An EMB (a technical description of a flywheel) stores energy through spinning a composite flywheel with an electric motor that’s built in, driving the rotating mass to speed making the system into a battery. Then use the electricity by using the motor as a generator that slows the flywheel down.  EMBs aren’t quite dead, the once widely admired Beacon Power flywheel builder that’s in bankruptcy has found a buyer that may put the intellectual property back to work and return a chunk of a federal loan to the taxpayers.

Mr. Peart’s idea is quite futuristic. Aside from the problems of either lifting the whole thing into orbit or building a manufacturing system in orbit, the concept does overcome the twin drags on rotating masses, the friction of air and bearings blocking gravity’s effect.  Peart is suggesting the flywheel spin at speeds in excess of 60,000 RPM. The flywheels would float (through the use of magnets) in a frictionless vacuum chamber, removing almost all friction and drag.  That would enable the storage of energy for years on end.

Peart's Orbital ElectroMechanicalBattery Layout. Click image for the largest view.

Peart’s satellite would collect energy through an incorporated solar array.  Once the energy is stored the system would seem conventional with other ideas – the energy can be transferred through the use of a microwave antenna and then converted back into electricity through a rectenna (receiving antenna), located down on Earth. The antenna could be repositioned so to allow energy transfer to multiple reactenna locations on Earth, from a single position in orbit.

Peart's Solar Energy Collector and Storage Satellite. Click image for the largest view.

The idea has some thought in it; the satellite would incorporate a system of easy access doors to allow the servicing or removal of worn batteries. The batteries would be oriented on a circular plate that rotates allowing the removal of a set of batteries in a series. The batteries would be mounted with alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise rotations to balance out the gyroscopic effects.  That way two in pairs would speed up twisting opposite to each other leaving the satellite undisturbed.

Peart's Orbital Power Station EMB Service Door. Click image for the largest view.

The proposal has ten series mounted vertically in a column, and six columns are mounted in each individual satellite making a total of 360 batteries mounted in each satellite. The satellite images shown here are small-scale examples, full power satellites would contain several thousand batteries. Each battery would have capacity ratings about 25kWh.

An orbital power station offers the cleanest renewable energy storage and production so far imagined.  Such power station satellites would provide energy on a constant basis, and could answer demand at peak power consumption times with the stored energy.  Peart also points out orbital power stations can also be used as a practical means to sell power services worldwide.

The problem is going to be the capital investment.  Lifting simply a very large solar array is going to challenge the economics.  Adding in batteries at current orbital lift prices doesn’t seem practical for now.

Yet the concept has great stimulating value.  The Republican primary race has one candidate that sees the future of mankind returning to the solar system, which is for now a government sized job and one best done by the free people of earth instead of despots.

Almost everyone it seems has forgotten the root of the information age is the American effort to put a man on the moon. Without the research and development during the 1960s searching for small, lightweight and energy efficient devices, primarily integrated circuits, the information age we now know would not exist as we know it.  Societies have myopic views of the past; it will always be a challenge to avoid a myopic view of the future.

Peart’s concept has value, a measure of thought that can solve problems, worthy of note and keeping saved for those in the future who can build off planet.  Peart’s idea is part of that vision thing that is so painfully lacking in American political and economic discourse.

It’s a pity that virtually all political energy is devoted to cutting up the proceeds of the past, dividing up the production of the present and promising the potential of the future – without investing in the ideas that make future filled with possibilities, challenges and opportunity.  We’re missing that vision thing.

The assertion now is IBM believes it has solved a fundamental problem that may lead to the creation of a rechargeable battery with a 500-mile (800-kilometre) range – letting EVs potentially compete with most petroleum fueled engines.  That would solve the major concern with owning an electric vehicle (EV), the range anxiety – a driver’s estimation that the battery charge will not get the vehicle to the destination on the charge.

As the technology sits today the best offerings of EVs use lithium-ion batteries, which still occupying a large volume and rarely provide 100 miles (160 kilometers) of driving before they’re discharged.

IBM is well into their Battery 500 Lithium/Air Battery project.  The original idea is to come up with and electrical storage solution as good as gasoline, runs out 500 miles and is fully electric with size weight and pricing comparable to a gasoline internal combustion drive.

