vehicle will be lighter overall and require less energy per mile it travels, conserving the energy in the batteries. This translates to more energy available for driving. Another way to look at it is: Each kWh (kilowatt-hour) of energy takes you further.

A greater energy density also means that fewer batteries can be used to achieve the same range that you would using ordinary batteries, which is usually less than 100 miles in ordinary cars such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt. The Tesla Roadster uses many batteries which enable it to achieve a 244 mile range per charge.

Apart from that, fewer batteries cost less money. So you can either increase the vehicle’s range, or cut the cost by using fewer batteries. I should also add that lighter vehicles are faster and handle better.

So, as you probably realized now: A significantly improved energy density really can have a far reaching impact on vehicles.

Typical lithium-ion batteries such as the lithium cobalt and lithium-iron phosphate types have a much a lower energy density, and as a result of this, electric vehicles powered by them often have a driving range of less than (but not limited to) 100 (160 km) miles per charge. They are, however, more practical than older lithium-air batteries that are unreliable due to chemical instability.

The hope is to have a full-scale battery prototype operational by 2013 and commercial batteries around 2020.

Source: New Scientist

 Posted by Nicholas on January 19, 2012  Tagged with:

Gasoline Fuel Cell Could Boost Electric Car Range

 Gasoline Fuel Cell Could Boost Electric Car Range  Energy, Fossil Fuels, Transportation  3 Responses »
Dec 052011
 

Fuel Cell Powered Chevrolet Equinox. Image obtained with thanks from svacher from Flickr.

Introduction to the Problem

You, like most people, may already be familiar with the fact that electric vehicles have a relatively short driving range compared to traditional gasoline powered vehicles.

Most people do not need to drive more than 40 miles per trip, but range anxiety is a problem helping to prevent the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.

People in general would like to have a driving range significantly more than the distance they usually drive, just in case they have to drive far, which is perfectly understandable.

This issue can be addressed, albeit with consequences using a gasoline or diesel fueled backup generator that can either charge the vehicle’s batteries, directly power the vehicle’s motor if the battery dies, provide additional power to the motor if necessary, or combinations of what I mentioned above.

One consequence of including a generator in an EV is that it increases the weight of the vehicle,  it lowers efficiency and degrades performance. Another important consequence is that the generator is expensive, so it increases the initial cost of the vehicle and scares consumers away.

One of the benefits of a backup generator is that it can extend driving range to several hundred miles. Chevrolet did this with the Volt. Volt owners enjoy peace of mind because they can drive even farther than they could in a traditional gasoline only vehicle which provides a range of 300 miles.

Now, back to reality: Gasoline fueled backup generators are expensive and inefficient. They are, however, more efficient than a parallel hybrid gasoline engine due to the fact that they usually operate at their single most efficient speed.

The Invention

Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a type of generator which they say would not only boost the range of electric vehicles, but also keep CO2 emissions low.

This could boost EV range because the energy density of gasoline is a high 12,500 Wh/kg. This is a member of the solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC) family, which uses a solid ceramic electrolyte.

Solid-oxide fuel cells can be powered by some readily available fossil fuels such as natural gas, diesel, and gasoline, unlike hydrogen fuel cells.

Traditional solid-oxide fuel cells are too large for vehicles, but they say this new one produces ten times more power for it’s size.

This means that it could be ten times smaller than a traditional gasoline engine and produce just as much power, making it a much more suitable candidate (where size is concerned) for electric vehicles.

Another problem with traditional SOFCs is that they have to be heated to very high temperatures of 900 ⁰C  in order to function correctly (this is the operating temperature).

The researchers say that they lowered the operating temperature by hundreds of degrees to 650 ⁰C, which is not only a cheaper and easier temperature to maintain, but cheaper materials can be used.

Higher temperature materials tend to cost more money.

This improvement is impressive, but as is the case with new technologies in general, it could use more improvement. Turning it on and off with each trip would cause too much wear and tear, shortening it’s life, so, for now, it would charge a battery pack. These fuel cells are fossil fueled, so even though they could help to facilitate the adoption of more efficient electric vehicles, they still rely on fossil fuels which are economically and environmentally unsustainable.



Source: Technology Review

Photo Credit: svacher from Flickr.

 Posted by Nicholas on December 5, 2011

The Equivalent of an EV Battery that Charges in Less than 5 Minutes, Without the High Upfront Cost

 The Equivalent of an EV Battery that Charges in Less than 5 Minutes, Without the High Upfront Cost  Energy, Transportation  No Responses »
Jul 172011
 

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If you have not already heard of Project Better Place. It is about developing an electric car battery swapping mechanism that can enable people to literally swap out their car battery packs in exchange for another one which was charged while it was at the swapping station.

In other words: While battery packs that other people dropped off are stored inside the swapping station and are being charged, you would drop off your old battery by driving onto a machine which then takes it out from underneath the car, and installs a new one in the car in less than 5 minutes. It then charges the old one that you dropped off so that it is ready to be installed when the next vehicle stops by for a replacement. “Your” old battery, isn’t actually yours because you paid to lease it.

Simplified: A machine removes your old battery pack at the swapping station, installs a new one, and then charges the old one so that it can be installed in the next car.

You only borrowed it to drive the car 100 miles and then returned it to the station. The objective of this project is to enable to avoid hours of charging when their batteries run out of energy. Long charge time exacerbates range anxiety because if you are running out of energy you know that you will be stuck at a charger in public for hours.

That is very inconvenient and you may not even be able to find one at this time when charging stations are just being installed worldwide.

Better Place announced that next month they will start selling an electric Renault sedan in Israel that is capable of undergoing the swapping process mentioned above. They say that it will be 20% cheaper to own than a gasoline powered car because gasoline is very expensive in that country (about $8 per gallon).

The alternative to battery swapping every 100 miles is long range batteries with up to 300 mile range which are extremely expensive compared to batteries that provide 100 miles of range simply because bigger batteries are required to provide a longer ranger. This is because bigger batteries store more energy.

The advantage of long range batteries is that the vast majority of people could drive to and from work and school every single day, run errands, and much more without stopping anywhere to charge. They would only need to recharge nightly.

Project Better Place appears to be an example of out of the box thinking. I wouldn’t have thought of that. I will update you when I get more information on the progress of this project.

Better Place offers a package that offers 3 years of driving 25,000 miles per year that includes the cost of the car for $46,000. They say that this package is 35% cheaper than owning a gasoline powered car for 3 years. Other packages include the $36,000 cost of the car plus $320 to $470 per month to drive the car for 20,000 – 30,000 km per year. In the case of both packages, the price includes the installations of home charging stations.

As is the case with all new technologies (and ways to use existing technologies like this), Better Place will learn about the drawbacks of this arrangement and tweak it for the sake of improvement in the future.

Source: Technology Review

 Posted by Nicholas on July 17, 2011
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