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R_Colin_Johnson
Yes, there will be two tanks. One for new fuel and one for spent fuel, which ...
Tunrayo
Car battery in a bottle aims to obsolete gasoline
R Colin Johnson
7/19/2011 10:40 AM EDT
Semi-solid flow cells aim to replace the gas-guzzling internal combustion engine with electric motors driven by pumpable fuels that bear electrons as their active elements.
Electronics has already transformed society. By harnessing electricity to perform the operations that were once performed manually, computers have made obsolete legions of mechanical devices, from adding machines to carburetors. Now electronics is poised to replace the gas-guzzling internal combustion engine with electric motors driven by pumpable fuels that bear electrons as their active elements.
Indeed, if an ambitious startup with MIT roots and DOE funding has its way, within five years you may see a new pump, labeled Cambridge Crude, appear next to those for the lead-free and diesel at your local service station.
Ever since Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the electrochemical cell in 1792, voltage per cell has been restricted by the chemical reaction. The typical limit for the vast majority of battery chemistries is 1.5 volts; modern lithium-ion batteries achieve 3.6 V per cell, albeit at a trade-off of a much higher cost per kilowatt-hour.
The term battery predates even Volta’s work. It was coined by Benjamin Franklin, who in 1748 used Leyden jars to capture electrons discharged during lightning storms, yielding what were effectively the first manmade capacitors. Franklin came up with the idea of wiring individual cells in series to vault the voltage-per-cell barrier. Volta subsequently wired his own electrochemical cells into series, which he called piles. Unfortunately, this description of common battery structures is as true today as it was in the 19th century; wiring cells in series remains the only way to boost voltage, at the cost of limiting the battery’s overall reliability to that of its weakest cell.
Though the battery landscape hasn’t changed much in 200 years, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. Since 2009, the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (Arpa-E) has averaged more than $350 million in funding per year for investments in hundreds of three-year projects. Experiments thus abound to improve battery technology, but none has yet achieved energy densities anywhere near the $50/kWh cost point that would permit widespread commercialization.
In its report for fiscal year 2010, Arpa-E indicates that one of the biggest awards was for a $7.2 million effort at EaglePicher Technologies LLC (Joplin, Mo.), in cooperation with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, to develop a planar version of the tubular high-temperature sodium beta battery that would increase that battery technology’s reliability and lower its currently high cost for large-scale grid storage applications.
The second biggest award, $6.9 million, was for another grid-battery project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Called Electroville, the liquid battery technology is designed to buffer usage fluctuations in neighborhoods, much as a bypass capacitor does for printed-circuit boards.
Arizona State University (Tempe), meanwhile, has a $5 million Arpa-E-funded project under way to perfect metal-air ionic liquid batteries that substitute earth-abundant materials for the rare lithium used in hybrid vehicles today, with a promise to increase the range of electric vehicles to almost 1,000 miles while potentially decreasing the cost compared with those incurred by today’s grid-recharged vehicles.
Two other Arpa-E-funded efforts are aimed at improving the performance and lowering the cost of today’s state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries. A $4 million project at Envia Systems (Hayward, Calif.) aims to increase the energy density of Li-ion from 150 Wh/kg to more than 400 Wh/kg through the use of nanopatterned silicon-carbon electrodes. And a nearly $2 million project at Inorganic Specialists Inc. (Miamisburg, Ohio) is developing silicon-coated carbon nanofiber paper material that promises to boost the storage capacity of Li-on batteries fourfold.
None of these efforts, however, hold a candle to the promise of Cambridge Crude, a $2.5 million Arpa-E funded effort at 24M Technologies Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) to perfect a battery technology for all-electric vehicles that would turn electrons into a fuel that could be pumped like diesel or gas. The ultimate aim is to render gasoline obsolete.
Next: Why now?
Electronics has already transformed society. By harnessing electricity to perform the operations that were once performed manually, computers have made obsolete legions of mechanical devices, from adding machines to carburetors. Now electronics is poised to replace the gas-guzzling internal combustion engine with electric motors driven by pumpable fuels that bear electrons as their active elements.
