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Radical new Nano Battery

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posted on May, 18 2018 @ 07:13 AM
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This claims we can recharge our batteries with this device in 5 seconds.

Cornell University invented this 'nano battery'. Long story short, the battery anode and cathode are basically incorporated in the lattice and is much more complicated than this statement. Enjoy because it exactly explains what happens with a Lithium battery that can be recharged for those who have never studied batteries and energy storage/delivery systems.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

The prototype looks very durable.

I hate to have only this source as the pictures on the side of a site like this have nothing to do with the topic in the article.
edit on 18-5-2018 by Justoneman because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 07:35 AM
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If possible, this could be the key to making electric cars truly viable. Being able to fully charge your Tesla in the amount of time it takes for traditional fuel would be a game changer.



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 07:45 AM
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a reply to: Justoneman

Storage is key to renewable energy.
That is where research money needs to be spent but you are fighting the laws of physics.
High amounts of energy in a battery is a dangerous thing, just look at the teslas burning after crashes.



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 08:02 AM
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originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: Justoneman

Storage is key to renewable energy.
That is where research money needs to be spent but you are fighting the laws of physics.
High amounts of energy in a battery is a dangerous thing, just look at the teslas burning after crashes.


Yea, we will have to learn how to tame it. This is not quite ready for prime time but is very possible it will lead to a new approach were we don't need a lithium battery. Capacitors and batteries are in the same ball park of energy storage. Perhaps capacitors will improve more also as I suspect they are.



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 09:30 AM
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a reply to: Justoneman

And it suffers from the same issue as other nanobatteries. It degrades very fast, as the nanostructures are rather fragile.



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 09:44 AM
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originally posted by: moebius
a reply to: Justoneman

And it suffers from the same issue as other nanobatteries. It degrades very fast, as the nanostructures are rather fragile.


Not surprising while in the earliest stages. Yet it portends, that our futures so bright we've got to wear shades.

Science fact must start as Science Fiction because something can't exist until someone imagines it. I like their imagination so far.



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 09:57 AM
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Perhaps it would be smart to use a swapping system/station for the time being. For instance, a mechanized system that receives the UNIVERSAL spent battery pack and swaps it for a charged one, without human intervention, by driving over the automated mechanism. The swap time can theoretically be even shorter than the traditional method. The spent pack is charged in a subterranean holding bay and will be ready for the following car, once re-charged. This way you also don't necessarily need a fully charged pack, as long as your in reach of another swap station, you'll be fine. Meanwhile, the industry can concentrate on more efficient batteries. At the same time, we must also focus clean energy sources, because what's the use of an electric car if you still need fossil fuel to generate electricity?



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 12:52 PM
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originally posted by: 2Faced
Perhaps it would be smart to use a swapping system/station for the time being. For instance, a mechanized system that receives the UNIVERSAL spent battery pack and swaps it for a charged one, without human intervention, by driving over the automated mechanism. The swap time can theoretically be even shorter than the traditional method. The spent pack is charged in a subterranean holding bay and will be ready for the following car, once re-charged. This way you also don't necessarily need a fully charged pack, as long as your in reach of another swap station, you'll be fine. Meanwhile, the industry can concentrate on more efficient batteries. At the same time, we must also focus clean energy sources, because what's the use of an electric car if you still need fossil fuel to generate electricity?


I also would support Thorium reactors. Something that would be much safer to operate and recycle. But those reactors don't make weapons grade nuclear materials that can melt a human, bones and all, in a flash.



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 12:54 PM
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I wish they would hurry up and perfect Tesla's wireless energy methods. Oh, that and making sure the wireless energy vibrations do not interfere with our body.



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 01:37 PM
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a reply to: Justoneman



The gyroidal thin films of carbon—the battery's anode, generated by block copolymer self-assembly—featured thousands of periodic pores on the order of 40 nanometers wide. These pores were then coated with a 10 nm-thick, electronically insulating but ion-conducting separator through electropolymerization, which by the very nature of the process produced a pinhole-free separation layer.

That's vital, since defects like holes in the separator are what can lead to catastrophic failure giving rise to fires in mobile devices such as cellphones and laptops.

The next step is the addition of the cathode material—in this case, sulfur—in an amount that doesn't quite fill the remainder of the pores. Since sulfur can accept electrons but doesn't conduct electricity, the final step is backfilling with an electronically conducting polymer—known as PEDOT (poly[3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene]).

While this architecture offers proof of concept, Wiesner said, it's not without challenges. Volume changes during discharging and charging the battery gradually degrade the PEDOT charge collector, which doesn't experience the volume expansion that sulfur does.

phys.org - Self-assembling 3-D battery would charge in seconds.

How's that for a better source??! lol.

