EEStor Issued a Patent For Its Supercapacitor 603
An anonymous reader sends us to GM-volt.com, an electric vehicle enthusiast blog, for the news that last week EEStor was granted a US patent for their electric-energy storage unit, of which no one outside the company (no one who is talking, anyway) has seen so much as a working prototype. We've discussed the company on a number of occasions. The patent (PDF) is a highly information-rich document that offers remarkable insight into the device. EEStor notes "the present invention provides a unique lightweight electric-energy storage unit that has the capability to store ultrahigh amounts of energy." "The core ingredient is an aluminum coated barium titanate powder immersed in a polyethylene terephthalate plastic matrix. The EESU is composed of 31,353 of these components arranged in parallel. It is said to have a total capacitance of 30.693 F and can hold 52.220 kWh of energy. The device is said to have a weight of 281.56 pound including the box and all hardware. Unlike lithium-ion cells, the technology is said not to degrade with cycling and thus has a functionally unlimited lifetime. It is mentioned the device cannot explode when being charge or impacted and is thus safe for vehicles."
I'm skeptical (Score:1, Insightful)
"It is mentioned the device cannot explode when being charge or impacted and is thus safe for vehicles."
Anything that stores that much energy in that small a space can do something unfortunate if it is released quickly.
Re: can hold 52.220 kWh (Score:5, Insightful)
Might be a good patent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It must be real (Score:5, Insightful)
To prevent it from existing unless you pay a ransom.
Highly unlilkely (Score:5, Insightful)
--> V = sqrt((2E)/C)
--> 3500 = sqrt((2*187992000)/52.22)
3500v is a lot. Up until now most comercially available supercapacitors do 5.5v or less and tend to leak energy over time. It's possilbe these guys have really made a stunning break through (the fact they filed for a patent is sure something), but the numbers set off my bullshit detector.
The real issue (Score:0, Insightful)
The capacity is impressive for the size but I didn't notice anything about the rate power can be discharged or storage life. The two big issues with capacitors for storage have always been they tend to want to discharge all at once and left for several days they tend to loose power. If they have addressed these issues with this design it'd be a staggering advance given it's size and weight. I didn't try to do the math but it's enough storage to have a respectable range. The weight is actually far less than a standard car when you add in the difference in engine weights where as most electrics it's more because of battery weight. I hope it's real and not another concept where "it'd be great accept....". I'm waiting for the punchline that it'll do 0-60 in under 4 seconds but the power discharges in 5 seconds.
Re:Wow, cool (Score:5, Insightful)
From the numbers in the summary, a fully-charged one of these would supply enough energy to propel a 3300lbs (1500kg) car from 0 to 1100mph (500m/s)
Ahhh you must be from the Theoretical Physics Department, over here in Engineering we have wind resistance, friction and efficiency to worry about.
Re:Check out the patent (Score:5, Insightful)
Better use the heavy duty extention cord.
At one time it got so bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
In years past it got so bad the USPTO had to institute a policy that certain types of inventions had to submit a working model [wikipedia.org] along with the application. My guess is that there was funny business invloved with this patent application. Follow the money, as they say.
So where is it? (Score:2, Insightful)
The patent implies they had built at least 10 of these things (they have a table of test results), years ago when they submitted the patent. If it is real, there is no reason they can't demonstrate it publicly now. So where is it?
Re:kWh is a confusing unit for energy... (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other end, 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 yard = 3 feet, 1 furlong = 220 yards and 1 mile = 8 furlongs. Sure. That makes TOTAL sense
Re:52 kilowatt Hours? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cannot explode but can be used in Fords? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:that's *nothing* compared to a tank of petrol (Score:2, Insightful)
How many times do you go through a 60 litre tank in one go? I live in the suburbs, which means driving to practically everything, and in both of my current cars there may be one or two times per year that we go on a road trip and have to refill along the way or at our turnaround point. That means the 95% of the rest of the time we do small trips where the capacity of this capacitor would be fine.
So to say there is *no* market simply because it doesn't have a 250 mile range is stupid. To say the market is somewhat more limited, and might require different purchase requirements is fine. For example, in my family we might keep one petrol car for the occasional road trips, and then buy one capacitor car for sporty/commuting/grocery-getting etc.
Re:Check out the patent (Score:5, Insightful)
just imagine plugging your car in at the mall, forgetting to set a max out, and coming back to find you've downloaded 32 gigajoules, and that'll be 1000$ please sir.
A full capacitor, like a full gas tank, won't accept additional charge. Plus, you can't spill electricity, so no, you're scenario is dumb.
May not explode, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is mentioned the device cannot explode when being charge or impacted and is thus safe for vehicles.
It may not explode when you hit it, and I'm not genius with electricity, but can't capacitors discharge their energy pretty quickly? Wouldn't 52kWh discharged through a pile of metal with people trapped inside be somewhat less than safe?
Re:Check out the patent (Score:3, Insightful)
But How To Charge It? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if you have a dedicated 220 vac connection, how many amps do you need to draw to feed this beast in only 5 minutes?? Or are we going to need 460 vac connections at home?