Indeed, if an ambitious startup with MIT roots and DOE funding has its way, within five years you may see a new pump, labeled Cambridge Crude, appear next to those for the lead-free and diesel at your local service station.
 |
| Cambridge Crude (in bottle) is a liquid electrolyte that flows through a reactor, where a copper electrode (top) and an aluminum electrode (bottom) extract electrons to power an electric motor or any other dc load. The reactor draws the electrons as they blow through its center. The nanoscale carbon particles in the liquid complete the circuit between the Cu and Al collectors. SOURCE: MIT |
Ever since Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the electrochemical cell in 1792, voltage per cell has been restricted by the chemical reaction. The typical limit for the vast majority of battery chemistries is 1.5 volts; modern lithium-ion batteries achieve 3.6 V per cell, albeit at a trade-off of a much higher cost per kilowatt-hour.
The term battery predates even Volta’s work. It was coined by Benjamin Franklin, who in 1748 used Leyden jars to capture electrons discharged during lightning storms, yielding what were effectively the first manmade capacitors. Franklin came up with the idea of wiring individual cells in series to vault the voltage-per-cell barrier. Volta subsequently wired his own electrochemical cells into series, which he called piles. Unfortunately, this description of common battery structures is as true today as it was in the 19th century; wiring cells in series remains the only way to boost voltage, at the cost of limiting the battery’s overall reliability to that of its weakest cell.
Though the battery landscape hasn’t changed much in 200 years, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. Since 2009, the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (Arpa-E) has averaged more than $350 million in funding per year for investments in hundreds of three-year projects. Experiments thus abound to improve battery technology, but none has yet achieved energy densities anywhere near the $50/kWh cost point that would permit widespread commercialization.
In its report for fiscal year 2010, Arpa-E indicates that one of the biggest awards was for a $7.2 million effort at EaglePicher Technologies LLC (Joplin, Mo.), in cooperation with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, to develop a planar version of the tubular high-temperature sodium beta battery that would increase that battery technology’s reliability and lower its currently high cost for large-scale grid storage applications.
The second biggest award, $6.9 million, was for another grid-battery project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Called Electroville, the liquid battery technology is designed to buffer usage fluctuations in neighborhoods, much as a bypass capacitor does for printed-circuit boards.
Arizona State University (Tempe), meanwhile, has a $5 million Arpa-E-funded project under way to perfect metal-air ionic liquid batteries that substitute earth-abundant materials for the rare lithium used in hybrid vehicles today, with a promise to increase the range of electric vehicles to almost 1,000 miles while potentially decreasing the cost compared with those incurred by today’s grid-recharged vehicles.
Two other Arpa-E-funded efforts are aimed at improving the performance and lowering the cost of today’s state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries. A $4 million project at Envia Systems (Hayward, Calif.) aims to increase the energy density of Li-ion from 150 Wh/kg to more than 400 Wh/kg through the use of nanopatterned silicon-carbon electrodes. And a nearly $2 million project at Inorganic Specialists Inc. (Miamisburg, Ohio) is developing silicon-coated carbon nanofiber paper material that promises to boost the storage capacity of Li-on batteries fourfold.
None of these efforts, however, hold a candle to the promise of Cambridge Crude, a $2.5 million Arpa-E funded effort at 24M Technologies Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) to perfect a battery technology for all-electric vehicles that would turn electrons into a fuel that could be pumped like diesel or gas. The ultimate aim is to render gasoline obsolete.
Next: Why now?
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DrQuine
7/19/2011 11:07 AM EDT
An exciting new concept. What is the chemical nature of the "spent fuel"? Can it be regenerated by the manufacturer into new fuel? Would it be necessary to attach a drain to the car to capture the spent fuel when the car was being refilled with liquid battery fuel? It sounds like a new recycling logistics chain would be required.
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PJames
7/19/2011 10:39 PM EDT
If this technology works like other flow batteries, the "fuel" could simply be recharged at each filling station. The station would have two huge tanks, one to which the spent "fuel" would be pumped. Then it would run through a larger version of the cell in the car, but used to charge rather than discharge, and pumped into the charged fuel storage tank to be dispensed to other cars.
Wonder how toxic the stuff would be when released in an auto accident.
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cdhmanning
7/19/2011 11:03 PM EDT
New? Breakthrough? VC blaah!
Pumpable liquid batteries have been around for a while:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery
When you pump in new "fuel" you pump out the depleted "fuel" and that can be recharged onsite (obviously needing electricity).
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wilber_xbox
7/27/2011 7:31 AM EDT
anyway sound interesting and new to me. most of the technological breakthrough are old only the implementation at the affordable rate is difficult.
