Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars

schliz writes "Researchers at the Delft University of Technology are developing nanostructured batteries that are expected to deliver more usage between charges, and shorter charge/discharge times, to mobile consumers within the next five years. The batteries will improve electric and hybrid vehicles, researchers say."

Comments

The first of many stories

[zappepcs]

Battery technology will experience a sort of Moore's Law with the demand for hybrid and all-electric vehicles. This is just one of the first stories.

I'm always a bit skeptical of such items till I understand how likely it is to cause a fire in my garage while I'm sleeping or when accelerating away from a stop light. New tech is great, but means not a lot till tested in the real world.

With battery technology, the higher the density, the higher the chances of uncontrolled energy release. When it's safe and fairly cheap, then I'll be really interested.

Re:The first of many stories

[Teancum]

I will agree that there is a glimmer of hope for ultra-capacitors, but there are also some huge technical and engineering problems that will have to be overcome. They certainly don't have the energy density of batteries, and the largest problem with them is that the discharge from an ultra-capacitor is hard to deal with using normal electronics. It can be compensated for, but it isn't easy.

I also don't buy the "environmentally friendly" nature of them as well. While they may be better than NiCd batteries or the more traditional Lead-H2SO4 batteries in terms of what they will do to the environment, you can't call them a perfect solution either. The metals used in the construction of these types of capacitors have their own kind of impact on the environment just like any manufactured product.

If a "Moore's Law" were to apply to battery capacity, instead of the (presumed) 18 month half-life of procesor density and speed, it will be more like 15-20 years instead for improved energy density. While not something to ignore, you don't have to run out and buy a new battery pack every year just to keep up with changes in the battery industry. This is very hard science, using multiple meanings of that term.

Re:The first of many stories

[polar red]

Batteries are nothing more than a controlled bomb. And this is different from petrol how ?

Re:The first of many stories

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Right, but you omitted the important stat from your link: their projected energy density is only 60Wh/kg, only half that of a Li-ion battery. Who really cares if the power density is much greater? Ok, so you can get an output of 100kW/kg from your ultracapacitor, but at that rate it will discharge in just over 2 seconds/kg. This is surely useful for some applications, but not for most things we currently use batteries for.

Re:The first of many stories

[ThosLives]

Yeah, sounds great, until you realize that gasoline (petrol) has 45 MJ per KILOGRAM - the same order of magnitude as coal, 10 times as much as TNT, and over 80 times that of the best batteries.

The reason? Things like coal and gasoline don't carry a heavy oxidizer with them. "Air-breathing" fuels will always be better than "rocket" type fuels for transportation because of the weight and storage expense of carrying both the oxidizer and the fuel on the vehicle. That's a substantial feature for "battery-like" technology to overcome for everyone who is not a short-distance commuter.

electricity - alas

[N3wsByt3]

It's a not too well known fact that, in the beginning, a lot of things *were* actually powered by electricity, *before* something else took it over. That something else wasn't necessarily better then the batteries they'd replace, but, sadly, history is full of examples where a less good alternative wins over the market (betamax vs VHS, anyone?). Somtimes electricity did win (it replaced gas for lightening homes/streets) but sometimes, alas, it didn't.

The same was true for cars. Many would think cars were always powered by diesel/petrol, but nothing is further from the truth. In fact, there were many fuels used to drive cars when they were first developped, and electricity-driven cars were actually a rather considerable percentage of cars. But then petrol came and took it over for reasons that are unclear (it has been speculated that it might had something to do with the sound, strangely enough; it made for a more impressing 'look at me, here I am!' - not unimportant to the late-victorian elite of that time. Heck, even today half of the gadgets are bought to show off (blu-ray, HD-DVD, anyone?). In that time, battery- or oildriven cars were in fact ahead of the petrol ones, but that rapidly changed the more popular the petrol-using cars became. In a few decades, the rest was all but gone.

If that hadn't happend, it is obvious we would be FAR ahead of our current state of developement where batteries and electricity-storage is concerned (just like petrol-injection has come a long way since the 19thy century). Just imagine the state of technology now on the same scale as petrol has improved, and all what we invent now (including the nano-tubes) would probably have been developed ages ago. It would have led to efficiencies and yields we can only dream of today. And also imagine the impact it would have had on other areas; a lot less - or none at all - CO2 from cars (and maybe the petrol-industry as a whole would not have reached the peak it has today) and all the problems associated with that would not exist (maybe even les wars)! (Arguably, one would - maybe - have had a environmental problems with acids and such, from the batteries; in that respect, vegetable oil would have been best, perhaps.)

It's funny (well...) to think how one little thing in our history can lead to such huge (and possibly devastating) consequences for humanity more then a century later.

Re:electricity - alas

[Alioth]

Gasoline has a far, FAR higher energy density than even the best batteries we have today, let alone what was available 100 years ago. It has nothing to do with the Victorian elite, it's to do with having a useful driving range and fast refuelling time.

Just one small technical problem

[Flying pig]

Have you considered the electrical power needed to charge a practical vehicle cell in 5 minutes?

Let's assume an average cruising consumption of about 15kw for a small car. At 60mph with a 300 mile range, that's 75kwh. To charge those cells in 5 minutes, assuming an 80% efficiency, will need 75 * 12 * 1.25 =~ 1.1 Megawatts. At 440V, even with a 3-phase charger, that's over 1000 amps. At 11KV it's a more reasonable 100A, but the weight of the inverter gear and the shielded connector in the car is considerable and you are going to spend rather more than 5 minutes padlocking the interlocks and cross checking before and after charge. At 440V the main issue will be the weight of the cables. Three cores of around 400mm cross section each are rather heavy.

It's possible to imagine a world in which fuel stations supply exchange cells, but given the natural nervousness of most drivers when close to empty, it's unlikely to be practical or cost effective.

The model is wrong. You have to imagine a world in which car parks have charging stations that charge at reasonable rates, as do hotels and houses. You will need a general beefing up of the electricity distribution network, and you will need plenty of nuclear, solar and wind energy sources. And people will have to plan maybe a little further ahead than they do at present. Long trips will mandate an overnight stop. Probably a good thing as the only accidents I have ever had were after driving too long in a day.

On that model with a more reasonable 10-hour charge, the necessary charging rate is about 9KW - still a heavy cable, but with a socket about the size and complexity of the sort used for portable machines in factories and for boat shorepower.

Just don't try to use your wind turbine. In our location, to run my small car on its current, fairly low usage cycle, I would need a 6M diameter turbine on a 40M pylon, and I suspect the neighbours would object.