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Battery Development Off The Beaten Path
Roland Piquepaille writes "Let's face it. Our computing devices are going faster year after year. But our laptop batteries don't show the same performance improvement. They still work only for a few hours, just a little bit more than ten years ago. Several companies want to change this, according to this UPI report, 'Nanotechnology improving energy options.' For example, mPhase Technologies plans to introduce smart batteries based on millions of silicon nanotube electrodes. These nanobatteries, to be introduced before the end of 2005, will last longer than traditional ones and will be respectful of our environment. Meanwhile, Konarka Technologies wants to reduce the weight of batteries with its flexible solar-fueled nanobatteries. You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."
Does anyone else see a problem with a battery that requires a voltage change in order to provide power? Will we need old fashioned batteries for our new high-tech batteries?
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How there is so little development in the energy sector.
Im serious.
Weve been using the same fuel for ages. That fuel explodes.
Perhaps Im jaded, but why, exactly, cant we economically synthesize fuel? (Perhaps that goes against the laws of thermodynamics?)
Meh.
Im bitter.
I think these new battery developments has more than just applications for longer-lasting batteries for laptops, PDA's and cellphones.
It could also mean substantially lighter battery pack units for hybrid drivetrains. A big issue with hybrid drivetrain cars is the fact the battery pack does take up quite a lot of space and also contributes to the deadweight of the car. By switching to these newer battery technologies they could reduce the size of the battery pack, which means more interior space and possibly even better fuel efficiency since when the gasoline engine is running you use less fuel because the car is now lighter.
I didn't see anything about the proposed cost of such a battery. I would guess it would be prohibitively expensive.
That said, CPUs and other components are designed these days to eat up less and less power, so perhaps there isn't even a need for more efficient energy storage?
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Conventional (electro-chemical) battery technology is pretty much at a dead end. The energy density of a battery is not far off from that of dynamite, which means that there really isn't any further you can go while keeping the result stable. (A fuel cell is really a highly UNstable battery, but extra safeguards can make it usable technology)
Since many useful applications are now limited by battery life, this is an area where a technological breakthrough is highly overdue...
They have gas-battery powered cars, so how about gas-battery powered laptops? And for the long airline lights just make sure it can handle jetfuel.
It's too bad nobody has found an effective way to "resuse" the heat generated by laptops to recharge the batteries.
Maybe we'll come full circle and have wind-up laptops; as your laptop starts slowing down, just wind it up.
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I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Stirling Radioisotope Generators are the way to go. Even if we're just talking about ruggedized military gear as an initial market, batteries that last for 10-40 years is a HUGE advancement over what the US is using today. And with military gear becoming more and more power hungry, can we afford NOT to look into radio power generation?
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Fuel cells? I can see the headline now:
"Man drops his cell phone and dies in explosion."
I took a class on ubiquitous comuting last year and what we studied about battery power suggested that the technology existed for more powerful batteries, but the current technology was entirely too dangerous to use with portable devices since they get beat up considerably. We don't have this danger level for the rest of the tech industry. If we did, I imagine that computers in general would be far less advanced.
Actually, the energy density of dynamite and other explosives isn't that much. Gasoline has more energy density. Forget about computers, if we could get a battery with the same energy density as gasoline, at a reasonable price, that would mean practical electric cars.
Super-iron battery
An article in C&ENews (16/8/99) describes a new high-energy battery developed in Israel using iron as the cathode material. The new batteries store 50% more energy than the alkaline battery which uses a zinc anode, manganese dioxide cathode and potassium hydroxide electrolyte. The new cathode material which replaces the MnO2 has been termed 'super-iron' by Stuart Licht, Baohui Wang and Susanta Ghosh its inventors, however, it is not iron metal but an iron(VI) compound. iron(VI) is an unusual high oxidation state of iron which is strongly oxidising, an important property of a cathode material in a battery. These ferrate(VI) compounds have formulae such as K2FeO4 or BaFeO4. In operation the iron(VI) is reduced to the more stable iron(III) according to the cell reaction:
2MFeVIO4 + 3Zn -- FeIII2O3 + ZnO + MZnO2
The problem with using iron(VI) compounds before has been their stability. However, the researchers discovered that they were stable for months in KOH if the iron(VI) compounds were free from nickel(II) or cobalt(II) impurities. The material has a high energy density and a high electrical conductivity so it can be discharged rapidly. The cathode is also compatible with nickel hydride anodes and shows some degree of rechargeability. It is a long way from laboratory to supermarket, but we may well see 'super-iron' batteries on the shelf in the next millennium.
