How To Make A SuperCapacitor - Step By Step

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Ultracapacitor battery hybrid with 30 year life?

Zap&Go’s new Carbon-Ion or C-Ion battery is the result of years of research at the prestigious University of Oxford that is currently in its 3rd generation, according to Voller. “It’s a supercapacitor that performs like a battery,” Voller said. “The conventional supercapacitor is great at charging really fast but doesn’t hold onto its energy for very long.” The breakthrough came when Zap&Go used carbon nanotube technology to combine the fast charging benefits of supercapacitors with the energy storage characteristics of a battery. The result is an extremely fast-charging battery that is built without the need for any rare earth metals or toxic chemicals like the cobalt that underpins many of today’s lithium-ion battery chemistries. In Zap&Go’s Carbon-Ion battery, “the principle material is carbon, which is readily available in many forms,” Voller said. For now, Zap&Go is using carbon sourced from coconut shells, but Voller noted that he expected the source to change over time as demand grows. In addition to ultra-fast charging, Zap&Go’s new Carbon-Ion battery is poised to change the energy storage game because of its impressive lifespan expectations. “We last a long time,” Voller said. “It would be a 30-year useful life or 30-year warranty,” which is a far cry from the 10- to 15-year lifespans expected from today’s lithium-ion batteries. read more, here, https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/01/zapgos-carbon-ion-battery-delivers-ultra-fast-charging-zero-degradation/ and their website, here; https://www.zapgo.com/technology/

producing hydrogen just got more promising

The UCLA device is a hybrid unit that combines a supercapacitor with a hydrogen fuel cell, and runs the whole shebang on solar power. Along with the usual positive and negative electrodes, the device has a third electrode that can either store energy electrically or use it to split water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms – a process called water electrolysis. To make the electrodes as efficient as possible, the team maximized the amount of surface area that comes into contact with water, right down to the nanoscale. That increases the amount of hydrogen the system can produce, as well as how much energy the supercapacitor can store. Read more here; .....https://newatlas.com/solar-hydrogen-electricity-device/52329/

Liquid metal feeds Stanford's new high-voltage flow battery

First and foremost, the fluid used as the negative side of the battery is an alloy of sodium and potassium. This mixture remains a liquid metal at room temperature, and theoretically packs at least 10 times the energy density of other fluids previously suggested for the role. On the positive side of the cell, the team tested four different water-based liquids. The second new material is in the membrane used inside the cell. The team made a ceramic membrane out of potassium and aluminum oxide, which keeps the positive and negative fluids separate while still allowing current to flow between them. The combination of the new anolyte and the new membrane, reportedly produces twice the maximum voltage of other flow batteries, which means a better overall energy density and lower production cost. The prototype the team developed also proved its stability over thousands of hours of operation. full story is here; https://newatlas.com/liquid-metal-flow-battery/55545/

EE stor still making claims with ultra capacitor storage!

