On 21 Nov 2013 at 8:47, Lawrence Rhodes wrote: > The air battery concept is not complicated but everyone involved think > they have the golden goose and try to suck too much money out of it > killing the goose.
I WISH it were just an air battery. It's zinc-air. Aluminum-air has been tried too. IIRC, the main problem was that these were primary batteries (euphamistically called "mechanically rechargeable"). Some people call them fuel cells, but IMO the boundaries here are blurred. When they're flat, you either replace the battery or replace its active materials. This isn't just inconvenient, it reduces the battery's energy efficiency because you have to transport the materials to a reprocessing facility, reclaim the metallic zinc (with energy input, even if from renewable sources), and then transport the freshened materials to the refueling center. Going from memory again here, the German Post did an extensive trial of zinc- air batteries using zinc "cassettes." This was probably about the same time, mid to late 1990s. The battery manufacturer was an Israel company, if memory serves. The trial carried on for quite a while but in the end I believe they concluded it wasn't a practical system. Last I heard, the battery company (Electric Fuel Corporation?) had moved into lithium development. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
