Hi Chris,
Very impressive and significant indeed! I searched and found their 2001 US
Patent Application (published in 2004), it can be looked up at
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html (app number 0040071944)
The device they give as a typical example of their technology is effectively
a 31 farad parallel plate capacitor based on a barium titanate dielectric
(no electrolyte) which can stand 3500V, which is a lot considering stored
energy is quadratic with voltage (E(J)=1/2*C*V^2). For energy in Wh divide
by 3600 (1J=1Ws=1/3600Wh) :
E(Wh)=((31 * (3500^2)) / 2) / 3600 = 52743 Wh
which is indeed 52 kWh as claimed (the 3500V were less advertised somehow,
but it may be manageable with clever power electronics). The weight claimed
in the patent is 336 pounds = 170kg roughly, which makes the massic energy
52743 / 170 = 310 Wh/Kg, which is as claimed 10 times more than Lead Acid
(30 Wh/Kg), and significantly more than presently available record holder
Lithium Polymer (185 Wh/Kg), plus of course it recharges much faster (a few
minutes), the instantaneous power is enormous (can discharge it's full
energy in a few minutes too!) and the lifetime is millions of cycles
compared to hundreds of cycles for electrochemical cells, looks promising to
me, let's just hope it actually works :)
Michel
- Original Message -
From: Zell, Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 10:06 PM
Subject: RE: New Battery Hope
If the link is too difficult to use, do a web search on EEStor and
their ceramic ultracap. The rumors spilling out are stunning.
-Original Message-
From: Zell, Chris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 3:20 PM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: New Battery Hope
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/A
rticle_Type1c=Articlecid=1141599010468call_pageid=970599109774col=Co
lumnist971715454851
The above is exactly what I've hoped for in regard to batteries. If
they can perfect this, the whole world changes : the trade deficit,
terrorism, the economy, Pollution, peak oil, global warming, - all
of it.
One really good battery would be an social, political and economic
explosion bigger than the birth of the internet.