A lithium-air cell has more potential because it has theoretical energy densities more than 1000 times greater than conventional lithium-ion battery chemistry, setting up an energy density comparable to gasoline.  Lithium-air cells use carbon, instead of metal oxides for the positive electrode, which is lighter and reacts with oxygen from the air around it to produce an electrical current.

The problem has been chemical instabilities limiting the recharging cycles, making lithium-air impractical for use in cars.

Wilcke said, “We now have one which looks very promising.”  No disclosure is being made about what material it is but he says that several research prototypes have already been demonstrated.

To get to this point Wilcke studied the underlying electrochemistry of lithium-air cells using a form of mass spectrometry. What he learned was that oxygen is reacting not just with the carbon electrode, as it was known to, but also with the electrolytic solvent – the conducting solution that carries the lithium ions between the positive and negative electrodes.  When the electrolyte reacts with the oxygen as the battery is used it will eventually be depleted.

Wilcke teamed up with colleague Alessandro Curioni at IBM’s Zurich research labs in Switzerland.  Curioni explains they used a Blue Gene supercomputer to run extremely detailed models of the reactions to look for alternative electrolytes. This included a form of atomistic modeling right down to the quantum mechanics of the components.

The pair’s work is part of the Battery 500 project, where IBM is leading a coalition involving four US national laboratories and commercial partners, with the hope to have a full-scale prototype ready by 2013, with commercial batteries to follow by around 2020.

Graham-Rowe found Phil Bartlett, head of electrochemistry at the University of Southampton, UK for his counter point who offers, “Lithium in water spontaneously catches fire.”

But if the IBM lead consortium has come up with an anode and cathode that works with the oxygen in an electrolyte that doesn’t react with the oxygen they would have solved a major obstacle with lithium-air batteries.  Keeping the H2O molecules out would be a much less challenging matter.

So we’re bursting with questions!  Have the Battery 500 folks got both of the electrode materials sorted out and a selection of electrolytes?  Is the oxygen transport inbound handling the nitrogen, water vapor and trace gasses or are the barriers at the electrodes and electrolytes?  Perhaps both methods are under study?  The questions just take off from there.

This is good news and congratulations are in order for the Battery 500 team people and Mr. Graham-Rowe for finding the news and getting it out.

With no great surprise, price sensitivity about buying a plug in type of vehicle remains a significant issue.  Survey participants’ willingness to pay for a vehicle purchase is much lower than the prices currently planned by automakers.  That’s a certain klaxon kind of wake up call.  Electric vehicles would sell well and range is not the first concern, it’s the battery cost.

All is not lost, survey respondents indicated strong fundamental interest in PEVs, with 40% of participants stating that they would be “extremely” or “very” interested in a plug-in hybrid or all-electric vehicle with a range of 40 to 100 miles and an electricity cost equivalent of $0.75 per gallon.  That price metric on energy is a strong indicator of the sensitivity of gasoline prices.

The Pike research isn’t some slap happy poll, the Pike Research price sensitivity analysis, utilizes the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter methodology, a widely-used market technique for determining consumer price preferences, introduced in 1976 by Dutch economist Peter van Westendorp.  The Westendrop methodology indicates that for a traditional gasoline internal combustion engine vehicle that would ordinarily cost $20,000, the optimal price point for consumers of a comparable PEV would be $23,750, a significant price premium of 18.75%, meaning about a sixth more cash would come to the table.

That premium isn’t enough to buy today’s battery sets.  The gap between actual pricing and consumer willingness to pay will be a problem for creating demand for PEVs.

There is still more education to do.  A 500-gallon year gasoline buyer might have a better idea of value comparing an annual $1,750 fuel bill vs. a $375 charging bill. It would be better to compare $145.83 for gasoline each month vs. $31.25 to charge up, freeing $114.58 back to disposable income.  $110 will usually buy more than a $3,750 upgrade.

The inside of the survey offers some curious details.  Of the 1,051 respondents interviewed, 4% currently own or lease a hybrid, a figure higher than the current overall hybrid market share in the US.  81% of respondents stated that improved fuel efficiency would be an important factor when purchasing their next vehicle.

