Mar

15

On the Path to Much Better Lithium Ion Batteries

March 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Regular readers may recall that the silicon electrode for lithium ion batteries is the current leading candidate for a big capacity increase.  A study led by Chongmin Wang at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been published online in the journal Nano Letters examining a new type of silicon-carbon nanocomposite electrode. [...]

Feb

28

The Best Battery So Far

February 28, 2012 | 2 Comments

Start-up called Envia Systems says it’s built a lithium-ion battery prototype at 400 Wh/kg.  That, if the prototype can scale would be both a new world record, but a deep change in electric vehicle economics. The world record looks secure for now, the battery prototype has third party tests confirming the energy density at the [...]

Feb

20

New Electrolytes to Make an Ultra Flow Battery

February 20, 2012 | 1 Comment

Sandia researchers have developed a new family of liquid salt electrolytes (metal-based ionic liquids or MetILs) that could lead to new flow batteries able to cost-effectively store three times more energy than today’s batteries. To start, a flow battery or accurately a Redox Flow Battery (RFB) is a type of rechargeable electrochemical system that relies [...]

Feb

14

Looking At Batteries From the Inside with an MRI

February 14, 2012 | 1 Comment

At breakthrough for developing the batteries of the future was announced this week by researchers at Cambridge University, Stony Brook University, and New York University.  The research group has developed a methodology based on magnetic resonance imaging, the MRI we are familiar with, to look inside a battery without destroying it. Advanced batteries are the [...]

Feb

8

The Best Lithium Air Batteries Get a 33% Boost

February 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment

The best lithium air lab research batteries had cathodes built with graphene nanosheet materials.  Back in August of 2011 scientists at the Nanomaterials and Energy Group at the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Canada, reported the development of graphene nanosheet cathode (GNS) materials for non-aqueous lithium-oxygen (Li-air) batteries showing a capacity of 8,705.9 mAh g-1 [...]

Feb

7

A New Idea for the Electro Mechanical Battery

February 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Carl Peart of New Mexico has a very different take on the electro mechanical battery (EMB) – solve the inherent problems of friction with air and bearings – by using them in orbital power stations.  No air or gravity, only centrifugal forces for drag. An EMB (a technical description of a flywheel) stores energy through [...]

Jan

10

IBM Says It Now Has a Working Lithium Air Battery

January 10, 2012 | 4 Comments

Physicist Winfried Wilcke working at IBM’s Almaden laboratories, based in San Jose, California in a report by Duncan Graham-Rowe in NewScientist allows that IBM’s Battery 500 project to find an air battery solution for electric vehicles (EVs), has found a starting solution. The assertion now is IBM believes it has solved a fundamental problem that [...]

Dec

30

The Case For Better and Cheaper Batteries

December 30, 2011 | 1 Comment

Nothing is more persuasive than consumer expectations for determining planning and investment.  To help with that Pike Research conducted a web-based survey of 1,051 U.S. consumers in the fall of 2011 using a nationally representative and demographically balanced sample to consumer demand, preferences, and price sensitivity for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and electric vehicle charging [...]

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