300 watt-hours per kilogram, twice the energy density of traditional
lithium ion batteries.
Ok this makes the range acceptable (same as claimed by EEStor anyway). They
also claim nearly acceptable lifetime (thousands of recharges vs 500), but
there is no indication that we won't have to wait an hour or so at the
filling station.
Michel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frederick Sparber" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "vortex-l" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:21 AM
Subject: Re: Future batteries
http://www.off-grid.net/common/mailme.php?id=538
"It is an early prototype of his SlimCell battery and powerful enough to
energize a transistor radio. The SlimCell does away with Volta's
200-year-old liquid chemistry by using flexible and extremely thin solid
laminates that can be manufactured cheaply, rolled up into a tube or
molded right into a handheld device. "We have to change the image of a
battery. Stop thinking soda cans. Start thinking potato-chip bags," says
Sadoway. Solid-state, paper-thin batteries have been an unrealized goal of
industry for a decade. Chemists at firms such as 3M struggled to find a
solid that conducts ions with the ease of a liquid or gel. In the
mid-1990s Sadoway, a Canadian metallurgist who has spent his entire career
teaching at MIT, was searching with his students for ways to reduce air
pollution in Los Angeles. One idea was electric cars, but a lithium ion
battery of the size needed doesn't make any sense, as it would require its
own cooling system and wouldn't work well in extreme clima!
tes. Solid electrolytes, as elusive as they seemed, would be far lighter,
safer and more versatile. He pitched the problem to MIT materials
scientist Anne Mayes, who suggested a recipe: two polymers,
polyoxyethylene and polylauryl methacrylate, woven together like strands
of cooked spaghetti and brushed with a highly conductive goop called
polyethylene oxide. The result is a dry electrolyte that is about the
thickness of cellophane but could ultimately be made as thin as one
micron, a thousandth of a millimeter. Prototypes of Sadoway's SlimCell can
deliver 300 watt-hours per kilogram, twice the energy density of
traditional lithium ion batteries."
