Batteries and New Battery Technologies

Hi there, I found an interesting piece of information I like to share from TRU Group Inc.


** Problems with Conventional Lithium Batteries**

- conventional Li-ion cells are a zero tolerance technology -

Li-Fiber batteries will also replace conventional Li-Ion rechargeable and other batteries because all of the weaknesses of these batteries are resolved with the new technology. The current need is filled with Pb-acid batteries for automobile starting-lighting-ignition, Ni-Cd and Ni-MH batteries for aerospace and military, and Ni-MH and lithium-ion batteries for portable electronics applications such as laptop computers. The main problem with the present lithium-ion batteries is their safety and related capacity restraints. Ninety per cent of the material cost for Li-ion cells is associated with five cell components – overcharge / over-discharge protection circuit, cathode (LiCoO2 or LiNiCoO2) and anode (MCMB carbon) materials, electrolyte (LiPF6), and separator. The need for over-charge / over-discharge protection circuits or devices contributes significantly to the cost of lithium-ion batteries. The conventional Li-ion battery operates within voltage limits of 3.0-4.2 V per cell beyond which either performance deteriorates and / or safety incidents such as explosion or fire occurs- battery consultants LiTech anode graphite fiber anode cathode safety explosion heat up Bon Yann Liaw Menahem Anderman Battery Consultant

The present conventional lithium-ion battery is an almost zero tolerance technology - hence the need for protection circuits. The higher the cell capacity requirement the more serious the problem. For high capacity multi-cell high voltage batteries, for example, 10 Ah, 200 V for hybrid electric vehicles, inherently safe battery chemistry is essential but cannot be met with conventional Li-Ion cells. Protection circuitry is usually designed into any lithium ion battery pack to prevent the cells in the battery from over charge and over discharge conditions and high currents or short circuits. Some circuitry goes further than the standard parameters and guards against high temperature charge and discharge, as well as high charge rates at low temperatures. The circuit usually consists of a protection IC, several FET devices, and sense resistors. These circuits add cost and space to the battery pack requirements and careful placement is required in physical layouts. The active circuits in lithium ion batteries continually draw power causing the battery to constantly discharge slowly, although usually in the micro amp current range.

Overdischarge
v
Copper Disollution
v
Cell Fails


Overcharge (What I did by reversing a cell)
v
High Heat
v
Explosion/Fire : quoted by TRU Group Inc.


This is an increasing issue in laptop batteries as laptops require more energy capacity to operate. The Li-Fiber battery does not overheat even in high energy capacity applications and requires no significant electronic protection circuit or heat management. It is also cheaper to manufacture than conventional Li-ion cells.

It would be interesting to know who is selling and manufacturing Li Fiber batteries.
BertKu

 

Sea water batteries

Some 5 years ago the Norwegians developed a seawater battery. I totally forgot about them . I had a look what is new with respect to those batteries and have a look yourself at (please copy and paste)

http://www.freeenergy.ca/news/123/ARTICLE/1506/2009-01-29.html

What do you need more? You have 5 oceans at your boat doorsteps.

BertKu

 

Seawater batteries have been around a heck of a lot longer than 5 years. I worked on torpedoes that used high energy seawater batteries 30 plus years ago and the technology was very old then.

I'm pretty sure that seawater batteries were in common use back in WWII; they were (maybe still are) commonly used to power rescue beacon lights on aircrew life jackets and life rafts.

The problem with the commonest chemistry is that they are primary cells, that use a pretty reactive metal as one electrode (magnesium). The other problem is with the cost of the other electrode, as it's often silver chloride. I once stripped a used small torpedo battery (from a 1960's US-made Mk44) and obtained around $2000 scrap value from the silver chloride plates. This was back in the late 70's.

Jeremy

 

When I was in the air force in the early 60's, there was such a rescue beacon in every pilot's survival pack.
The seawater is just the electrolyte that is available when you went down over water. On land you could pee in the beacon to get it operating, but to call this a urine operated battery is just as wrong as a sea water one.

 

Hi Jeremy and CDK, nice to see you back on batteries again. I only discovered this some 5 years ago and like with Super Capacitors and Siemens, I thought maybe the Americans had a new brain wave and came up with a new idee, which I very welcome. What a pity, Sorry false alarm.

However what do you know about Li-Fiber battery, is that a posibble future solution?

BertKu

 

Don't see how they give patents on this stuff, doesn't it go back to the Egyptians' clay pot devices?

The very high cost has limited these "semi" fuel cell devices to small niche uses, with the most successful probably being the ubiquitous alkaline cell. The most promising type for large scale would appear be the zinc air type:
http://www.electric-fuel.com/evtech/index.shtml

One additional point to consider for large scale use is introducing pollution into sea water as the electrodes dissolve.

