New electrical storage

[John Collins]

This looks interesting. Could be the solution to an alternative to batteries.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/15/technol ... /index.htm

JC

[jim_mich]

US Patent Number 7,033,406

Electrical-energy-storage unit (EESU) utilizing ceramic and integrated-circuit technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries

Abstract
An electrical-energy-storage unit (EESU) has as a basis material a high-permittivity composition-modified barium titanate ceramic powder. This powder is double coated with the first coating being aluminum oxide and the second coating calcium magnesium aluminosilicate glass. The components of the EESU are manufactured with the use of classical ceramic fabrication techniques which include screen printing alternating multilayers of nickel electrodes and high-permittivitiy composition-modified barium titanate powder, sintering to a closed-pore porous body, followed by hot-isostatic pressing to a void-free body. The components are configured into a multilayer array with the use of a solder-bump technique as the enabling technology so as to provide a parallel configuration of components that has the capability to store electrical energy in the range of 52 kWh. The total weight of an EESU with this range of electrical energy storage is about 336 pounds.

[Michael]

Five hundred miles on five minutes worth of charge? Give me a bloody break. That article reaks of poor fact gathering.

[jim_mich]

From page nine of the patent...

The total weight of the EESU (est.) = 336 pounds. The total volume of the EESU (est.) = 13.5 inches x 13.5 inches x 11 inches = 2005 cubic inches - - - Includes the weight of the container and the connecting material.
The total stored energy of the EESU = 52,220 W-h

This is an Electric Energy Storage Unit. It is NOT a battery but a sophisticated array of printed circuit ceramic storage capacitors. As such it does not deteriorate or age with repeated cycling. It has no toxic or poisonous components. The storage voltage is estimated to be 3500 volts or higher. The above mentioned unit size is estimated to be able to power an electric vehicle at 60 mph for 5 hours for a distance of 300 miles. The charging and discharging rates seems to be only limited by the size of the connecting cables. Therefore it's possible to recharge a unit in 3 to 6 minutes transferring the electrical energy from another EESU.

I figure a "recharging" station could easily fit 432 of these storage units into a 15 by 18 foot storage room including walk ways between the rows of units. These units could then be recharged at a slower rate by any means. They would then charge the vehicles unit quickly so the driver would not need to wait.

Add a second EESU unit (another 336 pounds or so) and the vehicle could travel 600 miles on a charge.

This patent spells out in great detail how to make these cells and the company is backed by a venture capital firm so I'm assuming they have the technology to make them. In other words this seems to be well beyond the "theory" stage and is probably in the prototype stage.

EEStor is backed by VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and the company's founders are engineers Richard Weir and Carl Nelson. CEO Weir, a former IBM-er, won't comment, but his son, Tom, an EEStor VP, acknowledges, "That is pretty much why we are here today, to compete with the internal combustion engine." He also hints that his engine technology is not just for the small passenger vehicles that Clifford is aiming at, but could easily replace the 300-horsepower brutes in today's SUVs. That would make it appealing to automakers like GM and Ford, who are seeing sales of their gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks begin to tank because of exorbitant fuel prices.

Michigan has some of the lowest electric rates in the US. I looked at my last electric bill and I paid a little less than 10 cents per KW-hr. If I were to recharge from home it would cost me about $5.20 for a full refill and be good for about 300 miles.

[ken_behrendt]

Jim...

If someone out there has a chuck of ceramic stuff about one cubic foot in volume and weighing 336 lbs that can power an electric car at 60 mph for a distance of 300 miles and at a cost of only $5.20 USD, then our energy crisis is solved!

Like most of these ideas, however, there's usually something we're not being told that will probably make it impractical. For example, how much does it cost to make one of these ceramic storage gadgets? Of course, if that is not a serious issue, then this would, indeed, be a major breakthrough.


ken

[jim_mich]

From the CNNMoney.com article...

