Ultracapacitor battery

[Otto]

Well, the EEstor ultracapacitor battery is due out this season, so presumably could come along any minute now. This is the one supposedly with great secrecy, from Cedar Park (Austin) Texas. Said to have many times the energy density of a lithium ion battery, recharge in just a few minutes, and to give the vehicle range of hundreds of miles. A real breakthrough.

So, anybody heard more about this?

Odds of the hype bearing fruit?

Thoughts?

[cfg83]

Otto -

I've heard of them. Just googled and found they have a relationship with Zenn electric vehicles :

EEStor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Skepticism
EEStor's claims for the EESU exceed the energy storage capacity of any capacitor currently sold, by orders of magnitude. Many in the industry have expressed great skepticism regarding the claims. Jim Miller, a capacitor expert who visited EEStor to evaluate the technology for potential investors, stated he was very skeptical because of current leakage typically seen at high voltages and because there should be microfractures from temperature changes. He stated "I'm surprised that Kleiner has put money into it."[24] Andrew Burke, another expert who visited EEStor stated the consensus among experts was that the dielectric constant could not stay as high as claimed at the voltage levels claimed (i.e. energy density could not be that high). He stated EEStor would not provide any data to contradict the experts.[25]

Despite going into talks with numerous clients, including GM, Lockheed Martin, LightEV, Venture Vehicles, Zenn, and a number of others, no EESU prototypes have been publicly independently tested or acknowledged by anyone outside the company.

Even if the technology were to be proved sound, doubts remain regarding its potential safety and real-world applicability. High energy density, an order of magnitude higher than best commercially available supercapacitors and 2-3 times higher than that of lithium-ion batteries, combined with the mechanism of action that depends on maintaining potential differences of thousands of volts across micrometer distances, suggest that EESU capacitors could be prone to catastrophic meltdowns; in other words, external damage to the unit (say, in a traffic accident), that results in an internal short could instantaneously release all stored energy (52 kwh in a fully charged standard unit - the equivalent of 45 kg of TNT), evaporating the unit and causing severe damage to everything in its proximity.

CarloSW2

[robchalmers]

granted fuel vapour is a little sensitive to ignition but 45Kg of TNT!!!!

after racing RC cars for a few years i've had LiPo go crispy on me and Thats scary!

kinda tempting though............. in a perverse way

[gone-ot]

...anyone familiar with electronics is WELL AWARE of how violently simple electrolytic and solid tantalum capacitors can EXPLODE...for whatever reason!

...electrolytics turn the water in the electrolytic 'paste' into instant steam, while tantalums when "reverse-charged" conduct and thermally disintegrate.

...sounds like a "real" flux-gate capacitor candidate! Where are all our DeLorean's?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by robchalmers

granted fuel vapour is a little sensitive to ignition but 45Kg of TNT!!!!

That's just about the energy released from the gas in a typical 10-15 gallon tank. If you vaporize it first, you do get a nice explosion. (Look up fuel-air explosives.)

I'd be a little concerned about the energy flow going in on their quick recharge. Anyone for some nice energetic plasma?

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

Here's a very helpful thread over at the Aptera Forum:

EEStor EESU thread

Apparently, EEStor has started working with Underwriters Laboratories, which is very encouraging.

[Daox]

That is good news Neil. However, ultracapacitors have been 'almost there' for years now. I'll believe it when I see them.

[Ryland]

We don't need the high discharge rate for a car, the quick charge would be nice but lithium batteries like the A123 system batteries can handle an 80% charge in 10 minutes? any faster and your electrical service is going to have a hard time keeping up.
I could see having a bank of capacitors that are used for absorbing the braking energy and that get charged while the vehicle is charging for starting from a dead stop.
The big draw back of capacitors is that as you discharge them their voltage drops drastically.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...anyone familiar with electronics is WELL AWARE of how violently simple electrolytic and solid tantalum capacitors can EXPLODE...for whatever reason!

...electrolytics turn the water in the electrolytic 'paste' into instant steam, while tantalums when "reverse-charged" conduct and thermally disintegrate.

...sounds like a "real" flux-gate capacitor candidate! Where are all our DeLorean's?

Yeah, I can already hear Huey Lewis and The New's jamming along here...

I used to blow up those caps you mentioned in vocational DC electronics class in High School by attaching 110AC to them - BAM-Poof!

I think our good MOD has pointed out a real safety problem with this battery. Some might say it is too high a price to pay for what is otherwise a rather cool battery. It's a real good start sounds like though.... Maybe in time they can make it safer.

[Jammer]

After reading all about it on Wikipedia, I'm on the fence. I have been involved with electronics, and educated in such, ever since I was in 7th grade in basic electricity class. It appears this thing is really a large high power capacitor, and the critics doubts seem fairly sound and logical based on what little I know of this technology. The one thing that I think we all should heed is the fact that some mighty powerful companies have had a shot at using this battery, and for whatever reason they choose not to have anything to do with it. On speculation, I guessing it may have to do with $$ and any rights by the owner/inventor, or it could very well be safety related, and that's one thing most large companies run away from fast, is more liability likelihood.