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Proton Polymer Battery
Reality Master 101 writes: "Saw this originally in Pop Science, but check out NEC's press release. More like a capacitor than a battery, it can be recharged in 5 minutes and has a life of 10s of thousands of cycles. NEC claims it has the highest energy density of any electrochemical device, as well as a current discharge rate 20 times higher than lead batteries (20mAh device: 9A in 10 seconds... electric cars, anyone?). To top it off, they can make it in a credit card-thin format. Very cool, and about time!"
and/or put smaller cells in parallel and series to achieve the desired voltage/internal resistance
Like a beowulf cluster of batteries?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
One of the most interesting aspects is extremely fast (5 minutes!) recharge times. i.e. the battery might not last as long, but you'd be able to fully recharge it while waiting in line to board the plane (much less while waiting for the plane to arrive). 10K cycles means that you could fully discharge and recharge it 3 times a day and it would still have a 10 year life cycle (In my world, I think this would mean ~5 years ( at 3 discharges/day) before you started to notice serious capacity dropoff.
For example, you could fast-charge it (full charge) while in transit between customers and not have to worry about battery death. 30 seconds plugged into a wall circuit might give you an extra 2 hours of stand-by power
THE DOWNSIDE -- SAFETY
Fuse early, fuse often.   I've seen a small (VHS casette sized) battery vaporize a 30A fuse without breathing hard. Something that can give you 10 times the discharge of a lead acid battery could couple as an emergency ark welding power supply. As long as you didn't drain it, A furby-sized battery could jump start a car (but you'd still need 2-gauge jumper cables to connect it!). If you shorted it out with 12Gauge (extension cord) wire, you could probably burn off the insulation in under 10 seconds. Now think what would happen to your thigh if you stuck one of these batteries in your pocket and shorted it out on your keys -- We're talking instant branding here (not to mention the hole burnt in your pants).
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE - QUAKE LIVES
I think that, with a fuel-cell generator pack, you could probably use one of these things in a man-portable rail gun. The scarey thing is that it would probably work much like the quake-3 unit (fire off a round (or three), and then wait for the power pack to reload).
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
After reading the various replies in this thread, I couldn't resist...
By looking at the page of NEC it seems to suggest that their 'cell' is 12V/20mAh, with a connected version of 10 cells for 12V 200mAh. The 200mAh model is about as thick as three or four floppy disks and about 2/3 the height.
The average laptop-battery is about 1 1/2 the height(length) of a floppy and about 5 floppies think. (well, mine is). My current battery provides me with about 3.5 hours of juice and it provides 3600mAh at 10.8V. (Lithium/Ion)
Now there's always the difficulty in expressing these things because almost all variables are related. I'll try to calculate the batteries back to their energy-values in Joules.
3600mAh at 10.8V provides (3.6A * 10.8V * 3600 seconds)== 139968 Joules of power.
For the sake of argument, let's compensate the 'thinness' of the battery (compared with my current battery) by assuming three fit in the length of the 'current' battery.
That would provide 600mAh at 12V in a similar battery. This mounts to (0.6A * 12V * 3600s) 25920 Joules. Even in a very positive estimate of 5 200mAh cells in the same size, it would provide only (1A * 12V * 3600s) 43200 Joules of power. (this last figure is slightly under 1/3 of the amount of power my current battery provides)
As a conclusion, the new battery from NEC won't give us the "durability" most of you have been celebrating about. However, as NEC's article states, it has a significantly higher discharge rate. This 'battery' therefore sooner approaches (as some posters already stated) the specifications of 'burst' capacitors.
Then again, it has the potential for improvement. As Ericsson is already working with Lithium/Polymer (i.e. Electron/Polymer, as opposed to NEC's Proton/Polymer) batteries in their cell-phones, we should be seeing credit-card thickness batteries with longer lifespans for (to begin with) PDA's/cellphones pretty soon.
Another thing I noticed in the posts is a discussion about the units of measurement. Things like the 'Coulomb' and the 'KWh'.
Basically, energy is expressed by Joules. And Power is expressed in Watts, which equals 1 Joule 'consumed' in 1 second. Electrical power (consumption) is calculated by the formula of Power(consumption) equals Voltage times Current (or P=V*I).
