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Launch HN: Saratoga Energy (YC W19), Better Carbon Nanotubes from Carbon Dioxide

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Re: Launch HN: Saratoga Energy (YC W19), Better Carbon Nanotubes from Carbon Dioxide

#31

Post by Tade0 »

mbell wrote: post #27
ams6110 wrote: post #11

> Our breakthrough in manufacturing cost enables battery manufacturers to use the optimal amount, allowing electric cars to safely recharge in 10 minutes or less. Well that's half the battle. The other half of the problem is delivering that amount of energy in 10 minutes, particularly in areas that are already maxing out their capacity on hot summer days.

My math may be a bit off but if you have a 230Ah battery (Telsa Model 3) and you want to charge it in 10 minutes you need something on the order of 1380A charging current even ignoring losses. At 350V, the voltage of the Tesla Model 3 battery pack, this is 483,000 Watts! There are major problems with this type of charging happening at scale at every level of the energy grid.

To be honest I wouldn't mind having just half of that power.

Every quarter I do a 1500km trip, which is split into two legs - the longer being around 1140km.

Assuming I started with enough charge to drive 300km, charging wouldn't affect my time, because I am human and need to go to the bathroom, eat etc.

Re: Launch HN: Saratoga Energy (YC W19), Better Carbon Nanotubes from Carbon Dioxide

#33

Post by dougmany »

kdme wrote: post #32

I believe there is a competition to develop a method to collect carbon dioxide and turn it into something useful. Did you won that competition? This seems really promising and better than collecting CO2 and just dumping it underground.

There is the Carbon XPrize but I think they are a year out from announcing winners.

There is a team using Molten Carbonate Electrolysis to create Carbon Nano-tubes in the competition. It sounds like the are not related based on the 2012 starting date in the post. The team lead has been working on this for 30 years.

Re: Launch HN: Saratoga Energy (YC W19), Better Carbon Nanotubes from Carbon Dioxide

#36

Post by theunixbeard »

Amazing story, very inspirational to those of us just working on CRUD apps.

Who is your father and what is his career background? I see he was instrumental in putting you on this path. This was the quote that stuck out to me:

> “After deciding on the product, my Dad and I put together a small team of chemical engineers to help with the patents and applications for grants from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.”

How much capital did you two have to risk at this stage to pay your team before receiving the grants?

Re: Launch HN: Saratoga Energy (YC W19), Better Carbon Nanotubes from Carbon Dioxide

#37

Post by SaratogaEnergy »

theunixbeard wrote: post #36

Amazing story, very inspirational to those of us just working on CRUD apps. Who is your father and what is his career background? I see he was instrumental in putting you on this path. This was the quote that stuck out to me: > “ After deciding on the product, my Dad and I put together a small team of chemical engineers to help with the patents and applications for grants from the Department of Energy and the Nationa…

Thank you! My father is an awesome guy with a unique perspective on the future! I'd rather not get specific, but having an initial angel investor was crucial for us to be able to generate the amount of data we needed to win our first grant an keep things moving forward.

Re: Launch HN: Saratoga Energy (YC W19), Better Carbon Nanotubes from Carbon Dioxide

#38

Post by sonofgod »

SaratogaEnergy wrote: post #5
sonofgod wrote: post #2

Good luck! How big do you see this carbon nanotube market being, and thus how much net CO2 do you see yourself removing from the environment?

thanks! in the case of the cement market, carbon nanotubes have been used in 1% concentration to improve the lifespan of cement. 4 billion tons of cement are produced every year. If carbon nanotubes where used in all new cement mixtures, that would be 40 million tons of carbon nanotubes per year, which would consume 148 million tons of CO2 per year. But perhaps more importantly, carbon nanotubes would reduce the repl…

Cool; so about 0.35% of yearly world production of CO2 per year from capture, and assuming 25% increased longevity, somewhere a little short of 1% due to cement reduction.

... that's pretty good, actually, might buy us another year, on its own...

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