I have no idea what a "gyrodial structure" is or how it self assembles but the idea is awesome! Instead of having a field, a fence, and some grass, all laid out side by side (my lame @ss analogy of a battery), they basically went vertical farming! Shrink a battery's properties down to the nanoscale, and the energy density increases probably on the order of magnitudes. They might use something besides sulfur (there was shrinkage, Jerry!), I suggest hexagonal boron nitride (hBN, aka "white graphene"), as it a good insulator and has the strength to expand and contract.

Cool stuff! I hope they can figure out their sulfur problem. The world needs a new type or battery. The graphene dream has been there (and probably has good all black project, i.e., I bet Lockheed or somebody has it already figured out!) and still no graphene battery.




posted on May, 18 2018 @ 03:33 PM
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This claims we can recharge our batteries with this device in 5 seconds.

In theory.

In practice, not so much. The power transfer and infrastructure is the problem.

Some numbers:

- To charge up a 100kW/h accumulator/battery in one hour (!), you need to send in 100kW in 3600 seconds.
- To charge up a 100kW/h ...... in 2 minutes, you need to provide 3GW over the period of 120 seconds.
- Even if you could charge it at 1000V, that´s still a whopping 3000A current(!!) to deliver.

And that´s the DC part, you have to pump in more energy/power because you´ll loose some in convertion.

At normal room temperature, you´d need a cable the size of at least 1m² surface area or 10.7 square feet per pole, so that means 2x1m² cables. It´s a thumb measurement, could not find a table for 3000A and was to lazy to calculate it.

So a 2m long 2x1m² cable made of aluminium would weight 10.8 metric tons without the insulation.

Summary:
No, I don´t see anyone charging their EV in the same amount of time than gasoline Vehicle, EVER. Also, the distribution net would go haywire of you´d put such loads on it spontaneous like car charging. It´s insane amount of power over a short time. Think about a 3GW (!!) power plant has to go online for 2 minutes because someone, somewhere want´s to charge their car. For one single car.

The delorian from back to the future needs 1.21 GW.




posted on May, 18 2018 @ 06:21 PM
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originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: Justoneman



The gyroidal thin films of carbon—the battery's anode, generated by block copolymer self-assembly—featured thousands of periodic pores on the order of 40 nanometers wide. These pores were then coated with a 10 nm-thick, electronically insulating but ion-conducting separator through electropolymerization, which by the very nature of the process produced a pinhole-free separation layer.

That's vital, since defects like holes in the separator are what can lead to catastrophic failure giving rise to fires in mobile devices such as cellphones and laptops.

The next step is the addition of the cathode material—in this case, sulfur—in an amount that doesn't quite fill the remainder of the pores. Since sulfur can accept electrons but doesn't conduct electricity, the final step is backfilling with an electronically conducting polymer—known as PEDOT (poly[3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene]).

While this architecture offers proof of concept, Wiesner said, it's not without challenges. Volume changes during discharging and charging the battery gradually degrade the PEDOT charge collector, which doesn't experience the volume expansion that sulfur does.

phys.org - Self-assembling 3-D battery would charge in seconds.

How's that for a better source??! lol.

I have no idea what a "gyrodial structure" is or how it self assembles but the idea is awesome! Instead of having a field, a fence, and some grass, all laid out side by side (my lame @ss analogy of a battery), they basically went vertical farming! Shrink a battery's properties down to the nanoscale, and the energy density increases probably on the order of magnitudes. They might use something besides sulfur (there was shrinkage, Jerry!), I suggest hexagonal boron nitride (hBN, aka "white graphene"), as it a good insulator and has the strength to expand and contract.

Cool stuff! I hope they can figure out their sulfur problem. The world needs a new type or battery. The graphene dream has been there (and probably has good all black project, i.e., I bet Lockheed or somebody has it already figured out!) and still no graphene battery.



Thank you very much, nice find!

ETA

I don't know for sure but gyrodial sounds related to gyroscopes. Using root words to come to this SWAG.
edit on 18-5-2018 by Justoneman because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 06:45 PM
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a reply to: Justoneman



A gyroid is an infinitely connected triply periodic minimal surface discovered by Alan Schoen in 1970.

Wikipedia
.

Well, there you go! Actually, I have seen this before but did not know that there was a specific term. If you go to Wikipedia, there is an animated GIF showing one building up.

It is that structure that allows the nano-battery parts to interact with each other without actually reacting with each other (as in, explode).

Cool find yourself!



posted on May, 18 2018 @ 09:47 PM
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Excellent. Batteries do seem to be advancing nicely but the design of cars suitable to be powered by electric propulsion is still from dark ages when energy was cheap. The 1912 Peugeot Bébé Type BP1, two seater, for example weighed 730 lb. Whereas today's two seater smart cars weigh 1,940 lb. Even though we have lightweight materials available that are 10 times stronger than steel for same weight. Cars remain far heavier than many from yesteryear.