The cost of the engine itself depends on how much energy it can store; an EEStor-powered engine with a range roughly equivalent to that of a gasoline-powered car would cost about $5,200. That's a slight premium over the cost of the gas engine and the other parts the device would replace -- the gas tank, exhaust system, and drivetrain. But getting rid of the need to buy gas should more than make up for the extra cost of an EEStor-powered car.

Reading the patent makes it sound like the technology to these make these EESU's already exists.

Yet another aspect of the present invention is that the coating of aluminum oxide and calcium magnesium aluminosilicate glass on calcined composition-modified barium titanate powder provides many enhancement features and manufacturing capabilities to the basis material. These coating materials have exceptional high voltage breakdown and when coated onto the above material will increase the breakdown voltage of ceramics comprised of the coated particles from 3.times.10.sup.6 V/cm of the uncoated basis material to around 5.times.10.sup.6 V/cm or higher.

Fully densified ceramic components of this powder coated with 100 .ANG. of aluminum oxide as the first coating 8 and a 100 .ANG. of calcium magnesium aluminosilicate glass as the second coating 8 can be safely charged to 3500 V. The number of components used in the double array depends on the electrical energy storage requirements of the application. The components used in the array can vary from 2 to 10,000 or more. The total capacitance of this particular array 9 is 31 F which will allow 52,220 Wh of energy to be stored as derived by Formula 1

These coatings also assist in significantly lowering the leakage and aging of ceramic components comprised of the calcined composition-modified barium titanate powder to a point where they will not effect the performance of the EESU. In fact, the discharge rate of the ceramic EESU will be lower than 0.1% per 30 days which is approximately an order of magnitude lower than the best electrochemical battery.

A significant advantage of the present invention is that the calcium magnesium aluminosilicate glass coating assists in lowering the sintering and hot-isostatic-pressing temperatures to 800.degree. C. This lower temperature eliminates the need to use expensive platinum, palladium, or palladium-silver alloy as the terminal metal. In fact, this temperature is in a safe range that allows nickel to be used, providing a major cost saving in material expense and also power usage during the hot-isostatic-pressing process. Also, since the glass becomes easily deformable and flowable at these temperatures it will assist in removing the voids from the EESU material during the hot-isostatic-pressing process. The manufacturer of such systems is Flow Autoclave Systems, Inc. For this product to be successful it is mandatory that all voids be removed to assist in ensuring that the high voltage breakdown can be obtained. Also, the method described in this patent of coating the calcium magnesium aluminosilicate glass ensures that the hot-isostatic-pressed double-coated composition-modified barium titanate high-relative-permittivity layer is uniform and homogeneous.

Yet another aspect of the present invention is that each component of the EESU is produced by screen-printing multiple layers of nickel electrodes with screening ink from nickel powder. Interleaved between nickel electrodes are dielectric layers with screening ink from calcined double-coated high-permittivity calcined composition-modified barium titanate powder. A unique independent dual screen-printing and layer-drying system is used for this procedure. Each screening ink contains appropriate plastic resins, surfactants, lubricants, and solvents, resulting in a proper rheology for screen printing. The number of these layers can vary depending on the electrical energy storage requirements. Each layer is dried before the next layer is screen printed. Each nickel electrode layer 12 is alternately preferentially aligned to each of two opposite sides of the component automatically during this process as indicated in FIG. 2. These layers are screen printed on top of one another in a continuous manner. When the specified number of layers is achieved, the component layers are then baked to obtain by further drying sufficient handling strength of the green plastic body. Then the array is cut into individual components to the specified sizes

