Try two.
On 2/8/07, Jones Beene <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Terry Blanton wrote:
> Sorry, sent this to the wrong list. Jones had posted this here some
time ago.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18086/page1/
Not to worry - as this PR release is a most important development for
all of "alternative energy" (esp. wind and solar) and provides a good
segue to a reposting of other valuable prior insight on the bettery ;-).
The first ref. below was sent to me by Colin Q. on another subject. Also
Robin had posted similar references. For future use, it might be helpful
to get it all of this "bettery" stuff together in one longer posting.
The dielectric post (boron nitride - BN)
http://fusor.net/board/download_thread.php?site=fusor&bn=fusor_hvpower&thread=1122956914
A couple of other references (from RvS):
http://www.advceramics.com/geac/products/pyrolytic_bn/
This advceramics site (which is also the one mentioned in the Fusor
thread) claims that Pyrolitic Boron Nitride has the highest dielectric
strength known, which is 200 kV/mm which equates to 2 MV/cm (200 MV/m).
Yet this is lower than EEStor are claiming for Barium Titanate.
No doubt the good folks at GE (who competitors refer-to as corporate
Nazis) are already getting their competitive act together against EEStor.
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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TX0-49N98HJ-V&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2004&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e20c7d9777c4a9257ddf5733c5ee4900
This one claims a "good" dielectric strength for sintered Barium
Titanate with deliberate impurities of 65 kV/cm (6.5 MV/m).
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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TW0-44JDBYS-3N&_user=10&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F2001&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=6ca5ce5ed69bd6a08b50436cb92ee598
While not directly related to Barium Titanate, this one claims strengths
up to 16.7 MV/m (not cm) for some thin coatings specifically made to be
non-porous.
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http://news.thomasnet.com/news/1305 This appears to be from the
Thomas registry, and has a mixture of products/manufacturers with
dielectric strengths maxing out at about 400 V/mil = 15.7 MV/m (not cm).
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http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_e/latest_research/2004/20041019_3/20041019_3.html
This once claims 150-300 kV/mm of greater (300 MV/m) for Alumina films.
BTW the cold AD process may be of use to EEStor.
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Commentary (and guess-work)
EESTor is apparently pursuing a special nano-version of Barium Titanate
in an ultracap. That is what they want you to believe. AS mentioned many
times, I have reason to believe that there is something special about
barium (induced radioactivity), which as of now, is little more than a
'gut-feeling' (based on the wide range of energy anomalies in the
literature on Ba devices) instead of a solid scientific belief. It
appears that few Vorts share this belief regarding Barium.
According to the Fusor thread, the material made by GE and others and is
supposed to have the "highest dielectric strength known" which they cite
being 200,000 volts / mm. and it would offer a solid alternative to
Barium IF there is nothing special in one of the barium istotpes.
Pyrolytic Boron Nitride (PBN) is probably a cheaper to produce
high-temperature ceramic which exhibits a unique combination of high
electrical resistance and thermal conductivity.
But as mentioned before, the dielectric itself may be less important
than the integrated Batt-Cap "system" or synergistic design. This is a
feature that seems to have been missed by almost every other observer of
EEStor. The ultracap approach, by itself may not be enough to understand
the situation. This is just an educated guess.
To recap (pun intended) the prior postings on the better-battery
technology: The main point is the "systems" approach (beyond caps only):
Ultracapacitors will help - but are probably only "half" the long-term
answer to the bettery ... in that there is an under-appreciated synergy
between the capacitor and battery - the so-called batt-cap. This is more
than semantics - and more than 'just' a combination of two different and
distinct electrical parts. You have to merge the two in the design
process itself to get the synergy.
The idea is that there is a "cap layer" (thin and planar) which
carries/stores the negative charge while the electrochemical ions of the
battery-side are the modality to carry/store the positive charge. Sounds
simple to say, but it is not so simple to pull-off. The logic is that
positive ions move slowly and electrons move rapidly, so why not tailor
the storage device for the advantage of both?
The result is somewhere in between either device, but it does require an
electrolyte, unlike the cap (electrolytic caps blur this distinction).
The way that you can merge the two dissimilarities is to go with many
thin flat layers and use use a solid electrolyte, rather than the
so-called "jelly-roll" of electrolytic caps. Ceramics do not "roll-up"
very easily, for one thing.