In these ages we don't need to design cars that are 5 to 20 x heavier than its occupants. Its just wasting energy for the sake of having every option under the sun including the kitchen sink. I want something far simpler with something like a 10-15kWh powerpack that can get me from a to b without the car telling me its going to rain today.



posted on May, 19 2018 @ 08:55 AM
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a reply to: jtrenthacker

Yes, power grids would totally enjoy the experience of even a couple thousand clients randomly plugging in their Tesla sized battery packs every 1-7 days!

Also, if this is the "breakthrough" I'm pretty sure it is... Yeah, scary.



posted on May, 21 2018 @ 12:47 PM
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a reply to: Justoneman


Boron nitride nanotubes are primed to become effective building blocks for next-generation composite and polymer materials based on a new discovery at Rice University—and a previous one.

Scientists at known-for-nano Rice have found a way to enhance a unique class of nanotubes using a chemical process pioneered at the university. The Rice lab of chemist Angel Martí took advantage of the Billups-Birch reaction process to enhance boron nitride nanotubes.

phys.org, May 21, 2018 - Researchers enhance boron nitride nanotubes for next-gen composites.

Ask, and ye shall receive!

In the material science world it is called "functionalization" where they take a substance and make it bondable with another material. They actually used lithium in their experiment!! And carbon. The cool thing is they can unbind the material by heating it up leaving behind pristine hBN nanotubes.

Gee, It almost sounds like I know what the h3ll I am talking about!! lol.




posted on May, 21 2018 @ 01:13 PM
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I am starting to like air power more and more.

Energy stored as air is not very efficient to create but who really cares when solar is only a dollar a watt.



posted on May, 21 2018 @ 05:04 PM
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a reply to: howtonhawky

Air power can be very interesting, especially if you combine it with a heat source and do regenerative compounding, but it also has it's pitfalls and down sides.

Like steam, it's biggest downsides lay in it not being even remotely novice friendly. Compared to liquid hydrocarbons and batteries these systems are just nowhere near as friendly to mistakes nor tolerant of hit and miss maintenance/inspection.

This is actually why I put my biggest alternative energy hope in us discovering and commercializing very small scale sealed synthetic hydrocarbon production assets. That way you can just turn excess energy into safe and easily dealt with liquid fuel, likely using waste products as a majority if not all of your feedstocks.



posted on May, 22 2018 @ 06:09 AM
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a reply to: verschickter


- To charge up a 100kW/h accumulator/battery in one hour (!), you need to send in 100kW in 3600 seconds.


Power is defined as the rate at which energy is consumed or converted. The SI unit for power is the Watt (W), which is defined as 1 Joule (J) per second. Therefore to get energy from power, you need to multiply the power for an amount of time. Using SI units, you would multiply Watts by seconds to get Joules.

Therefore 100 kW for 1 hour (3600 seconds) is 100 kWh or 360 million Joules. 100 kW/h would be the rate at which power is changing.


- To charge up a 100kW/h ...... in 2 minutes, you need to provide 3GW over the period of 120 seconds.


100 kWh in 2 minutes would be:

60/2*100 = 3000 kW or 3 MW, not 3 GW. Giga (G, 10^9) is a thousand times larger than Mega (M, 10^6)


- Even if you could charge it at 1000V, that´s still a whopping 3000A current(!!) to deliver.

Correct.


At normal room temperature, you´d need a cable the size of at least 1m² surface area or 10.7 square feet per pole, so that means 2x1m² cables. It´s a thumb measurement, could not find a table for 3000A and was to lazy to calculate it.


This current is large, but isn't extreme. The Eurostar (British Rail Class 373) train for example can operate at multiple voltages, at 675 V DC it is limited in power to 3.4 MW. This is equivalent to 5037 A and assumes 100% efficiency of the powertrain - lower efficiency will mean more current. Note that neither the overhead lines or third rails on trains nor the railways themselves (which are the return path) are unusually sized.

Also going to the Wikipedia page on American Wire Gauge (AWG) indicates that a 0000 gauge wire has a ampacity at room temperature of 195 A. This has a cross sectional area of 107 mm^2. Scaling this up linearly would mean that a 3,000 A cable would need a cross sectional area of 1646 mm^2. This is 0.001646 m^2. Or equal to a conductor that is 46 mm thick. You are off by a factor of about 500.

