new ultracapacitor power system to replace the electrochemical batteries in cars

[Analog]

A secretive Texas startup developing what some are calling a "game changing" energy-storage technology broke its silence this week. It announced that it has reached two production milestones and is on track to ship systems this year for use in electric vehicles.

EEStor's ambitious goal, according to patent documents, is to "replace the electrochemical battery" in almost every application, from hybrid-electric and pure-electric vehicles to laptop computers to utility-scale electricity storage.

The company boldly claims that its system, a kind of battery-ultracapacitor hybrid based on barium-titanate powders, will dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety. Pound for pound, it will also pack 10 times the punch of lead-acid batteries at half the cost and without the need for toxic materials or chemicals, according to the company.

The implications are enormous and, for many, unbelievable. Such a breakthrough has the potential to radically transform a transportation sector already flirting with an electric renaissance, improve the performance of intermittent energy sources such as wind and sun, and increase the efficiency and stability of power grids--all while fulfilling an oil-addicted America's quest for energy security.

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[Sceadwian]

Sounds like a lot of hype and no proof of concept demonstrations. "secretive Texas startup" should set off your ******** alarm immediatly. The number of expletives used in the article should actually cause it to implode and fall into a black hole of wasted time after reading it.

 

[3v0]

Found more info. Google for ZENN Motor

EEStor on Schedule to Deliver Units to ZENN (dated jan 18)
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/01/eestor_on_sched.htmlhttp://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/01/eestor_on_sched.html

Product Development : ZENN Motor Partner, EEStor, Receives Third-Party Certification
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ZENN Motor home page.
**broken link removed**

ZENN is currently making a few low speed (35 mph max) electric cars that can be purchased from about 12 dealers in the US. The bodies come from france and the drive train is added in Canada. These cars do not use the new battery system. But it seems that ZENN exists.

 

[Styx]

still doesn't fix the main problem and that is generation
the electricity has to come from somewhere and that place is inneficient, expensive and polluting (unless massive Nuke-stations built, but Uranium extransion is slow and thus massive demand will up price of nuke stations alot)

going in the right direction, just down the wrong route

 

[3v0]

It is needed first step. It means that if/when we can produce clean electricity it can be used in cars. Even more important is that it allows true competition for the energy we use in our cars.

Although progress in the clean part is slow for the most part there has been a real increase in wind generated power. They mostly build the generators on cow pastures (grassland) or land that is non producing. Very low impact.

 

[Papabravo]

Everyone who has tried to use an ultracapacitor to replace a battery knows why this is a load of brown.

 

[Sceadwian]

I've a few 5 volt 1F caps, they're about the size of an N cell Nicad. The super cap holds up for about 1 minutes, an Ncell with a switcher would probably last half an hour.

 

[Styx]

BUT the problem with SuperCaps is their VERY (and I mean VERY!!!) low ripple current capability!. If such a tech was to be used in motor-drives that ripple-handling will have to be increased by a significant ammount

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

BUT the problem with SuperCaps is their VERY (and I mean VERY!!!) low ripple current capability!. If such a tech was to be used in motor-drives that ripple-handling will have to be increased by a significant ammount

But no one has suggested using super-caps for such an application, the reference (either true or not?) doesn't make such a claim - just a combination of new battery technology and new ULTRA-capacitor technology.

Certainly a better electrical storage medium is long overdue - it needs to be MUCH lighter, MUCH more powerful, MUCH smaller, and MUCH cheaper.

Even assuming this is real, and an improvement on existing technology, I doubt it will meet all four?

 

[Styx]

But no one has suggested using super-caps for such an application, the reference (either true or not?) doesn't make such a claim - just a combination of new battery technology and new ULTRA-capacitor technology.

Certainly a better electrical storage medium is long overdue - it needs to be MUCH lighter, MUCH more powerful, MUCH smaller, and MUCH cheaper.

Even assuming this is real, and an improvement on existing technology, I doubt it will meet all four?

it was a reply to 3v0 abt electric cars.
I looked into Supercaps for a 28V link motor-driver for some application, but their ripple current handling is shocking. However, I have used the early types (abt 8years ago now) as a replacement battery on a voice exchange card to keep the RTC holding time, 1F at 5V could keep the RTC ticking to an accuracy of 20sec over the weekend

 

[Oznog]

It's an excellent principle. Basically the patent concept was for something like 230 lbs I think and 52KHW. This is the wheel HP-hr equivalent of burning about 4.5 gal of gasoline in an internal combustion engine. The electrical cost is like 1/10th what gasoline costs.

We can find all sorts of ways to make more electricity, but few viable ways to make oil, ethanol, or biodiesel. It is true the current power grid can neither generate nor deliver enough to let everyone run an electric car but that's a relatively straightforward problem to work on.

What you have seen of past "supercaps" or "ultracaps" is irrelevant in the face of new tech. Maxwell Ultracaps are real and have been used, they do have insanely low impedance and can handle tremendous charge/discharge currents no prob, though their energy storage could only propel a sedan off the starting line briefly.