The components are treated for the binder-burnout and sintering steps. The furnace temperature is slowly ramped up to 350.degree. C. and held for a specified length of time. This heating is accomplished over a period of several hours so as to avoid any cracking and delamination of the body. Then the temperature is ramped up to 850.degree. C. and held for a specified length of time. After this process is completed the components are then properly prepared for the hot isostatic pressing at 700.degree. C. and the specified pressure. This process will eliminate voids. After this process the components are then side lapped on the connection side to expose the preferentially aligned nickel electrodes 12. Then these sides are dipped into ink from nickel powder that has been prepared to have the desired rheology. Then side conductors of nickel 14 are dipped into the same ink and then are clamped onto each side of the components 15 that have been dipped into the nickel powder ink. The components are then fired at 800.degree. C. for 20 minutes to bond the nickel bars to the components as indicated in FIG. 3. The components are then assembled into a first-level array, FIG. 3, with the use of the proper tooling and solder-bump technology. Then the first-level arrays are assembled into a second-level array, FIG. 4, by stacking the first array layers on top of one another in a preferential mode. Then nickel bars 18 are attached on each side of the second array as indicated in FIG. 4. Then the EESU is packaged into its final assembly.

The features of this patent indicate that the ceramic EESU, as indicated in Table 1, outperforms the electrochemical battery in every parameter. This technology will provide mission-critical capability to many sections of the energy-storage industry.

[Dave]

Since this is a storage element, the voltage drop will be proportional to current and time. Power will drop off accordingly. So much for long term power drain.

[jim_mich]

Dave,
You're right that the voltage will drop as the energy is used. This is not a storage battery where the voltage stays about the same durring most of the discharge cycle. The peak voltage is estimated to be over 3500 volts which is way too high for most motors. You will not be able to just hook up a motor like you can on a conventional battery. By using modern electronics to drop the voltage it should be able to power a motor until the amps drop below what the motor needs to operate, at which point the motor will begin to run with less than peak power just like when a battery runs out of energy.

If these EESU can be succesfully manufactured they will make electric vehicles competitive with internal combustion vehicles. Initially they will need to stay within driving rage of their refueling stations until their refueling infrastructure is built up. I can envision refueling in you home garage from the local power grid. It might take a few hours without a second EESU to refuel from.

[rlortie]

Ah ha!

At last, a possible use for Tom Beardons infamous MEG!

A saturable reactor for controlling amperage flow. You would of course have to install an inverter for AC. That may not be such a bad thing.

I understand that GE is having some promising results with their AC locomotive traction motors.

Ralph

[Bessler007]

Power will drop off accordingly.

You can get so much work out of a tank of gas. After you've used half the tank you only have half the power left. Your tank will be half full. This capacitor network is the same as a tank of gas.

Since this is a storage element, the voltage drop will be proportional to current and time. So much for long term power drain.

If you have a hole in the tank you will get less work out of the gas. The less current leakage in the capacitive network the longer it's shelf life will be.

Five hundred miles on five minutes worth of charge?

You could look at this storage method as a long bar with empty quart pitchers lined up the length of it. Behind every pitcher is a bar tender. The bar tenders all at the same time fill up the pitchers. They charge them concurrently.

Its party time! You have a party of five that starts at one end of the bar emptying the quart pitchers of lemonade. :) When your party finishes five of them they move down to the next five that are already set up. You are using the power of the lemonade as you go down the line.

imo Jim is spot on in his assessment.

☯

[Dave]

Bessler
You are right, there is so much energy stored in a capacitor, but the real question is how much useful energy! It requires much more electronics around it so how efficient is it then?

[jim_mich]

A long time ago (late 1970's) I worked for a company that made computer monitor's. Computer monitors need different voltages. They need low voltage to power the logic circuits and high voltage to power the CRT tube. The high voltage is supplied by a special transformer. For the low voltage they initially used a big bulky transformer. But then they developed a solid state 'switcher' circuit that used pure electronics to convert the 120 volts AC down to 5 and 9 volts DC needed to power the logic circuits. It was much cheaper than the heavy transformer. Dropping voltage is quit easy. You just let tiny little pieces of current through at a time then smooth out the voltage with capacitors. It's really very efficient.

[Knight]

Has anyone seen this website before? The inventor boasts some impressive ideas (if they actually work...)

http://www.fuellesspower.com/engine2FREE.htm

KNIGHT

[scott]

Fuellesspower is a scam. See Bill's colorful post here: http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/viewt ... ower#14382