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Carbon Nanotube Batteries Pack More Punch
cremeglace writes "Researchers at MIT have come up with a new way of making batteries from carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes are attractive materials for battery-making because of their high surface area, which can accept more positive ions and potentially last longer than conventional batteries. Instead of this design, the MIT researchers introduced something new — using chemically modified carbon nanotubes as the positive ion source themselves. For now, the new batteries can power only small devices, but if the method can be scaled up, the batteries may provide the power needed for applications like electric cars."
1st post. also, carbon nanotubes rock. come on guys, so much technology and nothing to replace batteries?
Buanzo Consulting - 15 Years of GNU/Linux experience, for you.
What does using carbon like this do to ones carbon footprint? Reduce it unless/until the batteries catch fire?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
In the last year or so there's been a new battery research story every month promising longer lasting batteries that are smaller and usually cheaper. Yet the most advanced you can buy are still just play Lithium Polymer batteries which seem to power my Android phone for about 15 minutes.
Call me when this research turns into a produced battery.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
Will they be able to prevent thermal runaway in these better than in, say Lithium based batteries? As density goes up this needs to be more of a concern. Laptops melting down are one thing, but imagine the havoc of a car exploding due to battery failure. That's the last thing the electric car movement needs to have happen.
Of all the technologies that are supposedly "just around the corner": fusion power, flexible displays, etc., dramatically improved batteries are probably the most wearyingly repetitive. Literally every 3 months since 2005 I've seen an article on Engadget, or wherever, about some university that claims 500% longer-lasting batteries in the lab, to be available to consumers "in 18 months". Ain't happened yet. Let's all claim success about boosting battery capacity when we can actually buy them, until then this is just so much hot air.
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Something about carbon-based tubers the other day?
The CB App. What's your 20?
...but if the method can be scaled up, the batteries may provide the power needed for applications like electric cars.
And it's that one big damn, 'if,' that actually prevents most technologies like this from seeing commercial production/practical application.
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Extra power packed into batteries by a Scientist named Shoe Horn!
We should all listen to the sage advice of the scholarly and forward thinking Kenneth P.Green (http://www.aei.org/scholar/112).
He considers such talk of electric cars, batteries, etc; as "failed technologies":
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6619
Actually, a bunch of us don't particularly believe in any conspiracy, but are nevertheless kinda jaded and cynical after hearing one too many (or a few thousand too many) press releases that promise the moon and then some.
Don't get me wrong. I for one don't propose to cut their funding or anything. It's good that they research stuff. I do wish though the press and PR didn't have the tendency to grandstate.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
My life's goal is to someday create a car powered entirely by Mexican jumping beans.
Yet another new threat of new battery technology that may reach us some day. Been hearing this for so long that I've come to believe that the batteries we have today is all that will ever be.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
But I'm really in the market for a battery that packs a bit more kick. Kick of the roundhouse type -- to the face!
There's plenty of battery technologies that perform well enough for cars already.
Lithium Iron Phosphate is almost ideal as an example. It holds less charge than a
Li-Ion pack, but in return it can recharge in a sensible amount of time ( 10-15min ).
Now I know some people with no clue will come claim that amount of energy can't safely
be transferred or something. You're wrong. Recharging a 25kWh battery pack (corresponding
to ~150km of driving) in 15 minutes would require 100kW. This is a bit more power than
most devices, but heck, my hairdryer does 2kw out of a standard socket, and I'm pointing
that thing in my face every morning. 100kW might be a lot compared to a cellphone charger,
and it will take a bit of engineering to design a connector, but it's hardly an unachievable
amount of power.
The problem is that these advanced batteries are expensive. Heck even Li-ion is prohibitive
for a family car. Tesla gets away with it because they are selling a luxury model, but if
batteries are going to power a significant fraction of cars then their cost has to come down.
The question now is not so much if but when batteries will take over. Much will depend on what happens
with the oil and electricity prices, but eventually petroleum will become sufficiently expensive that
an electric car is simply a more economical choice.
Unlike the fuel cell guys, which are constantly promising consumer products shipping in "just a few months", I'm glad these folks realize their work is still well away from widespread application where it's really needed.
So, less energy than lithium ion?
Useless - utterly useless - for "electric cars". Or indeed anything that currently works fine with lithium ion.
Can you think of an application that needs less energy than lithium ion, but more power? Shark-mounted frikkin' lasers, maybe.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
and their 1 trillion worth of lithium.
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the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Your questions are answered in the article. Down at the bottom, where they point out that this is useless for electric cars.
In most designs regenerative braking has to throw away power because you can't charge the packs fast enough. A battery that CHARGES faster would be useful not only for quick-charging but also for regenerative braking. I didn't RTFA though so I have no idea if it carries more current in both directions.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Is there no end to the usefulness of these 'carbon nanotubes'? And, umm...how many decades before we actually see something commercially viable that uses them?
So many injustices..so little time..
...you know, all the revolutionary achievements we read here every week...and our energy problems are solved!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Whatever became of Mindy?