Re:Check out the patent (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not something that you can produce in bulk, store it, distribute it, and tap a burst when you need it.
Could you not build the electric equivalent of a gas station, which used a bank of ultracapacitors as a buffer between the power grid and the ultracapacitors in the end-users' cars?
Or for remote locations, use the same permanently-installed bank of ultracapacitors, but charging from one of those multi-decade no-maintenance fission power modules the Japanese are developing.
Re: can hold 52.220 kWh (Score:5, Insightful)
I think, in the context of a slashdot forum, anything is okay so long as a reasonable person can discern meaning. mW vs MW is indeed a problem, but kw vs kW??? What exactly did YOU think the 'w' stood for?
Never, in any context is it ok to write incorrect information. And the problem comes when people start writing mw, Mw, mW and MW respectively, and then mixing 1,000 with 1.000. The numbers get way way way off, so it is _never ever_ ok to start messing with units and hoping the reader "gets what you mean" just because you are lazy.
And people correcting other people, they just have to get things correct or it's an epic fail. What is the point if being a smart ass, if you are just another dumb ass who gets it wrong again?
The correct figure is: 52.22 kWh
Re:I dunno... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's very difficult to sell perpetual rights to something that is only patented for a couple of decades.
Re:Much better than a battery for cars. (Score:4, Insightful)
You can do that with a good battery pack, too. The Tesla does so, in fact (as do most hybrids). The only real requirement is that the power converter be capable of running backwards, which isn't all that hard if it's a design requirement. Some extra power capacity in the batteries helps, since most cars can brake faster than they can accelerate, and you don't want to charge the batteries too fast. Fortunately, in this application the batteries are designed around capacity, and have lots of extra power capability available.
Re: can hold 52.220 kWh (Score:3, Insightful)
WRONG, language is about communications and so long as the point was conveyed correctly and the meaning non-ambiguous there is no problem messing up the case. This is especially true when a bunch of lay-people are discussing a technical area. People like you need to adjust their attitude to realize that human languages are NOT the same as programming languages or scientific equations, some of the time getting it close enough really is ok.
Re:Cannot explode but can be used in Fords? (Score:3, Insightful)
A full tank wouldn't. A mostly empty tank might, but it's not as common as movie directors might hope. It's not gasoline that explodes. It's gasoline vapor or fumes that explode. Gasoline as a liquid just burns, although it does burn rapidly and at a high temperature.
Re:It must be real (Score:3, Insightful)
Goodness, yes, it must be real. I always trust announcements of science-fiction-like devices that have grammar errors in the press releases.
Where can I invest the what remains of my life savings in this wonderful invention?
Re: can hold 52.220 kWh (Score:3, Insightful)
You are clearly thinking about spoken language when what we have been discussing written language about facts of how good a battery is.
A 52,220 kWh battery is 1000 times better than a 52.22 kWh battery.
And when I say I'm using 1.000 mW or 1,000 MW of power, how much am I actually using.
These figures are clear when you _say_ "fifty two kilowatt-hours", but they are totally useless if you get it wrong when you are writing it wrong.
So be exact when it comes to numbers and figures.
I'm gonna go and call my mom and use 20,000 MW while I'm doing it.
Re:Cannot explode but can be used in Fords? (Score:3, Insightful)
News flash, Europe and US use different 'thousands' separator.
News flash, I'm a Swede, I know.
That's why the summary shouldn't have changed 52.22 kWh to 52.220 kWh.
If someone writes 52,000, they must mean 52000 since they clearly have rounded off to 2 significant numbers.
What would be the point in saying that it's now exact to 5 digits, but the last 3 are wrong? (they should be .22 and not .000)
big BOOM (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm skeptical. I recall reading ultra-ultra-capacitors have so far proven increasingly unstable as you find ways to store more and more charge. Researchers have found that out the hard way too. Once you reach high energy densities of charge you have what effectively is a bomb.
55kwh is a lot of stored energy, that can be unleashed by a simple short. Even if the capacitor material itself is super stable and won't internally short if punctured, you can still have that energy being dumped into an arc or whatever has shorted circuit. That's a hell of a big bang in the worst case scenario.
Safe for vehicles? Yeah right (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's an incredibly good dielectric plastic (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing that's odd to me about the patent is how much marketing data is in there. It talks about potential to revolutionize the EV industry, and compares the technology to batteries... Everything you put in your claims that doesn't need to be there limits the scope. The only reason to put that crap in there is if you're planning on trying to trick somebody into believing it simply because the patent was granted. Any patent attorney with half a brain would have stripped that stuff out of there lest it be used to limit the scope of the patent in the future.
The whole thing screams "investment scam".
(The screen printing process they describe for creating the dielectric layer seems like it would result in a large percentage of the dielectric being made of the nitrocellulose binding resin for the dielectric "ink", rather than their CMBT/PET combo. The "jet milling" process they describe to mill the powders seems like it would introduce significant impurities in the powders. It also seems comical to me that they could achieve a sufficiently uniform dielectric layer through screen printing...)