Pike noted that consumers under age 30 are somewhat more likely to demonstrate interest in PEVs, as are people with higher levels of education.  But the level of interest in PEVs is not dramatically different between demographic segments such as age, gender, income, and level of education.  That observation leads Pike to conclude that PEVs should have solid mass-market appeal.

Now for the shock. When asked which vehicle brands they would consider for an EV, respondents were most likely to choose Toyota (51%) and Ford (46%), two automakers that did not have PEVs on the market at the time of the survey. Chevrolet (42%) and Nissan (33%), the two manufacturers that launched models in North America in 2010, ranked fourth and fifth, respectively.  Its not looking like advertising is getting the job done.

In the broader view when asked to choose between five different plugin hybrid EV and straight plug in EV range/price options, respondents did not state a clear preference for any one configuration. Of the choices offered, the electric-only model with a 100-mile range had the greatest number of respondents showing interest with 24%.  Another 25% of respondents stated that they would not purchase any of the options provided.

Still with those 25 % not making a choice, 80% indicated that they would be “extremely” or “very” interested in upgrading to a residential “fast-charging” EV charging unit that would utilize the same amount of electricity but reduce charging times from 8 to 12 hours to 2 to 4 hours.  It looks like people have thought this out.

Again the money comes up.  The results also indicate that pricing is once again an issue with fast-charging equipment. Pike’s analysis suggests that the first generation of residential fast-charging equipment will cost between $500 and $800, but only 28% of panelists stated that they would be willing to pay $500 or more for this capability. The average price consumers were willing to pay was $408.  $400 should buy an impressive battery charger, and people know it.  Fast charge doesn’t look like an exploitable idea, it better be standard equipment.

Here’s a sound bit of insight to wind up.  Those respondents likely to get in the market expressed strong interest in workplace, private, and public charging stations. The most popular choices for charging stations were the workplace (74%) and roadside charging stations (82%).

Pike does a great job of looking into things.  While the pricing points for Pike studies are astronomical for regular folks, the press releases and interview tidbits are well worth the attention.

Electric vehicles have a good foundation for massive growth.  A lot could be done to nurse them along, but in the end, it’s the price that will matter.  That $3,750 noted might be a goal for a 400-mile range battery set.  Get to anywhere close and your batteries could not be built fast enough.

That’s the gauntlet, who will get to pick it up first?

Stanford researchers have developed part of a new dream battery with a new electrode that employs crystalline nanoparticles of a copper compound.  During the laboratory tests, the electrode survived 40,000 cycles of charging and discharging, after which it could still be charged to more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity.  That’s over a 100 years of daily charges.

The Stanford researchers use nanoparticles of a copper compound in developing a high-power battery electrode that is so inexpensive to make, so efficient and so durable that it could be used to build batteries big enough for economical large-scale energy storage on the electrical grid.

Copper Crystal Electrode Graphic. Click image for more info.

Colin Wessells, a graduate student in materials science and engineering who is the lead author of a paper describing the research, published this week in Nature Communications said, “At a rate of several cycles per day, this electrode would have a good 30 years of useful life on the electrical grid.”

Yi Cui, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, who is Wessell’s adviser and a coauthor of the paper adds, “That is a breakthrough performance — a battery that will keep running for tens of thousands of cycles and never fail.”

That’s a pair of pretty cheery guys with a big claim in hand.

It’s because the electrode’s durability derives from the atomic structure of the crystalline copper hexacyanoferrate used to make it. The crystals have an open framework that allows ions — electrically charged particles whose movements en masse either charge or discharge a battery — to easily go in and out without damaging the electrode. Most batteries fail because of accumulated damage to an electrode’s crystal structure.

Now add because the ions can move so freely, the electrode’s cycle of charging and discharging is extremely fast, which is important because the power you get out of a battery is proportional to how fast you can discharge the electrode.

Fast and very very long lifetime at low cost.

To maximize the benefit of the open structure, the Stanford scientists needed to use the right size ions. Too big and the ions would tend to get stuck and could damage the crystal structure when they moved in and out of the electrode. Too small and they might end up sticking to one side of the open spaces between atoms, instead of easily passing through. The right-sized ion turned out to be hydrated potassium, a much better fit compared with other hydrated ions such as sodium and lithium.