[Start inflammatory bit]
Up until now, this has all been highschool-level physics. Which means either one of three things:
1) The posters didn't read the article, clicked on reply and started yapping away,
2) The posters haven't finished highschool yet.
3) The posters won't finish highschool.
[End inflammatory bit]
So the timespan, potential and current are interconnected. Enter the Coulomb. Coulomb is a measurement of charge. Current can therefore be expressed in Coulombs as well as Amps.
1 Coulomb/sec equals 1 Ampere. 1 Ampere equals 1 Watt over 1 Volt. Which in turn means 1 Joule over 1 Volt in 1 second.
(1sec * 1J) * 1V == Watts * Potential == Current
1sec * (1J * 1V) == Time * Coulombs == Current
[Thus Coulomb is the relation between energetic value and potential difference]
The KWh is merely a 'compound' unit for use by power-companies who don't want to daunt their customers by stating a 9-figure number on the bill as the 'power consumed'. Besides, the cost/Watt consumed are so small, they can't reasonably calculate with it.
So, the KWh is one KW (1000 Watts), sustained for one hour (3600 seconds), which results in 3.6 million watts. Stating "200KWh consumed" looks so much friendlier than saying "720000000 Watts consumed" (720 _million_ watts).
Running 4 computers 24/7 in your home (which I do), without the monitors and having saved on the number of harddisks, would probably end up around 300Watts continously. 300 Watts * 3600 * 24 equals 25920000 Watts per day, or 7.2 KWh.
This, at 365 days a year, ends up in a whopping 2628 KWh on computer power-consumption a year alone.
Here is a more recent article (August 2000), so it appears to be truthful. It includes more correct info pertaining to power vs. energy density as well.
After an exhaustive "9 volt to the tongue" type experiment outside NEC's cafeteria, 98% of the random subjects all reported that the "damn proton battery hurts like a motherfucker." The remaining 2% had tongue piercings and could not legally participate in the in-company experiment.
Results will be expected on-line shortly at the NEC homepage, with Realmedia clips of the after-effects of licking including slurred incomprehensible speech that may or may not be profanity.
An NEC engineer was later quoted as saying, "we're working hard on clear and concise warning labels for kids so they don't do the same thing, but it probably won't make much of a difference," probably refering to socially inept and possibly really stupid children like his own son, Samuel, who is often the subject of taunts and dares.
I wonder if people have considered the safety issues of batteries with high energy densities and high discharge currents. Under the right conditions, some batteries can explode, catch on fire, ...
:-)
Yeah, people are really worried about such things, which is why gasoline-powered cars never caught on.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Risking the wrath of the copyright police, here is the Popular Science blurb (nov 2000 issue). It gives a bit more info. I typed it fast, so beware of typos:
Proton Power
A NEW TYPE of battery that relies on a proton traveling between its poles, rather than bulky molecules, could change how you think about rechargeable batteries. Not only would the new batteries recharge much more quickly, but also they could be recharged an unlimited number of times.
The new protocol polymer battery, developed by Japan's NEC Corp., works more like a capacitor--which stores an electrical charge--than a conventional electrochemical battery. When the battery is fully charged, hydrogen atoms, which each have on electron and one proton, are bound within the cathode material. When an electrical circuit is opened, the electrons split from the atoms and flow through the circuit toward the anode, giving off electricity. The protons flow through an electrolyte to the anode, where they recombine with incoming electrons, forming hydrogen atoms and binding to the anode material. Recharging the battery reverses the process.
The tiny protons speed through the electrolyte quicker than the complex molecules that carry charges in conventional batteries. This means a 12-volt proton polymer battery recharges in just 5 minutes. The battery also generates more power in a shorter period of time--important in, say, an electric motor for a car.
The capture and release of electrons also causes less degredation of the electrodes than the electrochemical reaction of conventional batteries, giving the proton polymer battery a life of tens of thousands of cycles, instead of the hundreds for conventional rechargeables. NEC believes a virtually limitless cycle life--along with the ability to deliver power in pulses--makes the new battery ideal for the recently introduced Bluetooth short-range radio technology, which wirelessly links notebook PCs, mobile phones, and other portable gadgets.
