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EEStor Issued a Patent For Its Supercapacitor
An anonymous reader sends us to GM-volt.com, an electric vehicle enthusiast blog, for the news that last week EEStor was granted a US patent for their electric-energy storage unit, of which no one outside the company (no one who is talking, anyway) has seen so much as a working prototype. We've discussed the company on a number of occasions. The patent (PDF) is a highly information-rich document that offers remarkable insight into the device. EEStor notes "the present invention provides a unique lightweight electric-energy storage unit that has the capability to store ultrahigh amounts of energy." "The core ingredient is an aluminum coated barium titanate powder immersed in a polyethylene terephthalate plastic matrix. The EESU is composed of 31,353 of these components arranged in parallel. It is said to have a total capacitance of 30.693 F and can hold 52.220 kWh of energy. The device is said to have a weight of 281.56 pound including the box and all hardware. Unlike lithium-ion cells, the technology is said not to degrade with cycling and thus has a functionally unlimited lifetime. It is mentioned the device cannot explode when being charge or impacted and is thus safe for vehicles."
Epic correctional fail. kWh was correct.
Forget world peace, bring on -1 pointless
It's things like this that convince me that while patents need some serious fixing, they shouldn't be abolished. While we haven't seen all the details, it looks like genuinely interesting and original to me and a step beyond the currently available state-of-the-art. Of course, only time will tell if this is really a good patent, and if the product is really any good in practice. It's easy to make things that look good in the lab but don't do so well in real usage.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
To prevent it from existing unless you pay a ransom.
Ok, I have not read tfa (in this case tfp), but I do know a bit about capacitors. Follow along with me here: You can calculate the energy stored in a capacitor (in Joules) by E = .5*CV^2 where C = capacitance (in Farads) and V = voltage, or
--> V = sqrt((2E)/C)
--> 3500 = sqrt((2*187992000)/52.22)
3500v is a lot. Up until now most comercially available supercapacitors do 5.5v or less and tend to leak energy over time. It's possilbe these guys have really made a stunning break through (the fact they filed for a patent is sure something), but the numbers set off my bullshit detector.
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
From the numbers in the summary, a fully-charged one of these would supply enough energy to propel a 3300lbs (1500kg) car from 0 to 1100mph (500m/s)
Ahhh you must be from the Theoretical Physics Department, over here in Engineering we have wind resistance, friction and efficiency to worry about.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
3-6 minutes charge time for 52 kWh.
Better use the heavy duty extention cord.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
just imagine plugging your car in at the mall, forgetting to set a max out, and coming back to find you've downloaded 32 gigajoules, and that'll be 1000$ please sir.
A full capacitor, like a full gas tank, won't accept additional charge. Plus, you can't spill electricity, so no, you're scenario is dumb.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I think, in the context of a slashdot forum, anything is okay so long as a reasonable person can discern meaning. mW vs MW is indeed a problem, but kw vs kW??? What exactly did YOU think the 'w' stood for?
Never, in any context is it ok to write incorrect information. And the problem comes when people start writing mw, Mw, mW and MW respectively, and then mixing 1,000 with 1.000. The numbers get way way way off, so it is _never ever_ ok to start messing with units and hoping the reader "gets what you mean" just because you are lazy.
And people correcting other people, they just have to get things correct or it's an epic fail. What is the point if being a smart ass, if you are just another dumb ass who gets it wrong again?
The correct figure is: 52.22 kWh