At least the claims are still alive, but doubts have simmered since like, forever... there is a blog which has documented the claims since ... https://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/ here is a paragraph from it; It was recently proposed to me that possibly in the near term, I could take a tour of EEStor's facility. Five years ago that would have been a dream come true but today, I don't really think I could work it into my schedule. If I had to listen to Dick Weir's un-decypherable bullshit, I'd probably lose my lunch. As for stressing over EEStor and looking for what's next, those days are way behind us and from my perspective, the whole thing has become a colossal waste of time and distraction. To get to the heart of things, this blog has become to me personally a recurring set of disappointing developments. It's impacted me emotionally and I used to be able to counterbalance that with enjoyment from the community that built up around EEStor. But that community has always been dwindling as it should from EEStor's failure to deliver on their self-set goals. On top of this, I think eight years of emotional disappointment is just too much to continue to slow brew. I have a lot of other things I want to accomplish in my life and maintaining a scientific debate community is no longer one of them. It is just too distracting so take this for what it is: a bit of Spring cleaning in my life and my attempt to get my focus back. So of course, no one will be satisfied with how this all ends up. But in keeping with how I've done things from the beginning, I will end with some of my personal speculations and issue some new predictions. First, I believe Carl Nelson worked on a team at MIT under Arthur Von Hippel that discovered a capacitor effect which had off the charts measurements--an effect whose limits were not apparent to them then or to EEStor now. I believe the MIT team couldn't control the effect with the manufacturing methods available at the time and had bigger fish to fry with the development of the digital age. That digital age improved manufacturing methods and at some point Dick Weir and Carl Nelson set out to see if they could bring about the effect originally discovered at MIT. Weir's ambitions were bigger than his technical ability and extreme narcissism drove Nelson out of the picture and left the technical development in uncertain hands. To make matters worse, the controls Weir and team thought they had over the material turned out to be illusory. What's left now is the possibility that the effects which are controllable are commercializable as well. another comment then there is the discussion on revolution green, http://revolution-green.com/battery-breakthrough-battery-ultra-capacitor-breakthrough-hybrid-game-changer-te-scene/, a bit of chronology; from Asterix • 20 days ago EEStor again? I've written here years ago about their charade. Zenn Cars, originally called "Feel Good Cars" (ZENN was just a model) paid a scam artist with his company AEC (Alternate Energy Corporation) who essentially promised a car that ran on water. The name of FGC's CEO at the time? One Ian Clifford. Later FGC changed their name to ZENN Cars and teamed up with another snake-oil specialist, Richard Weir and his company EEStor, who promised a high-capacity, high-voltage capacitor with an energy density exceeding that of current electrochemical batteries. The gotcha was that Weir never produced complete working units, only layers, which were "verified" under Weir's control. ZENN floated a bunch of stock on the TSX Venture exchange and got a few private venture capitalists (e.g. Kleiner Perkins) involved. Oh--the executive involved in the deal? One Ian Clifford. After years of delivering nothing, EEStor, in a rather complicated game, gained control of ZENN. The last I heard, the unremarkable product of all of this dreaming was a capacitor that may or may not compete with traditional ceramic capacitors. Some invested their retirement nest egg in the venture and lost it. At the last check, EEStor stock was at 0.18 CAD. Rossi has shown his acumen by carrying on his scam for far longer. Both seem to have some believers left, though heaven knows why. EEStor’s system–called an Electrical Energy Storage Unit, or EESU–is based on an ultracapacitor architecture that appears to escape the traditional limitations of such devices. The company has developed a ceramic ultracapacitor with a barium-titanate dielectric, or insulator, that can achieve an exceptionally high specific energy–that is, the amount of energy in a given unit of mass. For example, the company’s system claims a specific energy of about 280 watt hours per kilogram, compared with around 120 watt hours per kilogram for lithium-ion and 32 watt hours per kilogram for lead-acid gel batteries. This leads to new possibilities for electric vehicles and other applications, including for the military. “It’s really tuned to the electronics we attach to it,” explains Weir. “We can go all the way down from pacemakers to locomotives and direct-energy weapons.” The trick is to modify the composition of the barium-titanate powders to allow for a thousandfold increase in ultracapacitor voltage–in the range of 1,200 to 3,500 volts, and possibly much higher. EEStor claims that, using an automated production line and existing power electronics, it will initially build a 15-kilowatt-hour energy-storage system for a small electric car weighing less than 100 pounds, and with a 200-mile driving range. The vehicle, the company says, will be able to recharge in less than 10 minutes.

