New battery design could give electric vehicles a jolt

[SpartanDem]

radically new approach to the design of batteries, developed by researchers at MIT, could provide a lightweight and inexpensive alternative to existing batteries for electric vehicles and the power grid. The technology could even make “refueling” such batteries as quick and easy as pumping gas into a conventional car.

The new battery relies on an innovative architecture called a semi-solid flow cell, in which solid particles are suspended in a carrier liquid and pumped through the system. In this design, the battery’s active components — the positive and negative electrodes, or cathodes and anodes — are composed of particles suspended in a liquid electrolyte. These two different suspensions are pumped through systems separated by a filter, such as a thin porous membrane.

The work was carried out by Mihai Duduta ’10 and graduate student Bryan Ho, under the leadership of professors of materials science W. Craig Carter and Yet-Ming Chiang. It is described in a paper published May 20 in the journal Advanced Energy Materials. The paper was co-authored by visiting research scientist Pimpa Limthongkul ’02, postdoc Vanessa Wood ’10 and graduate student Victor Brunini ’08.

One important characteristic of the new design is that it separates the two functions of the battery — storing energy until it is needed, and discharging that energy when it needs to be used — into separate physical structures. (In conventional batteries, the storage and discharge both take place in the same structure.) Separating these functions means that batteries can be designed more efficiently, Chiang says.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/flow-batteries-0606.html

[lonestarnot]

1. Git it MIT! Put those fucking oilers out of business.

[backscatter712]

2. This is cool technology! Makes electric cars much more viable for road-trips and ski-trips.

Pump out the drained fluid, pump in charged fluid, so now you can "fuel up" when making long road trips!

It's also convenient when you're doing something like driving up to the mountains for camping or skiing - the steep grades are murder on electric car batteries, and reduce their range. If gas-stations along the way will let you swap out electrolyte like this, that makes electric cars much more usable in those places.

[TheMadMonk]

4. This seems to be a variation on the Redox Flow battery.

Something which has been touted for years as a solution to the recharge time problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery

The devil is in the detail.

And in this case, it's all the juicy little details beyond the excerpted paragraphs. If these boffins can deliver even 1/2 of what they're offering, they're onto a damned good thing.

[Distant Observer]

6. comment moved to below

[GReedDiamond]

3. I have an electric scooter...

...actually, it is legally classified as an "electric bicycle."

Because of that, it does not require a license to operate, it need not be registered with the DMV, and there is no need for insurance (although I have the same comprehensive coverage on it as I have on my car).

The main problems with it are: its top speed is only 25MPH (maybe 30 downhill), the range on a battery charge is 20-30 miles, and the length of time to charge is 4-5 hours, it seems.

If I could get at least 50% more range on a charge, and if it charged in an hour or less, I could use it to go as far away as my primary business client, and I would literally save around $300/month on gas (minus the 8.5 cents it now costs to fully charge the battery - if I charged it twice a day for 30 or 31 days, it would cost $5.10-5.27/month).

Until then, I can only use it for local errands.

[Warpy]

5. Carbon nanotube batteries also had a fast recharge time

I'm glad they're finally tackling batteries. That technology hasn't seen a hell of a lot of improvement in decades.

[krispos42]

7. Mihai Duduta, Bryan Ho, W. Craig Carter, and Yet-Ming Chaing...

...had better avoid any small planes for the next couple of years.

Pimpa Limthongkul, Vanessa Wood, and Victor Brunini might want to stick to commercial as well.

[Distant Observer]

8. Real technology, but the JOLT would be the energy and transport industries. A NASA scientist

(retired)was funded to work in China some 5 years ago on am implementation to power large vehicles. This technology is potentially highly disruptive to the current transportation and energy industry and the scary thing is that it actually real.

It does not provide more power to batteries, but changes the entire approach to large-scale energy production, storage and delivery.

Plan of the group in China was to demonstrate it at the Olympic games. Project came to a standstill for business reasons rather than technical. Tens of millions in start-up capital is required and hundreds of millions to succeed (unlike in the software venture space)..

The MIT implementation may have solved some of the technical implementation challenges.

But even if it has, there are huge commercial hurdles (i.e. global companies that will kill to stop you, and financiers that do not want to take huge risk in such an environment) for deployment in the US.

They may have to go to China to get full backing for large-scale implementation.

[TheWraith]

9. Nice, but I've seen too many new "breakthroughs" to cheer just yet.

A few years ago, we were talking about lithium ion batteries with capacities of ten times what they were then, available in a couple years. Not to mention dozens of super efficient solar cells, cures for cancer or AIDS, etcetera. It's easy for these "revolutionary" breakthroughs to not be quite ready for the real world.

[jimlup]

10. So pump out the discharged fluid - pump in the charged stuff...

Makes good sense to me. Why didn't I think of that?