Wessells explains, “We decided we needed to develop a ‘new chemistry’ if we were going to make low-cost batteries and battery electrodes for the power grid.”  So they chose to use a water-based electrolyte, which Wessells described as “basically free compared to the cost of an organic electrolyte” such as is used in lithium ion batteries. They made the battery’s electrical materials from readily available precursors such as iron, copper, carbon and nitrogen — all of which are extremely inexpensive compared with lithium.

That means Stanford team’s new electrode is for working in a potassium battery.  “It fits perfectly – really, really nicely,” said Cui. “Potassium will just zoom in and zoom out, so you can have an extremely high-power battery.”  Potassium is much less expensive than lithium.

The speed of the electrode is further enhanced because the particles of electrode material that Wessell synthesized are tiny even by nanoparticle standards — a mere 100 atoms across.  Those modest dimensions mean the ions don’t have to travel very far into the electrode to react with active sites in a particle to charge the electrode to its maximum capacity, or to get back out during discharge.

Cui’s research group has a lot of recent research effort on batteries including lithium with the focus on high energy density, a lot of power in a small size.  For portable electronics that’s a primary concern.  But as the power need increases the size can be larger.  For grid storage size and portability hardly matter.  It’s the cost and the cycle times to replacement that matter.

Here’s the known catch – the sole significant limitation to the new electrode for potassium electrolyte is that its chemical properties cause it to be usable only as a high voltage electrode. But every battery needs two electrodes – a high voltage cathode and a low voltage anode — in order to create the voltage difference that produces the  electricity to flow. The researchers need to find another material to use for the anode before they can build an actual battery.

But Cui said they have already been investigating various materials for an anode and have some promising candidates.
Cui and Wessells point out that other electrode materials have been developed that show tremendous promise in laboratory testing but would be difficult to produce commercially. That should not be a problem with their electrode.

Wessells has been able to readily synthesize the new electrode material in gram quantities in the lab. He said the process should easily be scaled up to commercial levels of production. “We put chemicals in a flask and you get this electrode material. You can do that on any scale,” he said.  “There are no technical challenges to producing this on a big-enough scale to actually build a real battery.”

Even though they haven’t constructed a full battery yet, the performance of the new electrode is so superior to any other existing battery electrode that Robert Huggins, an emeritus professor of materials science and engineering who worked on the project, said the electrode “leads to a promising electrochemical solution to the extremely important problem of the large number of sharp drop-offs in the output of wind and solar systems” that result from events as simple and commonplace as a cloud passing over a solar farm.

The Stanford group is on to something more basic with the crystalline copper hexacyanoferrate structure. It’s a clue to finding other crystalline constructions to answer the low volt electrode question.  There is sure to be someone realizing the science could yield low cost electrodes for even denser lithium-ion electrolytes.

It would be quite something if the major electrolyte chemistries were to have electrode pairs with recharge cycles in the tens of thousands at very fast charge rates.  The effect would change the economics in more than just cost per watt hours, but the need for watt hour capacity.

Imagine – trading up the cell phone and keeping the battery, the major cost component, for several models.  Manufactures and consumers have to love that idea.

Go Stanford.

Graphene Sheets Sandwich Silicon. An artist representation of the graphene sheet with its holes, silicon and lithium ions.

The scientists combined two chemical engineering approaches to address two major battery limitations — energy capacity and charge rate — in one design. In addition to better batteries for cellphones and iPods, the technology could pave the way for more efficient, smaller batteries for electric cars.

Lithium-ion chemical batteries charge through a reaction in which lithium ions are sent between the anode and the cathode ends of the battery. As energy in the battery is used, the lithium ions travel from the anode through the electrolyte to the cathode.  As the battery is recharged, they travel in the reverse direction.

Lithium battery performance is set in two ways. Its energy capacity — how long a battery can maintain its charge voltage — is limited by the charge density, or how many lithium ions can be packed into the anode or cathode. Meanwhile, a battery’s charge rate — the speed at which it recharges — is limited by another factor: the speed at which the lithium ions can make their way from the electrolyte into the anode.

Harold H Kung, lead author of the paper says, “We have found a way to extend a new lithium-ion battery’s charge life by 10 times. Even after 150 charges, which would be one year or more of operation, the battery is still five times more effective than lithium-ion batteries on the market today.”