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R_Colin_Johnson
8/10/2011 12:35 PM EDT
Yes, there will be two tanks. One for new fuel and one for spent fuel, which will be recharged and pumped again.
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LarryM99
7/19/2011 1:09 PM EDT
I'm not sure that I understand the emphasis on pumping the liquid. Assuming that, as @DrQuine suggests, the used stuff needs to be pumped out before the new stuff goes in then it might make more sense to have some sort of detachable container. It doesn't matter if you mix old gas and new gas in a tank, since when it is used up there is nothing left there, but I would think that you wouldn't want to mix spent fuel of this type with energized fuel. For that matter, how do you preserve the energy in a partially-spent tank?
Larry M.
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cdhmanning
7/19/2011 11:07 PM EDT
Two tanks:
spent tank and fresh tank.
When you get to a service station you dump the spent "fuel" for recharging and fill up with fresh.
Making a system that just pumps is likely a lot easier (and safer) than trying to detach and reattach 200 pound tanks.
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Sanjib.Acharya
7/20/2011 11:16 PM EDT
This is something new to me and looks interesting. How long the battery supplies power with one charge? If there is no fuel storage carrying spare electrolyte with the car, won't this be inconvenient? But then again, I can't think of a way to supply power to run the pumps when the battery is drained out of power. I’m not yet convinced that this could be a replacement for gasoline. But definitely a novel idea.
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Gordon.Apple
7/22/2011 4:55 PM EDT
Sounds like four tanks to me. New and old fluid for two different types of fluid.
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cdhmanning
7/26/2011 9:05 PM EDT
Correct. There are two electrolytes, therefore 4 tanks.
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ost
7/20/2011 5:03 AM EDT
An even more practical solution to this problem would be an invention that reversed the fuel combustion we know today (with minor loss). It could turn any biological waste plus the carbon dioxide "we" hate into the gasoline we know.
Wonder why that is so hard..
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jeremybirch
7/21/2011 9:37 AM EDT
It is not hard, it is called photosynthesis. Unfortunately you need to get the various inputs together at the same place (sunlight, CO2, biological waste as fertilizer) and then efficiently convert the resulting plant to fuel without conflicting with any other land use or plant use.
There is simply not enough land area to do this, for instance it would take around 10 times the agricultural area of Europe to produce enough biofuel for Europe's vehicles, and we need to use that land area for growing food, fibre etc
Algae may get around this to some extent (there is a lot of ocean) but this is very much unproven, and we are putting a pretty hard strain on fish stocks etc already without any extra strain massive algae farming might cause.
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Nicholas.Lee
7/20/2011 5:37 AM EDT
I think this may be what you are wishing for...
"Using concentrated solar energy to reverse combustion, a research team from Sandia National Laboratories is building a prototype device intended to chemically re-energize carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using concentrated solar power. The carbon monoxide could then be used to make hydrogen or serve as a building block to synthesize a liquid combustible fuel, such as methanol or even gasoline, diesel and jet fuel."
https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/sunshine.html
The trick will be to make it cheaper than simply pumping natural crude-oil out of the ground!
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cdhmanning
7/20/2011 11:11 PM EDT
Converting CO2 into CO (carbon monoxide) and then using the CO to react with water to release hydrogen surely does not get rid of the CO2.
CO + H20 gives CO2 + H2
All you've done is hide the CO2 in a shell game.
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musiklab
7/20/2011 6:14 AM EDT
1 small bit made me wonder.
"the 100.000mi. life expectancy of vehicles"...
Are cars really that bad?
At a speed of 60 mph that corresponds to 1666 hours total operating time. OK,in LA traffic - 3200 hours. Is that really all it takes to keep us happy?
In electronics we routinely expect 250.000 hours mtbf.
Any machine I would want to build should last at least 10 -100 times as long and preferably be modular so only worn out or obsolete parts need replacing, like when all crude oil and other fossil energy sources are finally depleted or restricted for exclusive military and aircraft use, a viable renewable energy power train can be installed.
Hey, it could be a family heirloom, serving many generations instead of recycling through scrapyards every 5 years!
I have no personal experience with US cars, but I expect middle class VW or Mercedes mechanics to last at least 300.000mi with modest maintenance and expect their vehicle frame to reach 10-15 years before corrosion gets it- not mechanical wear. Taxi Cabs and commercial trucks may top 1 million operational miles in half that time, and still operate flawlessly.