EEStor could be a fraud or it could save the world. Hard to say. I did note that the module was supposed to be made of a lot of small caps in parallel but the suggested price would have priced those incredible devices at under $1 per cap, not even counting the cost of making main power rails, a case, and assembing it! That factor did not seem realistic. But who is to say? The way these things go, for all we know somebody there could make a discovery that it could all be constructed as one massive cap and it's equally likely somebody there could realize there's a central, insurmountable problem they can't solve.

 

[audioguru]

You can't power a car directly with a capacitor. The voltage drops very quickly, exponentially. Maybe PWM can reduce the power when the capacitor is fully charged then provide a direct connection when it is nearly dead.

 

[Oznog]

You can't power a car directly with a capacitor. The voltage drops very quickly, exponentially. Maybe PWM can reduce the power when the capacitor is fully charged then provide a direct connection when it is nearly dead.

Of course the motor controller electronics would need to run a form of wide input range buck converter. EEStor's proposed voltage was 3500V. At 90% discharged that would drop to 1100V. This would also require a specially designed converter to handle this high a voltage, but these controllers are usually custom designed anyways. As long as your motor can do what it needs to do on at least 1100V (and few motors need more voltage than this!) then it has no need for a boost converter.

Controllers are always used since the voltage needs to change depending on your speed even if the input is constant (such as a battery).

A capacitor of such phenomenally high capacitance as stated would work. The question is whether such a thing is possible and practical.

One question which came up is this energy storage is beyond any ever seen in capacitors combined with high current delivery. Many of us have seen small capacitors explode. I saw someone note that 52KWH is the energy equivalent of 140 lbs of TNT! Well EEStor might make a cap made of smaller caps that might blow apart sequentially rather than all at once or preferrably the violent destruction of one cap would not cause its neighbor to detonate at all. Or maybe a broken cap would fizzle and blow its conductive plate apart right at the point of fault, failing to proceed to a detonation. Or maybe it would explode if rear ended, shredding the vehicle and half a city block- which would of course not be allowed on the market in that condition. Who's to say at this point?

It's a remarkably different way of thinking. Man most people would say if a cap is dangerous we'll just put a resistor on it and discharge it. Well, this thing could power a hair dryer for days. The heat produced by trying to discharge it in minutes would probably heat your garage to very dangerous temps without a lot of ventilation!

 

[3v0]

I gave EEStor a phone call. There phone number is in one of the press releases on the web. Got the feeling that this is a small company. They said they were working on getting the production line up (I think to produce units for ZENN). They also said their patent in online. Perhaps one of the EE types could take a look at it.

Where do I stand on this? I hope it is true. I do not know either way. Unless the person I talked to at EEStor is a con man (I did not get that impression) then I would have to say he was convinced their stuff works.

In regard to the 52KWH is the energy equivalent of 140 lbs of TNT!
You will hear this same argument most anytime a non traditional source is put forward to power a car.

One gallon of gasoline 10**8 J
One kg of TNT 10**6 J

You just have to figure out how to keep it from going bang.

3v0

 

[Oznog]

I gave EEStor a phone call. There phone number is in one of the press releases on the web. Got the feeling that this is a small company. They said they were working on getting the production line up (I think to produce units for ZENN). They also said their patent in online. Perhaps one of the EE types could take a look at it.

I'm a EE and I've seen the patent.

There is no problem with the electrical side of it. That is to say if you have this amount of capacitance and a low internal resistance this will work as stated.

The central question is whether a cap can be made with that much energy per unit of mass, volume, and cost. The patent proves nothing in this area, nor is it really expected to. Barium titaniate may not be all that new, but then neither was carbon. Carbon was considered well understood, then people made nanotubes and aerogels and its capabilities were completely different.

 

[Sceadwian]

Structured materials technology is making leaps and bounds like that all the time. I read an article a month or so ago about scientists having made a specially structured material that causes an object placed at it's center to be invisible to microwave radiation, it's not a special property of the material used but of the structure of the material. Negative Index of refraction. Nifty stuff.

Since the impedance is so low compared to a battery wouldn't that make the device prone to explosion or at least electrical fire if it were damaged severely such as in an accident? That's one of the hardest things to deal with hydrogen fuel cells as well, storing the hydrogen safely and efficiently but still having it able to react well. I would be curious to see what products they're actually rolling out, but the article is definitely over hyped.

 

[Hero999]

The article is questionable to say the least.

If it's possible to store such huge amounts of energy in capacitors then there are many other applications for this, lasers, radar, electric armour, partical accelerators.

I wouldn't recommend building a car with capacitors like this because the technology could easilly be misused for neuclear weapons.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I wouldn't recommend building a car with capacitors like this because the technology could easilly be misused for neuclear weapons.

So what has capacitor storage got to do with nuclear weapons?.

And why is the same amount of energy stored in a capacitor/battery any more dangerous than it stored in a tank of petrol?.

 

[Hero999]

So what has capacitor storage got to do with nuclear weapons?.

Huge capacitors are often used in particle accelerators which are a component of all nuclear weapons.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

particle accelerators which are a component of all nuclear weapons.

So they had particle accelerators during the second world war?.

I think you are confused with something else?.