The better current rechargeable batteries’ anode is made of layer upon layer of carbon-based graphene sheets that can only accommodate one lithium atom for every six carbon atoms. To increase energy capacity, scientists have previously experimented with replacing the carbon with silicon, as silicon can accommodate much more lithium: four lithium atoms for every silicon atom.  But silicon expands and contracts dramatically in the charging process, which fragments the electrode destroying its charge capacity rapidly.

Kung’s research team’s techniques solve the problem with sandwiched clusters of silicon between the graphene sheets.  This stabilizes the silicon allowing a greater number of lithium atoms in the electrode while utilizing the flexibility of graphene sheets to accommodate the volume changes of silicon during use.

Current battery charge rate speed is a result of the shape of the graphene sheets: they are extremely thin — just one carbon atom thick — but by comparison, very long. During the charging process, a lithium ion must travel all the way to the outer edges of the graphene sheet before entering and coming to rest between the sheets. And because it takes so long for lithium to travel to the middle of the graphene sheet, a sort of ionic traffic jam occurs around the edges of the material.

Kung’s team uses a chemical oxidation process to create miniscule holes (10 to 20 nanometers) in the graphene sheets — termed “in-plane defects” — so the lithium ions would have a “shortcut” into the anode and be stored there by reaction with the silicon. This reduced the time it takes the battery to recharge by up to 10 times.

Kung says, “Now we almost have the best of both worlds. We have much higher energy density because of the silicon, and the sandwiching reduces the capacity loss caused by the silicon expanding and contracting. Even if the silicon clusters break up, the silicon won’t be lost.”

That’s half the challenge – The Northwestern team will begin studying changes in the cathode that could further increase effectiveness of the batteries. They also will look into developing an electrolyte system that will allow the battery to automatically and reversibly shut off at high temperatures — a safety mechanism that could prove vital in electric car applications.

This looks like a very strong improvement that might only require a processing step for making the holes and adding silicon, which isn’t expensive.  The main question is still the total recharges to full voltage – a serious matter when the application is a major investment such as an electric vehicle.

For now though, the team’s paper is sure to get intense study by the lithium battery industry – it’s a big improvement.

The new technology could be the cheapest way to store large amounts of energy for the power grid using batteries and with $30 million in fresh venture capital to step up manufacturing of its sodium-ion batteries the chances are the battery will get to market.

Aquion Sodium Manganese Battery Set. Click image for more info.

The idea is to do what’s called peak shaving, using stored energy to meet the high electrical demand during peak usage periods, which helps keep the grid reliable, efficient and electricity prices low.  It’s the kind of technology in a technique that may well cut the rates charged for periods of peak demand.  If you’re in place where meters are time of day rated, this technology could save some money some day.

Trials at grid scale of the technology are coming up.  Aquion has started shipping pre-production prototype batteries to off-grid solar power companies. Next month, a 1,000-volt module will go to KEMA, a Dutch energy consulting and testing outfit that has a facility outside Philadelphia Pennsylvania.

Jay Whitacre Aquion’s founder and chief technology officer says, “It’s very well-suited for off-grid solar and wind support, and also for peak shaving. It’s two very different applications, and our battery has been shown to be effective in both.”

Third party support is coming in.  John Miller, an electrochemical capacitor expert and president of consulting firm JME in Shaker Heights, Ohio, says Aquion’s battery could be the cheapest of the various battery technologies vying to provide grid storage.  Miller compares the Aquion sodium battery to today’s most common grid storage technology, re-pumped hydro that makes up to 95 percent of utility-scale energy storage. Re-pumped hydro returns water to a higher elevation when electricity demand is low, and releasing that water back down through turbines during peak periods.  But re-pumped hydro is limited by topography and space, and pumped hydro systems take many years and millions of dollars to build, if the land can be purchased at all.

Aquion answers a demand, with quick delivery and a small footprint.

Miller says, “Lead-acid is even too expensive. Aquion’s technology is getting to the range of pumped hydro in cost, which is two cents per kilowatt-hour [over the system's lifetime]. They’re unique. I would say it’s very promising for grid storage.”

The precedent is already in place, a few power companies use lead-acid batteries and sodium-sulfur batteries for grid storage. Lead-acid batteries are cheap but only last for 500 to 1,000 cycles, while sodium-sulfur batteries are costly at $1,000 a kilowatt-hour.