(Science 285, 1039, 1999)
******
Lets see;
Lead Acid in the first laptops, then NiCD, then NiMH, now Li-ion. The cells have not only gotten lighter but can also store energy with higher density.
I'd love to see double the capacity in batteries but isn't this going the wrong way? If a device could be made to use 40% less current, wouldn't that be easier than trying to squeeze 40% more capacity into a cell?
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... some one from the Uk spy services went to Exide batteries because their spy radios were hampered by the fact that the current charge density / weight / volume of batteries was too low and resulted in low battery life or a spy radio that was bigger and heavier than the spy who was supposed to carry it...
The Exide mas was asked if they could increase the charge density somehow, the response was immediate, "Yes."
The spook was somewhat nonplussed, as this was not the answer he was expecting, so he then asked if Exide could do it, why didn't they?
This response was also immediate.
"We sell more batteries."
That was 60 years ago, why does anyone think anything has changed?
(esp when detroit is now producing SUV's that get worse mileage than 50 year old 500 cubic inch big block engined cars)
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- Charge time
- Cold start (along with heating and defrosting) - battery powered are well and good for Florida, Texas, or California but may have issues north of the Mason-Dixon line.
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How about reducing power consumption instead of increasing battery life. Yes, I know that people are working on lower and lower power CPUs etc, but these are just low powered versions of our conventional, tied-to-the-wall desktop machines.
For truly low powered processors, we need asynchronous logic. Current CPUs, when nothing is happening, close down bits that they think are not being used and slow their clock rate. This reduces, but does not eliminate, power consumption. Asynchronous logig, on the other hand, whenit is not doing anything - does nothing. Nothing clocks, nothing changes state.
Then the displays. We need ambient light displays, as opposed to self-illumiated ones. We don't usually sit in the dark, to why have a dispalay that assumes we do? Some of these are being sold as "digital paper" or similar. Unlike CRT, LCD or Plasma, when the display is not changing, they consume no power. Only B/W so far, I believe - but I would rather a B/W display I can read than a ulesless lump with a flat battery.
Which means that we need to rethink the OS. The steady state of the screen must be still. We are fattening ourselves up on animated this and that. We need to rethink this. We need to research hoe to make the pointer flip the minimum number of pixels as it moves. A flashing cursor is a waste of energy: find better ways of indicating the current position. Maybe WYSIWIG is too expensive: go back to type-and-preview: only a single character changes for each keystroke, so only about 30x20 pixels need redrawing. And scroll by a few lines at a time, so that you don't have to scroll often.
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In this months Popular Science, they were running a brief article in the "What's New" section (sorry, not available online) that talked about a company using the technology in the "bed-of-nails" nano-battery to make materials that could be made either extremely hydrophobic or hydrophilic with the flick of a switch. This has the potential of making rather efficient mechanical systems by increasing the effectiveness of lubricants a great deal. Interesting that it's also being used to make batteries.
One - Practical implementations of Stirling Engines are rare. There are reasons for it that I am sure someone can explain. The elegant thermal cycle is well understood.
Two - Radioisotopes are rather difficult to turn off. If they disperse enough energy to make my laptop go for 9 hours of the work day, they are also generating energy/heat the other 15 hours. Stuff that laptop in a padded bag, put in trunk, wait a few hours and have a china syndrome car-b-que. It is a matter of energy conservation...it has to go somewhere!
You propose as an option a square piston in the engine...the trouble with this is sealing and wear at the corners. Also, precision boring and turning operations can holder better part to part tolerances.
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One - Practical implementations of Stirling Engines are rare. There are reasons for it that I am sure someone can explain. The elegant thermal cycle is well understood.
:-)
Fair enough. But they have been developed by NASA, and have been shown to be an effective way to produce quite a bit of power for not much radioisotope.
Radioisotopes are rather difficult to turn off.
This is the classic problem. You'd have to dissipate the excess energy in something like a heating coil or a mechanical fan. Dissipating about 30-40 watts shouldn't be too difficult, although it might get a smidge warm.
You propose as an option a square piston in the engine...the trouble with this is sealing and wear at the corners. Also, precision boring and turning operations can holder better part to part tolerances.
I've been curious as to whether this was a good design or not. Unfortunately, trying to get any *real* feedback has been worse than pulling teeth. Using a circular bore is certainly not out of the question. I only proposed a sqaure bore to reduce the footprint of the engine.
BTW, thanks for the feedback. I really do appreciate it.
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