Reawakening, Sweden - 4K UHD

Toyota still working on hydrogen, now also in heavy trucks

Hydrogen and batteries both carry an environmental cost that means neither can be called entirely green. For all the piety surrounding BEVs, current battery-manufacturing processes mean that, during construction, they're almost as bad for the environment as traditional cars. It's only when they're out on the road that the situation begins to improve. The majority of hydrogen is not created using renewables, either, but is mass-produced with steam-methane reforming. The system uses natural gas (not renewable) and high-temperature steam to create carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Steam reforming means that you're left with a big pile of carbon monoxide to deal with, but that methane also has a tendency to leak. It can escape from both the factory, when it is created, and from the pipelines used to transport it, and methane is one hundred times more damaging to the climate than CO2. Decarbonizing the economy will be for nothing if these leaks aren't brought under control or stopped completely. With that in mind, Shell is building an electrolysis plant on the side of an existing steam-methane reformer. The company is aiming to get a 50/50 split on the balance of green hydrogen it can produce, although van Els hopes that figure can reach 80 percent in the longer term. SONY DSC The problem "has to be dealt with," said Thomas Hwan Jensen, a policy adviser at Energinet, the body that owns Denmark's gas and electricity transmission system. "Methane leakage is being addressed," he added, showing that the energy companies at least understand the issue. If there are positives, it's that there are systems in place that could mitigate some of the damage caused by carbon dioxide. Denmark's BioCat Project (pictured), for instance, uses a biological process to turn carbon dioxide and hydrogen into synthetic natural gas for use in power stations. It's still emissions-heavy, but, if powered by renewable energy, it could be a better way to generate power than, say, more coal-fired stations. Of course, any solution that doesn't involve burning fossil fuels is better for the environment; this isn't any defense of the oil industry. It's just important to understand that there is no wonder fuel that is entirely free from downsides. Hydrogen's ideal place seems to be in medium-size vehicles, where the trips are long and the loads are heavy. Fleet vehicles, mid-range sedans, SUVs, vans, trucks and trains could all benefit from a shift in fuel. After all, it can be stored similarly to gasoline, with a better energy density, and is theoretically cheaper than bulky batteries. Alstom is working on a hydrogen train that could replace diesel-powered fleets across the globe as a far cheaper alternative to rail electrification. Toyota is already running a hydrogen-powered big rig out of the port of Los Angeles, called Project Portal. NEL Hydrogen's Lars Jacobsen said that the fuel cell technology is "mature" enough for use in heavier industry. He added that, while "cars are fantastic, they don't make the business case" (for it). It's his belief that it's in trucking that hydrogen will make the biggest initial impact, and his company is already working with Nikola Motors. Nikola has secured a pretty extraordinary deal with brewer Anheuser-Busch, which has pre-ordered $9 billion worth of hydrogen trucks. Eight hundred vehicles are expected to be pressed into service, starting in 2020, each one capable of traveling 1,200 miles before refueling. The trucks could serve as the catalyst for a new, America-wide hydrogen-refueling network, with 700 stations anticipated, which would hopefully encourage the production of more hydrogen-powered consumer vehicles. Meanwhile, is there a place for hydrogen in the aerospace industry? The image of the Hindenburg engulfed in flames remains a powerful one, even today. Hamburg's Center of Applied Aeronautical Research has already found that it would be feasible to build a drone plane fueled by hydrogen. Airbus, too, is looking at ways to incorporate hydrogen into the aircraft of the future, in place of kerosene, although such a decision would require all aircraft to be radically redesigned. via: https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/29/hydrogen-fuel-cell-toyota-mirai-evs/

redox flow tech using vanadium

found this on the website of http://www.storen.tech/copia-di-products StorEn VFBs are based on years of creativity and lateral thinking of the StorEn Technical Team in Fuel Cells, Vanadium Flow Batteries and cogeneration. StorEn modules utilize a proprietary electrolyte chemistry that delivers an increased energy density of the modules in the region of +25%. Furthermore, they embed a patent-pending stack design reducing by over 50% the cost of the power side of the battery. The standard long 20-year duration typical of Vanadium Flow Batteries can be exceeded thanks to a patent-pending innovation that extends duration of StorEn batteries to over 15,000 cycles, extending service intervals and reducing maintenance costs. The result of StorEn R&D activities are modules with the highest power and energy density, a modular architecture to satisfy the widest array of customers’ installations requirements, and the lowest Total Cost of Ownership possible today.

redox flow battery Elestor

In addition to the intrinsic advantages related to HBr electricity storage, Elestor has developed a unique HBr storage system concept (patent pending), whereby the full focus has been on minimizing the cost per stored kWh. Each individual system quality (lifetime, no. of (dis)charge cycles, efficiency/cycle, material costs, production costs) contributes to the total cost per stored kWh. In this number, also known as the ‘Levelized Cost of Storage’ [€/kWh], every system quality is taken into account. Minimizing the costs per stored kWh By minimizing manufacturing cost and at the same time optimizing the performance of each system quality, Elestor managed to reduce the total costs per stored kWh. To accomplish this milestone, Elestor has introduced several new technical developments, resulting in: Long system lifetime » Over 10.000 charge/discharge cycles High system efficiency » 80% per complete charge/discharge cycle Low material costs » Abundant availability of Br2 and H2 Low production costs » No H2 compressor required » Smart production procedures » Innovative and simplified – yet robust - system architecture Flow plates End plates Storage system versus battery pack The Elestor storage solution is to be considered a machine rather than a closed battery pack: All parts, circulation pump, valves, electrochemical cells and control electronics, are easily accessible. In contrary to closed battery packs, Elestor’s storage systems can always be repaired, serviced and upgraded, which further prolongs the systems’ already long lifetime, leads to a further reduction of storage costs per kWh, and further enhances the return on investment. As a result, Elestor presents an innovative HBr – based storage system, showing a cost of as low as € 0,05 per kWh. With this cost-level, the Elestor HBr storage system has become the new benchmark in electricity storage technology. www.Elestor.nl