The flip side is the Aquion battery is heavy too, but the low cost and long cycle life compensate for that.

With capital in hand now Aquion, is making 35-watt-hour units that are modular and stackable at its research and development facility. Next year, the company wants to produce multiple megawatt-hours’ worth of batteries at this facility, launch its first commercial product, and break ground on a 500-megawatt-hour capacity factory.

The Aquion web site says the technology contains zero toxic or otherwise hazardous materials, which facilitates battery installation and manufacturing facilities by preventing delays associated with hazardous material zoning issues.  The technology is designed so that harvesting and recycling both the packaging and the active materials is easy.  The batteries are also much more efficient than traditional batteries at both a cell and systems level; the end result is an energy storage system that makes better use of the energy it stores.

Whitacre’s and in turn Aquion’s breakthrough is an electrochemical couple combining a high capacity carbon anode with a sodium intercalation cathode capable of thousands of complete discharge cycles over extended periods of time. The material couple can deliver over 30 watt-hours per liter. The device functions in a broad range of ambient temperatures and can be repeatedly cycled with little to no loss in delivered capacity.  Rapid cycle testing indicates at least 5000 cycles with no fade in delivered capacity, while ongoing calendar life testing shows stable performance for over a year of continuous deep cycle use.

Whitacre has preplanned and thought this through to the end where only the cheapest raw materials were considered in the basic R&D phase. As a result, sodium interactive materials and water-based electrolytes are used instead of the traditional lithium-based materials and organic solvents.

If all the pre-production expectations get to market and commercial scale production drives to lower pricing a mass-market version will likely be available someday.  If it’s low cost enough, and mass-market electrical electricity production costs keep coming down, personal or small-scale grid support could get widespread adoption.

For now let’s hope the government stays clear.  The alarm that “incentives” or other manipulations could drive electrical utility costs even higher than peak demand does now could wreak the drive to lower energy costs.

For Whitacre and Aquion it’s a success with more to come.  Whitacre and his group look smart enough to drive to commercial scale at better than competitive cost – the sure road to success – and well deserved, too.

Dr.  Xie Xian Ning from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Initiative has developed the world’s first energy-storage membrane promising greater cost-effectiveness in delivering energy.

The researchers used a polystyrene-based polymer to deposit the soft, foldable membrane that, when sandwiched between and charged by two metal plates, could store charge at 0.2 farads per square centimeter. This is well above the typical upper limit of 1 microfarad per square centimeter for a standard capacitor.  That’s coming from 0.000001 to 0.2 – a lot more than a doubling.  The question is then raised why isn’t the idea a super or ultra capacitor?

Polystyrene Based Energy Storage Membrane. Click image for the largest view. Image Credit: Credit: National University of Singapore.

The membrane is a part of a capacitor, not a whole, offering many designs a huge improvement.  Most simply said, polystyrene membrane-based membranes will be easier to scale up than the current alternatives. Unlike more conventional supercapacitor electrode materials with large surface areas and high porosities, the new hydrophilized polymer network uses ion-conducting channels for fast ion transport and charge storage.

The cost involved in energy storage is also drastically reduced. With existing technologies based on liquid electrolytes, it costs about US$7 to store each farad. With the NUS energy storage membrane, the cost to store each farad falls to an impressive US$0.62 – less than 10% of current costs.  This translates to an energy cost of 10-20 watt-hour per US dollar for the membrane, as compared to just 2.5 watt-hour per US dollar for lithium ion batteries.

Now the NUS capacitor membrane is looking like a big deal.

Dr Xie said: “Compared to rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors, the proprietary membrane allows for very simple device configuration and low fabrication cost. Moreover, the performance of the membrane surpasses those of rechargeable batteries, such as lithium ion and lead-acid batteries, and supercapacitors.”

Dr Xie and his team started work on the membrane early last year and took about 1.5 years to reach their current status, and have successfully filed a US patent for this novel invention.

The discovery was featured in Energy & Environmental Science and highlighted by the international journal Nature.  The research paper, “Supercapacitive Energy Storage Based On Ion-Conducting Channels in Hydrophilized Organic Network” has been published in Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics.