NEC is showing the battery to other manufacturers, but it's too early to tell when (or if) it will go into production.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
9mAH means it can supply 9mA for 1 Hour ... 9mA is enough to light a standard LED to half brightness. For an hour.
Please don't offer me a lift in your new car, ''Reality Master''.
Whomever wrote this has little if any clue about the existance of the universe. Either that or they're trying to be vague to keep secrets. It mentions protons being the electron carrier. Hmmm..... where else is a proton the electron carrier? Every metal in the universe. Proton's ALWAYS carry electrons(with the exception of an H+ ion or any other time you completely ionize an element). THe point in that being, they are using electron carrier to confuse you. They may mean differential carrier.
If photons are used to knock electrons off of protons and then a barrier created between the two, it'd ceate one of the largest differentials possible.
But hey, I'm just a physics major.... it doesn't really work in the real world anyways
forget my typos.... I'm on codeine
Humans are slow, innaccurate, and brilliant; computers are fast, acurrate, and dumb; together they are unbeatable
That it is constructed of such simple materials;
As materials such as metals and halogen are not used, the environmental load of the device is reduced (polymer consists of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen and does not include any of the pollutants used in other batteries).
... and provides such a high energy density, it sounds lmaost infeasible. But then some of the most interesting new technologies I've been reading about in energy creation/storage all sound remarkably simple. Fuel Cells, flywheels and now Proton Polymer batteries.
It'll be interesting to see what new devices come out of the marriage of these technologies. Combine them with low-energy consumption chips such as Crusoe and we could easily be looking at all-day laptops, all month cellphones etc.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
A little planning goes a long way...
This Article from Carnegie Mellon Talks about how lead based battery cars would be bad for the enviroment. They also talk about how there needs to be a better technology. Well, of all people NEC did it. I'm really excited about this.
Imagine this battery and a transmeta chip also. This Is Great
At last, a UPS that won't outweigh its own volume in neutron star matter...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
These wouldn't make very good laptop batteries because they're too heavy. They would be great for BattleBots because of their high power/weight ratio.
Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw
The press release claims that the energy density is the same as lead-acid batteries. We can presume that is for weight/unit volume. No clear indication of the weight of this unit though... I would presume much lighter (I associate lead with heavy) and though this would be it's biggest advantage in many cases (esp. cars), don't forget that Lithium/Ion and even Nickel Metal Hydride have higher energy density (erg/vol) than lead acid...
I think that the speed of recharge might be most useful, as e-cars would not require an overnight charge. 5 Minutes at a servo (with a thick enough cable to carry the amps) wouldn't be so bad.
20min@9A, 2min@90A 15sec@900A.
The battery might actually be able to take the 900A, if you could design it so that the wiring wouldn't melt in the process. The most probable approach for most consumer items would be between the first 2 options. (charging a 12V battery at 90A is actually doable with household current. It would translate to ~10A at 120V, but a power supply that could do that would be rather bulky -- you're talking a 1100W power supply. It might be doable as a base station. The lower range is more likely for a portable. The 900A range might be used for industrial/military applications.)
If the connectors for the battery were standardized, you might actually see units in the airport where you'd pay $2 to charge your battery in 2 minutes or less. (Images from half-life keep flashing in front of my eyes (HEV charging units)).
If they go commercial, these units might actually be made with cheap Titanium cases because a puncture could result in a catastrophic energy release.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
The power density is high for this material, NOT the ENERGY DENSITY. Power density is a measurement of high-current discharge per unit of time per unit of volume(or weight).
The power density for these devices is in excess of 1,000 Watts/Kg, much higher than the few hundred for lead acids/NiCd's etc. Although--- the energy density of the NEC proton batteries is still rather dissapointing at 10-15 WattHours/Kg compared to the 20-30 WattHours/Kg of lead-acids'. But since it's such a new technology IMHO there is much prospect for improvment in this area, and getting competitive(in terms of batteries) energy densities out of these things is only a matter of time.
There is an article in the "Nikkei BP AsiaBizTech" site here: http://www.nikkeib p.a siabiztech.com/nea/200008/cmpo_108677.html
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
"9A in 10 seconds in 200mAh device"
Which boils down to slightly more that 10 %, which is OK considering the large current surge.
RFC1925