Now note two factors:

The area of a circle is: pi*r^2
The circumference of a circle is: 2*pi*r

That means that as you increase the radius, area increases much faster than the circumference. The circumference of the cable is what is being cooled by the air, therefore an even larger cable is probably required or active cooling. Tesla has trialed active cooling. Skin effect is not worth talking about since we are talking DC here. From the AWG chart it appears as if increasing the cross sectional area by a factor of 10 will increase the ampacity by about a factor of 4. So my estimate would probably be for a conductor about as thick as your arm and obviously two would be required, plus insulation.

Also note that there are 1 million square mm in 1 square meter, not 1,000. This might explain the error.

Some fast charging for heavy duty vehicles such as buses and trucks has been conducted at powers of over 1 MW. I know some of these have literally used electric train equipment (pantograph & an overhead busbar to contact the pantograph) because the voltage and current tends to be similar.


No, I don´t see anyone charging their EV in the same amount of time than gasoline Vehicle, EVER. Also, the distribution net would go haywire of you´d put such loads on it spontaneous like car charging. It´s insane amount of power over a short time. Think about a 3GW (!!) power plant has to go online for 2 minutes because someone, somewhere want´s to charge their car. For one single car.


In lithium ion batteries there is typically a tradeoff to be made between power and energy. Extremely high charge rates would likely sacrifice energy density, but maybe the battery we are discussing here is different. Also note that if a car is designed around an extreme charge rate far beyond its peak discharge rate, that means that for the rest of the time it will be lugging around all that extra weight of thick cables (for example).

I think the beauty of an electric car is that it can be charged at home using almost already existing infrastructure which doesn't stress the grid and should be relatively inexpensive. Therefore actually going to a charging station should be rare and only required for driving long distances. Of course, this doesn't help people like myself who park on the side of the street, I have yet to see full solution implemented for this. And this is to say nothing of the coverage of the charging station infrastructure.

Anyway, in terms of charging speed, for driving long distances, fast charging, whilst slower than fueling a normal car, is probably good enough in terms of speed for many or most users: existing vehicles can charge at ~125 kW but there's some fast charging stations which can supply several times this amount for future vehicles. If you're getting 500 km before needing to charge (5 hours driving), does it really matter if you need to pull over for 45 minutes to charge? Doubt it. Last time I drove that far in a single day we stopped for 45 minutes for a break. 125 kW or the higher charging speeds of 350 kW are taxing on the grid, but there are measures to mitigate this, for example, adding a battery to act as a buffer. This is what Tesla does at certain sites. But obviously that won't help as much if it's being heavily utilized 24/7.

As far as extreme charging speeds are concerned, I think it makes sense for electrified metropolitan trams and metropolitan buses. For trams, you could replace the overhead powerlines (catenary) with batteries in the vehicles themselves. For buses you could get rid of noisy and dirty diesel engines. At the end of the route, or at key locations, put an automated charging system (or simply a pantograph contacting an overhead busbar) to charge the batteries in several minutes. Lithium Titanate batteries can handle this over thousands of cycles as well. Trams & buses already sit at the end of the line for at least 10 minutes from what I have seen before they turn around anyway, so this should have no schedule impact. This is already being done in Sweden, Spain, & the Netherlands.

There are probably a million other uses too of extremely fast charging batteries. But again, the high charge capability may, as in the case of Lithium Titanate's, come at cost of energy density.

Lastly I want to point out that replacing hydrocarbons that have been dug out of the ground will not be easy. Rather than expect an exact substitute, what is most suitable could be something that is better in some areas and worse in some areas, or it could be a range of technologies and implementations that combined together could replace oil. Also it's important to focus on what's needed and work from that, as opposed to trying to match or better what we have today without taking the wider picture into consideration.
edit on 22/5/18 by C0bzz because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 23 2018 @ 12:42 PM
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a reply to: C0bzz
yeah I was sloppy with correct word use and "estimated" the math, thanks for correcting!!

Still my point stands, no one is going to charge his EV in a reasonable amount of time to a reasonable amount of reach, neither at home, nor nearby a powerplant. Not busses or trams, trains.. personal EV´s. The exact numbers are not really important though because even if you take away by factor 1000, you end up with the same problems.

My wrong example was 1 car. Take only 100k cars that are charging at any given time round the clock. Try to do that with our current reneweable clean tech, it´s not possible. At least if you look at carbon reduction. If you burn gas, oil, coal, biomass or nuclear rods to charge any EV.

The grid is not ready, house-mains are not capeable enough and handling big heavy charger cables that are robust, unless we have viable, cheap, massproducted superconductors at roomtemperature. That would be the game changer.

Swapping accumulators/batteries is another thing though.

Good that you spotted the major errors I made in a haste and pointed them out. At the end of the day, personal EV charging at home or on the road in the way we are used with gas powered engines, won´t happen.

That was my main point




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