Keep thinking. Make cars that last for several decades. Conserve oil for lubrication- not for burning!
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DF
7/27/2011 12:54 PM EDT
Agreed. I'd say that today, the expected service life of a car should be around 250,000 miles.
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stixoffire
7/20/2011 6:52 AM EDT
WHo says anything about "charging" the material - we read about the "reactor" pulling out the electrons - but that is a chemical depletion process , much like lasers deplete the chemical in a chemical laser. Anytime you are moving electrons or photons around - if they do not land back where they came from - something gets depleted.
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Luis Sanchez
7/20/2011 4:54 PM EDT
Quite interesting article. Though I think it didn't mention about the fact that oil and thus gasoline will hit peak production shortly around 2015 and after that reduce to end after the 2050 or so... we're drying our beloved earth and being the politicians aware of this that's why we can see such a big amount of money being pumped in to research projects promising a new kind of batteries.
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cdhmanning
7/24/2011 5:29 PM EDT
Research is not necessarily driven by need. It is driven by what voters want. If voters are technically illiterate then the research funding gets blown on projects which give voters the warm fuzzy feeling but are not necessarily on track to produce meaningful results.
As for "peak oil"... what is really holding back the flow of oil is OPEC controlling production to keep prices up.
Even if/when oil runs out there is a huge amount of coal that can be synthesized into oil. Coal reserves are vast: enough for hundreds of years. The Germans ans South Africans (and no doubt others) have been doing this for ages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasol
I am of course still keen that we find better energy resources, but let's please research these with a steady head. No need to panic for a few generations yet!
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Code Monkey
7/26/2011 11:27 AM EDT
There are also huge methane hydrate deposits in deep ocean, which could run Bloom fuel cells if mined and brought to the surface.
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qerqwe
7/25/2011 11:43 AM EDT
I like your comment about peak production. I will show my age, but I have heard this; Peak production is only 3-4 years away for the last 30 years. Supply and demand is critical. As long as gas is cheaper than alternative, guess which we will use.
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agk
7/21/2011 6:56 AM EDT
Flow battery: The goal of reaching 500Wh/kg is a good ratio of power to weight and automobiles will have high benefits.Similarly to reach 250kwh energy density is also a need for the electric vehicles success.The process of re energising the used electrolyte is the master key to the success of this battery
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R WOOD
7/22/2011 3:54 PM EDT
You still have to generate the electricity
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AmishEE
7/22/2011 4:51 PM EDT
Ya, but you can do that with renewable sources. Bye Bye OPEC.
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Tunrayo
8/1/2011 9:39 AM EDT
I think we are still a long way from saying bye bye to OPEC.
Besides what happens to the over a million people that depend on the various oil industries? Another financial meltdown?
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Lejaune
7/22/2011 7:08 PM EDT
At $250/KWh, they still have a long way to go. I pay less than $0.25/KWh for my home electricity, and this is what the current electric cars are running on. Another question is how many KWh it takes to produce the magic liquid that can generate a KWh.
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selinz
7/23/2011 8:12 AM EDT
It's difficult to envision "filling stations" with viscous, sludge like materials that get "exchanged." The opportunities for contamination and subsequent discontinuities in service seem overwhelming. Particularly when you compare the process to an electrical hookup. Exchanging batteries, even if they weigh 200 lbs each seems much more tractable than pumping sludge.
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Robotics Developer
7/25/2011 4:08 PM EDT
Perhaps, they could add the home charger option to the batteries and recharge the fluid at home / office? I wonder what the cost is and the lifetime (cycles of charge/discharge of the fuel)?
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cdhmanning
7/26/2011 9:04 PM EDT
You're still left with the problem of where the power comes from.
While EV is a fringe technology it is easy to have a few running about. But if 20% of cars were replaced with EVs you'd need to find a lot more electricity than is available now.
Most countries don't have surplus electrical generation and indeed many already have a shortage.
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ReneCardenas
7/25/2011 5:11 PM EDT
I hate to be so pessimistic when it comes to new energy sources, but I do not see the viability /benefit of a recharging system that requires interchange of an energy storage vessel. Would anyone feel safe with energy tanks that may present a safety hazard? The mechanism that would allow a quick interchange, would be very likely the failure mechanism during collision.
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ReneCardenas
7/29/2011 5:12 PM EDT
And not to mention the hazards of spills... scary.
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