EEStor Ceramic Battery: Internal Combustion Replacement?

Seasoned scientists at EEStore say they've created a battery made of glass- and aluminum-coated ceramics that could allow electric motors to completely replace the internal combustion engine.

will drive 500 miles on nine bucks' worth of electricity, and needs just five minutes to completely recharge.

www.treehugger.com...

www.gizmodo.com...

this sounds to good to be true but thair is alot of big names and money behind it.

[edit on 22-9-2006 by slayerfan]

[edit on 22-9-2006 by slayerfan]

a bump, I thinkt this is pretty legit to me just wanted to here some responses.

A good development if true and thanks for posting as I had not heard about this. Sometimes threads die on this site when they shouldn't and I can't for the life of me figure out why?

It is radical to think that a battery can contain glass but then we don't know everything we need to know about physics either.

With lead acid batteries you might get lucky to have 500 to 700 recharge cycles - 2 - 3 years - the EEStor technology has been tested up to a million cycles with no material degradation. [Recharge = 5 minutes X 1,000,000 cycles = 9.5 years non-stop, 24/7/365.] If that's not impressive enough, EEStor says its energy storage technology is "not explosive, corrosive, or hazardous" like lead-acid and most lithium-ion systems, and will outlast the life of any commercial product it powers. It can also absorb energy quickly, meaning a small electric car containing a 17-kilowatt-hour system could be fully charged in four to six minutes versus hours for other battery technologies, the company claims.

According to patent documents [prepared by the inventors] obtained by the Star, the invention will do no less than "replace the electrochemical battery" where it's already used in hybrid and electric vehicles, power tools, electronic gadgets and renewable energy systems. EEStor's technology could be used in more than low-speed electric vehicles. The company envisions using it for full-speed pure electric vehicles. EEStor's claims its "electrical energy storage unit" could pack nearly 10 times the energy punch of a lead-acid battery of similar weight and, under mass production, would cost half as much. Toronto Star , March 2006 [Edited by Don W]

When anything is too good to be true, you can be sure it is.

When I studied electricity in school, we used microfarad size capacitors. I was told that all capacitors charge in 5 time constants. Also, I was told all capacitor discharge in 5 time constants. A capacitor will charge 63% in the fist time constant, 63% of the remaining uncharged part will be charged in the 2nd time constant, 63% in the third, 63% in the 4th and 63% in the 5th. We are now at 99.99% of a full charge. The same rule applies in the discharge of a capacitor.

OK, you say, so what is a “time constant?” basically, it is the “speed” of the charge rate, which is directly proportional to the resistance (ohms) in the charging circuit. The discharge circuit can have a different time constant so that it takes much longer to discharge than to charge. But no matter how you “jockey” it around, the 5 holds in both directions. See www.rwc.uc.edu...



[edit on 9/22/2006 by donwhite]

Were they able to overcome the potential danger of the high electrical charges that these capacitors might unleashed once they were submerged in water or flooding streets? I bet a lot of safety precautions need to be considered specially maintenance, knowing that there is a high voltage car in one's possession.

Well, if you think about it, we already drive around in bombs. 10 gallons of gasoline is pretty dangerous, but whens the last time you heard of a car exploding ? err....unrelated to allah....

[edit on 22-9-2006 by R3KR]