The research team has demonstrated the membrane’s superior performance in energy storage using prototype devices. The team is currently exploring opportunities to work with venture capitalists to commercialize the membrane. So far reports have it several venture capitalists have expressed strong interest in the technology.

“With the advent of our novel membrane, energy storage technology will be more accessible, affordable, and producible on a large scale. It is also environmentally-friendly and could change the current status of energy technology,” Dr Xie said.

The technology looks really good. Lets hope the commercial scale up works out and the natural greed leads to massive licensing in the high volume production route to wealth.

The devices will come in two models. One is 1.5mm thick and has an instantaneous maximum allowable voltage of 2.7V, and the other is 3.0mm thick and has an instantaneous maximum allowable voltage of 5.5V.

Electric double layer energy devices store electricity by using only physical adsorption of ions on the surface of activated carbon without any chemical reactions. Unlike normal rechargeable batteries, they can semi permanently charge and discharge electricity at high speeds. In non-science terms, this new devices are able to catch the electric ions due to physical absorption instead of chemical reactions as occurs in regular batteries.  The new device is able to charge much quicker, and has a wider range of output power, enabling them to be used on short-time peak capacity.

Murata's New Double Layer Energy Storage Device

Murata developed the new electric double layer energy storage device by utilizing a technology developed by CAP-XX Ltd, an Australia-based firm.  The two companies formed a business partnership in 2008.  Murata’s developments enabled charging and discharging with a wide range of output power over a wide temperature range by optimizing the device’s electrochemical system including its electrode structure.

The device has an inherent advantage in short time peaking power delivery.  Using a large mass storage such as a battery the device can deliver very high peak current for brief periods protecting the battery.  The reduced battery load and high output offers designers a new power service design.

Murata is currently producing the device at a rate of several hundred thousand units per month and is planning to establish a production system with a capacity of one million units per month by 2012. It looks like the firm has a lot of confidence in the market acceptance of the devices.  The sample of the device pricing is at about $3.9US (approx. ¥300) for the 2.7V model and $6.75US (approx. ¥500) for the 5.5V model.

Murata just let the news out and will show the device at CEATEC Japan 2011 on October 4th to 8th.

What’s missing at this early news point is discussion of capacity or energy by size or weight.  An electrochemical double layer device is very close to being a capacitor and is thought of as an electrochemical capacitor with relatively high energy density.  Their energy density is typically hundreds of times greater than conventional electrolytic capacitors. They also have a much higher power density than batteries or fuel cells.

Real world use is going to reveal a lot about the performance.  From the photos its clear the early production is going to be dedicated to small units.  How the devices might compare to a alkaline battery isn’t known – but the prices quoted are already competitive.  If the capacity is there, they recharge quickly, easily and will little or no degradation, Murata may have a major hit on its hands. And that new flashlight will be a huge improvement!

Clemson University and Georgia Institute of Technology scientists are reporting in Science Express, a refinement of alginate is a promising new binder material for lithium-ion battery electrodes that not only could boost energy storage, but also eliminate the use of toxic compounds now used to manufacture the components.  In tests so far, it has helped boost energy storage and output for both graphite-based electrodes used in existing batteries and silicon-based electrodes being developed for future generations of batteries.

Alginate with Silicon Structure. Click image for the largest view. See Science Express paper for full details.

Gleb Yushin, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering starts the explanation, “Making less-expensive batteries that can store more energy and last longer with the help of alginate could provide a large and long-lasting impact on the community. These batteries could contribute to building a more energy-efficient economy with extended-range electric cars, as well as cell phones and notebook computers that run longer on battery power — all with environmentally friendly manufacturing technologies.”

Working together with Igor Luzinov at Clemson University’s School of Materials Science and Engineering, the scientists looked at ways to improve binder materials in batteries. The binder is a critical component that suspends the silicon or graphite particles that actively interact with the electrolyte that provides battery power.

Luzinov picks up the explanation, “We specifically looked at materials that had evolved in natural systems, such as aquatic plants which grow in saltwater with a high concentration of ions. Since electrodes in batteries are immersed in a liquid electrolyte, we felt that aquatic plants – in particular, plants growing in such an aggressive environment as saltwater – would be excellent candidates for natural binders.”  Seems obvious now that the explanation is at hand, still its top of the line situational assessment.