Yet another contender in the battery tech; Proton

A team from Australia's from RMIT University in Melbourne have figured it out to build rechargeable "proton" batteries from abundant carbon and water. If commercialized, the technology could allow for cheaper Powerwall-type home or grid storage to back up solar panels or windmills.During charging, water is split to produce protons, which then pass through a cell membrane and bond to the carbon electrodes, without producing hydrogen gas. To tap the stored energy, the hydrogen ions are released and lose an electron to re-form the protons. The electrons supply power, while the hydrogen protons combine with oxygen and other electrons to re-form into water. The big advantage with proton batteries compared to fuel cells is efficiency. The latter must produce hydrogen gas then split it back into protons, which creates losses. But a proton battery never produces hydrogen gas, so the energy efficiency is comparable to lithium-ion batteries. And even though the system is far from optimized, energy density is also comparable to lithium ion, the team said. The researchers built a small, 1.2 volt battery, so the next step is to scale it up and improve efficiency. "Future work will now focus on further improving performance and energy density through use of atomically-thin layered carbon-based materials such as graphene, with the target of a proton battery that is truly competitive with lithium ion batteries firmly in sight," said lead researcher Professor John Andrews. https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/09/proton-battery-carbon-water-no-lithium/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation

10 SOLAR-POWERED HOMES | THE FUTURE OF ARCHITECTURE

A green megabattery for green energy using brine underground

(Tech Xplore)—A company has an ambitious plan: To build the world's largest battery. Germany is the hatching grounds. Ewe Gasspeicher, subsidiary of utility company Ewe, is talking about its plan with an approach that centers around the redox flow battery principle. This is where electrical energy is stored in liquid in which certain chemicals are dissolved. These solutions are called electrolytes. The battery will have components based on salt water and recyclable plastics and developed by the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. "Electrolytes previously used included environmentally polluting salts of heavy metals such as vanadium dissolved in sulphuric acid. The Friedrich Schiller University in Jena has now developed a redox flow battery that uses recyclable polymers (plastics) dissolved in salt water as an electrolyte." "Ewe says its invention is a 'green megabattery for green energy,'" wrote Global Construction Review. The plans call for the world's biggest battery using redox flow technology in underground salt caverns usually used for natural gas storage. Electrical energy would be stored in a liquid along with "new" components in the underground salt caverns currently used for storing natural gas. Two caverns, each with a volume of 100,000 m³, will be used for the battery. The components are the result of the collaboration with the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, which developed them. "'Since salt water in caverns is also known as brine and we intend to store power according to the redox flow principle, we have named the project brine4power, or b4p for short,' said project manager Ralf Riekenberg." According to Global Construction Review, Riekenberg said he assumed they may have a cavern battery in operation at the end of 2023. Initially, they will not be using actual caverns but enormous plastic containers, said the news release. These will be set up at the gas storage facility in Jemgum in East Frisia, probably in the fourth quarter of this year. Ewe Gasspeicher GmbH Managing Director, Peter Schmidt: "If everything works, this may fundamentally change the storage market, i.e. the market for control energy." "Once built," said Global Construction Review, "the batteries would be used to increase the stability of the German grid, thereby allowing it to accept a higher percentage of intermittent generators." An EW site said that "brine4power is the project for cost-effective, safe and sustainable power storage. In combination with a suitably sized wind farm, each battery replaces a controllable 120-megawatt power plant, supplying constant and clean energy at consistent prices." If it works, Ewe Gasspeicher will create a 700MWh battery, said Global Construction Review. Lulu Chang in Digital Trends: "All these caves have a volume of 3.5 million cubic feet, which ought to give the resulting battery a capacity of up to 700MWh at an output of 120MW." Chang said if it works, the battery ought to be able to supply 75,000 homes with their power for a day. "While bulkier than lithium-ion battery systems, redox flow systems do not degrade through heavy charge and discharge cycles, meaning they are expected to last many years longer in the field," commented Energy Storage News. https://techxplore.com/news/2017-07-germany-ambitious-battery-housed-underground.html