Probed to death by Orson.
if that suits you then there'd be no need to check out the end of this vdo clip; http://www.youtube.com/csetiweb#p/f
talk about batteries/secrets etc....? sheesh, i mean phewww. kind of makes bananas look like fruit, & nanos sort of nan0ish. better daze ahead? see you there?
never a better time for many of us to consult with/trust in our creators. the lights are coming up rapidly all over now. see you there?
meanwhile (& it may be a while); greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of our dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children. not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one, & the terminal damage to our atmosphere (see also: manufactured 'weather', hot etc...). see you on the other side of it? the lights are coming up all over now. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be your guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. we now have some choices. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on your brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
"The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change have reduced biodiversity profoundly.' (wiki)
"I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children," Andrew Smith, a professor in the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences, said in a telephone interview. "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," added Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN director general. "We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse this trend to ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out many of our closest relatives."--
"The wealth of the universe is for me. Every thing is explicable and practical for me .... I am defeated all the time; yet to victory I am born." --emerson
no need to confuse 'religion' with being a spiritual being. our soul purpose here is to care for one another. failing that, we're simply passing through (excess baggage) being distracted/consumed by the guaranteed to fail illusionary trappings of man'kind'. & recently (about 10,000 years ago) it was determined that hoarding & excess by a few, resulted in negative consequences for all.
consult with/trust in your creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." )one does not need to agree whois in charge to grasp the notion that there may be some assistance available to us(
boeing, boeing, gone.
The comparison to a gas tank is somewhat inadequate as these batteries are far heavier than gasoline; if you have a serious accident that compromises the frame of the car you really can't guarantee that the battery container is going to be unperturbed. There needs to be two or more dedicated safety measures to contain or divert the energy from the batteries away from the occupants in the event of damage.
Also: They can release their energy much more quickly (and thus more hotly) than gasoline. Gasoline requires oxygen from the air (or wherever) to burn and this limits its thermal power. Lithium cells are self-contained and have all the pieces of the reaction ready to go. (That's why they're heavier than an equivalent amount of gas.) They're only limited by the physics of the propagation of the catastrophic energy release mechanism.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
... all the technologies that are supposedly "just around the corner" ... Ain't happened yet.
Part of the problem is the ongoing storm of breakthroughs. Not only do they have to turn out to be practical in a real, manufacturable product, they have to remain the cutting edge long enough to make back the cost of tooling up once they come to market. Lots of this stuff gets displaced within months by something better.
Fortunately enough of the breakthroughs meet this criterion and make it into production for the products to advance - quite rapidly. It may not be as visible as Moore's Law in semiconductors. But the race IS on.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Unlike the fuel cell guys, which are constantly promising consumer products shipping in "just a few months", ...
Huh? They're shipping NOW - in power-an-office-building sizes.
There's no inherent reason they can't be scaled down to power-a-laptop-off-a-butane-tank size in reasonably short order (assuming you don't mind your laptop putting out several times the heat it does now...).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Any improvements in electricity storage devices will be compensated for by producers of devices which use those electricity storage devices and thereby negate the improvements.
i.e. You're never going to get more than 100 miles out of your electric car. It'll just get bigger heavier and faster instead.
Battery electric vehicles have had a range of approx 100 miles for a century now. 100 years ago, around 40% of all cars sold in the US were electric. How's that for technological history.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6480
Deleted
Or they could coat all the insides of the body panels and chassis with a thin layer of battery that would still give a very large total volume, evenly distributed. If they divided it into independent cells evenly drawn down, even a collision trashing that part of the car would put only a a little of its power storage out of commission.
If they could manufacture and assemble the battery layer as a sprayed paint, that could lower costs and speed repairs. And if the upper outside surface of the car could be covered in solar PV panels (or paint), the whole battery could recharge at whatever fraction of 1KW:m^2 the sun (or artificial lighting) is pouring down on it.
Those are other, extra innovations not yet within our grasp in addition to these nanotube batteries just achieved. But they are good complements to the batteries and its properties. The arrival of the battery material might just pull us closer to the complete package.
--
make install -not war
The real cost is (as you said) batteries. Even the cheapest lifepo4/nimh batteries on the market would cost $10,000 in this scenario. Fast charging (I.E. less than 15 minutes) is a non-starter. Where are you going to find that 100 kW outlet? The problem is a chicken and egg problem. In order to have cars, you have to build all these chargers. But who wants to build chargers until there are cars? A much easier solution to this problem can be found here.
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Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
In most designs regenerative braking has to throw away power because you can't charge the packs fast enough. A battery that CHARGES faster would be useful not only for quick-charging but also for regenerative braking.
You don't need the full capacity to be of the fast-charge type though, it would be enough to have a smaller "buffer" battery to store energy from braking. The main pack could be topped up by the buffer pack at a slower rate, or the energy could be used directly from the buffer if braking is followed soon after by acceleration (which would often be the case).
The main pack could be topped up by the buffer pack at a slower rate, or the energy could be used directly from the buffer if braking is followed soon after by acceleration (which would often be the case).
It doesn't make sense to use a battery here. But it also doesn't make sense to charge pack to pack, because battery charging is lossy. And of course you want the whole pack to fast-charge, so that you can hook up a super-fat connector and charge in a timely fashion. Gas stations might [very eventually] be replaced with parking lots full of chargers, with some spaces equipped only with fast chargers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Think about automobiles. Do you realize they would never make it to the market today. Same with airplanes. Both these have catastrophic failure modes, and would be a liability nightmare. It is very hard to be innovative and completely safe at the same time.
-Your existence depends upon the death of billions of cute tiny fuzzy bacteria, and viruses. Each of them have as much right to live as you.
I was actually referring to those "power a laptop off of butane" guys, who have indeed been promising shipping product for many years, yet consistently fail to deliver.
For now, the new batteries can power only NANO devices. There, fixed that for you ;-)