Alginates are low-cost materials already used in foods, pharmaceutical products, paper and other applications. They are attractive because of their uniformly distributed carboxylic groups.  This may provide an answer to the silicon anode theoretically offering as much as a tenfold capacity improvement over graphite anodes.

When batteries begin operating, decomposition of the lithium-ion electrolyte forms a solid electrolyte interface on the surface of the anode. The interface must be stable and allow lithium ions to pass through it, yet restrict the flow of fresh electrolyte.

With graphite particles, whose volume does not change, the interface remains stable. However, because the volume of silicon nanoparticles changes during operation of the battery, interface cracks can form and allow additional electrolyte decomposition until the pores that allow the ion flow become clogged, causing battery failure. Alginate not only binds silicon nanoparticles to each other and to the metal foil of the anode, but they also coat the silicon nanoparticles themselves and provide a strong support for the interface, preventing degradation.  Eureka!

SEM Alginate Binder and Silicon Electrode. Click image for the largest view. See Science Express paper for full details.

Thus far, the researchers have demonstrated that the alginate can produce battery anodes with reversible capacity eight times greater than that of today’s best graphite electrodes. The anode also demonstrates a coulombic efficiency approaching 100% and has been operated through more than 1,000 charge-discharge cycles without failure.  Eureka, indeed.

Luzinov sums up, “Brown algae is rich in alginates and is one of the fastest-growing plants on the planet. This is a case in which we found all the necessary attributes in one place: a material that not only will improve battery performance, but also is relatively fast and inexpensive to produce and is considerably more safe than the some of the materials that are being used now.”

If the silicon anode construction matter is resolved for a very long life and a huge capacity increase – lots of other ideas can get new better footing, too.  Time to try scaling up and further operating condition testing.  Looking good.

KIT's Promo Image for the "Research Factory"

Similar to other publicly funded big research facilities, such as accelerators and clean-room laboratories, the “research factory” will be opened to all partners from industry and research and, thus, contribute to a rapid and wide dissemination of new technologies in Germany.

Project head Andreas Gutsch explains the school’s positioning, “It (battery and power train technology) is no longer focused on studying individual molecules or components, but on developing solutions on the system level, which meet industrial requirements.”

The schools is building up a position called “Competence E” an umbrella project at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where 250 scientists from 25 institutes cooperate in an interdisciplinary manner in order to commercialize innovations from research.

“It is a central objective of Competence E to rapidly commercialize innovations from Karlsruhe.” said Gutsch. Apart from teaching and research, innovation is one of the three pillars of KIT. “We are actively approaching industry and will even intensify these efforts. We are conducting excellent research for application, not for the drawer.”

Under the Competence E project at KIT, about 150 new positions are to be filled by engineers. The first 50 engineers have be employed in 2012. In an extra-occupational qualification program at KIT, they will be trained to become specialists in the field of electromobility. Applications for the positions will be offered in Germany and Spain.

KIT’s already has a long list of developments: Nanomaterials based on iron-carbon now have twice the specific capacity compared to conventional batteries. A new process reduces the filling time of batteries with electrolytes to one tenth. The corresponding patent has been applied for. Modular battery and power train concepts will allow for a massive cost reduction in mass production.

“To make use of the large innovation potential resulting from the high number of partial improvements, we will consistently pursue further development on the system level,“ explains Gutsch. That’s the purpose of the newly minted “research factory” being planned at KIT. That way the gap in the chain of innovation and added value between research and industry will be closed by the construction of demonstrators and prototype fabrication lines for novel batteries and electric motors based on KIT’s know-how.

A “research factory” is certainly a grand idea and may prove to be highly practical and beneficial to the businesses up close and able to participate.  Just how the intellectual property osmosis and rights will be managed promises to be quite a challenge – but the school is in Germany – not in the heavily lawyered up U.S.  It could work really well.

If the “research factory” does light off some commerce one could fairly expect the idea to spread.  Depending on the location and the views of the culture to developing technology the idea may have quite a long reach.

It will be a good thing to coalesce information and redistribute it as education and training. The challenge might turn out to be just keeping up.  Good luck to the folks at KIT.  Keep those press releases coming.