Lithium fiber might be vapor ware. Most references seemed to lead back to Li phosphate...

Porta

 

see water works great
Ive read a lot of experiments with a simple cable suspended vertically through the water column
length of the cable determines the current
longer the better

I think this guys whole point is that carbon graphite and nickel Zink are common and although Ive not tried to buy either lately it seems they wouldn't be that expensive

certainly not as pricey as magnesium

Hey Jeremy
can you describe the torpedo batteries and there power output or is that something you should not be talking about

cheers
B

 

Magnesium is not a pricey metal. It's cheaper than nickel, and probably almost as cheap as zinc.

 

If the suspended cable is made of an active metal that reacts with water, that would make sense about the current due to increase in surface area dissolving. The cost for any of these active metal fuel cells would be much higher than even the simplest RECHARGABLE system due to cost of replacing consumed electrodes. You only replace the electric watt hour capacity itself in a rechargable battery at 12 cents per KWH from the grid in my area.

Hope this helps.

Porta

 

if I remember it was just a basic insulated piece of copper wire suspended in the water column
I read several articles ten or more years ago maybe even longer
Im trying to look it them but its so far eluding me

I think that although it produced some electricity it didnt produce much

 

6 cents for residential here in British Columbia, 3 cents for commercial users.

The cost for generating power on-board is probably much higher.

 

Hey, 6 cents is really low but if that is Canadian, would have to allow for the exchange rate to $US. Do they allow you to run electric meters backward when you generate your own power, like some parts of US? Seems like you could make money by buying at the commercial 3 cents rate and running power back to residential users who would be credited at the 6 cent rate....

Porta

 

The commercial rate is for users that buy it at the high voltage level, probably 25kV and higher, and provide their own step down transformers. In theory you could run a cable from a business and use a tap changing transformer to feed the power back to the grid.

 

Yes, you can have 3$ cents for 1Kwh. (according to this report!)

Jeremy and CDK, if you don't have a seawater battery for me and EEstor is also not delivering, maybe I have to wait for Ceramatec's solid sodium the size of a fridge and giving me 20Kwh. Two of them will give me enough energy to have a normal constructed boat move around for 8 hours. The weight I save on the weight of the engines I can now spent on 2 of those fridge size 20Kwh batteries. Some extra solarpanels and some windenergy will make me go even further.

Inside Ceramatec's wonder battery is a chunk of solid sodium metal mated to a sulphur compound by an extraordinary, paper-thin ceramic membrane. The membrane conducts ions -- electrically charged particles -- back and forth to generate a current. The company calculates that the battery will cram 20 to 40 kilowatt hours of energy into a package about the size of a refrigerator, and operate below 90 degrees C.

This may not startle you, but it should. It's amazing. The most energy-dense batteries available today are huge bottles of super-hot molten sodium, swirling around at 600 degrees or so. At that temperature the material is highly conductive of electricity but it's both toxic and corrosive. You wouldn't want your kids around one of these.

The essence of Ceramatec's breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of juice) can be achieved safely at normal temperatures and with solid components, not hot liquid.

Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years. With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery's life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour.

Re-read that last paragraph and let the information really sink in. Five kilowatts over four hours -- how much is that? Imagine your trash compactor, food processor, vacuum cleaner, stereo, sewing machine, one surface unit of an electric range and thirty-three 60-watt light bulbs all running nonstop for four hours each day before the house battery runs out. That's a pretty exciting place to live.

And then you recharge. With a projected 3,650 discharge/recharge cycles -- one per day for a decade -- you leave the next-best battery in the dust. Deep-cycling lead/acid batteries like the ones used in RVs are only good for a few hundred cycles, so they're kaput in a year or so.

Article copied from the Web

My comment is: If I am in Beira, Mozambique and I have to pay 2 Euro for one Kwh to re-charge the battery, the calculation of 3$c by that company is not very well thought through. But I feel we making progress, just getting hold of a battery which can deliver 40 KWh is my problem. Far too many promisses and too little sales.

BertKu

 

Though chunks of solid sodium are safer than 600 degree molten sodium, this is not safe by any means. Solid sodium bursts into flame upon contact with air, moisture or many common materials, and you will have complications keeping the system at 90 degrees. Solid lithium is only slightly less reactive, but is not used in chunks within the common Li battery, so Li is considerably safer, though certainly not without its hazards. Internet information is not subject to review like is required in professional journals. Best to be skeptical of any claimed breakthroughts in supercaps, batteries, etc. until the products are in sales and have been INDEPENDENTLY tested for verification.

Porta