Many people who have analyzed the EEStor patent may have missed this key
point about the possibility of the batt-cap (mainly because the patent
is artfully written to throw out a number of red herrings).
Everyone on the cutting edge of batteries these days seems to be
throwing out false-leads ... why? for one thing - basically, all of the
important patents expired years ago (or are about to expire now).
Now we are down to "improvements" disguised as breakthroughs. Usually
this merely involves throwing in the prefix "nano". Oops. Better not be
so cynical in print, as you never know which side might want to call you
as an expert witness in the patent infringement lawsuits which are sure
to clog-up the courts as soon as someone starts making money on this <g>.
There is a good argument that lithium, as a charge carrier, is far
from ideal despite its light weight and low IP - even if it were cheap.
And it is very expensive. And very dangerous. Witness the past decades
of Li battery explosions. LENR-related, perhaps?? Even the present
demand for small batteries for computers and cell-phones has pushed the
price of large capacity lithium way too high for practical automobile
transportation. Dead-in-water, IMHO.
Plus lithium has a molecular weight of 7 and only one redox state while
carbon, which is a thousand times cheaper(literally) as a commodity
item, and has a molecular weight of 12 - less than double but triple the
number of *usable* oxidation or reduction states (all four are not
usable). Less voltage, same or less weight, but hundreds of times better
"value" (performance per dollar of cost)
All in all, for the goal of "charge-retention per unit weight and cost,"
on the negative side, carbon is preferable to any other material,
especially for only the negative charge carrier in a bifurcated system.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/batteries-0208.html
In terms of cost/weight per stored charge - for the positive side, there
is a good case of sodium... which is also low density, cheap, ubiquitous
supply, less reactive than lithium, and - best of all ! - there is
available a well-engineered technology based(courtesy of FMC forty years
ago) but the largely ignored solid electrolyte - beta alumina is seldom
mentioned anymore (as it is in the public domain):
http://scienceservice.si.edu/001023.htm
This concept of sodium used with a solid electrolyte is almost always
mentioned in the context of NAS - or sodium sulfur, but I have wondered
for a long time why this could not broadened and merged into the bat-cap
category. One wonders if EEStor has not made a better solid electrolyte
using BaTi.
In design, the two positive surfaces of the thin (sandwiched planar) cap
(the negative terminal) substitute for the sulfur of the NAS, drawing
sodium ions physically through the solid electrolyte on charging. This
might require some kind of bellows type expansion mechanism between the
layers. If the negative charge carrier is a layer of activated carbon
(as in the MIT patent) then in effect you have cut the cost and weight
of the NAS in half from the start. Before that - it was already in the
same weight per charge category as lithium - at a tenth the cost but
with one major drawback - which has kept it from use as a small battery
(and out of mass production).
The problem remains that beta alumina needs to be "warm" (450 K) to
conduct sodium ions, and even though this situation has been remedied by
a few hundred degrees since Ford gave up on the project, there are
practical solutions. (hint: you always have plenty of waste heat with a
hybrid).
It could very well end up being the case that what EEStor has
accomplished (and is trying to carefully hide) is that they have used
Barium Titanate with its extraordinary dielectric strength to either
improve on a solid electrolyte or to insulate either polarity (perhaps
not for Na as the charge carrier, but that is not known).
I got an inkling description of a prototype NAS battery setup recently,
which is being researched by a major University (to remain nameless)
which will blow the socks off of anything currently available for
battery power except EEStor, including lithium and hydrides. It is
probably in the same range of value as EEStor, but without all the
hocus-pocus and deceptive press releases.
This WILL happen in the next few years (the advent of the bettery-age of
hybrids) but - sadly because of lack of R&D cooperation and the
free-market forces involved - there is little cross-fermentation of ideas.
Anything on the cutting edge today (in at least a dozen labs) can
probably be easily improved-on if they all were to share technology...
but then we have the problem of jealously-guarded IP (intellectual
property, not ionization potential).
Caveat: This in the opinion of an outsider (well-known for having
off-beat opinions) who does not own any stock in any battery company
(but would like to have some EEStor shares, regardless of the fact that
they may have been carefully deceptive by omitting a few important
things in their PR releases). Also, it might be wise to short-sell the
shares of A123 (and their dinosaur-patrons: GM)
Jones
