Earlier quoted context omitted.
Too bad Nikola Tesla didn't had a middle name.
How about Wardenclyffe, or Smiljna - both sound like reasonable company names to me.
Niagra?
Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
131–140 of 163 posts
Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
#132Nanotubes? It admittedly has been a couple years since I checked in on nanotube production, but I found they will be cheap. Also, cycle endurance is paramount in a usable battery, did I miss that? High density batteries form dendrites when they discharge, gradually ruining the battery. The nanotube structure would probably help though. Anyway, need cell cost, vol and mass density, cycles, temp ranges, charge/discharg…
The article mentions expected 5x durability for the reasons you mention. Even if it was just 2x, that would be great.
I kind of wonder about how they're measuring durability. If it's by time, 5x is really good. If it's by number of charging cycles and it hold 3x as much power that's great.
Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
#133Anyone who cooks rigatoni pasta knows how to vertically align tubes.
Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
#134Actually good article if you continue reading. Comment from an independent expert: "Research has shown vertically aligned – or even just well distributed – carbon nanotubes have far greater properties than randomly placed carbon nanotubes," said Dr. Shearer. "I am not surprised a x10 in conductivity is possible. Controlling the placement of carbon nanotubes is really the way to unlock their potential. The issue in co…
Given that presumably Tesla's goal is to take battery costs down by 56% in 3 years from (108 - 140 $/kwh) to (50 - 70$/kwh) and widely held consensus is that 100$/kwh is the price point at which EVs are no brainer on upfront costs with ICE cars, i feel that there is a long way to go. However, i think any successful real world demo starting with niche applications will help. We need all the battery tech to succeed.
Electric vehicles are right at the bottom of the curve for "amount of money consumers are willing to spend for more energy per gram/ml".
I'd expect this kind of tech to debut in premium phones and laptops, and work its way down.
Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are both power and energy density increases!
We'll see. They ought to get the power increase, just from using something more conductive. The energy density increase looks like more of a maybe. This isn't the first company to claim carbon nanotube batteries.[1] [1] https://www.chasmtek.com/solutions/carbon-nanotube-lithium-i...
Sure, but your claim was that it's a bad headline, when in fact the headline is reflected in the article. You're shifting the goalposts.
Disclosure: I've worked on the software side of the battery industry, and am skeptical of any battery I'm not holding in my hand.
Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
#136Carbon nanotubes seem to be the real life version of chemical vat accidents or radiation exposure in comic books. I think they also fed some carbon nanotubes to a spider and managed to get stronger silk. Like what's going on here? I'm hoping that the scientists involved know what they are doing because from a layman perspective it just looks like carbon nanotubes can be added to anything to give it super powers.
Graphene as well: there's a running gag that adding graphene makes everything better, except for products.
So like every battery breakthrough that's ever been announced, I'll applaud, and then ignore it until I have one in my pocket. The lithium batteries we have right now are Goodenough, after all.
Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
#137This sounds great. But I first heard of these guys last year around this time when they announced their "NAWACap Ultracapacitors" where you could get a 1000F capacitor with a .1 mOhm ESR @ 1kHz. That was when they announced they were in production. So I reached out to the various distributors I used and put in cash-ok sample request[1] for one. Not a peep in 10 months. It is entirely possible that someone came in and said, "We will buy every capacitor you can make for the foreseeable future." but that generally results in causing the manufacturer to ramp up capacity to maximize revenue until there is excess capacity :-).
So what is the deal? Can they build stuff or are they a bunch of scientists who can get something working in the lab or one-off and fail miserably at making it a product? (They would be in good company to be sure if this were the case, just it helps to be a bit more forthright about.) The other argument against the hypothesis that someone is buying everything they build is that they have yet to show up in the Thomas register[2]. If their entire capacity was booked they would have quite the revenue stream.
You can of course buy carbon nanotube arrays[3] made to order, the last time I checked (about 2 years ago) they were over $5,000 qty 1. So not something I'd make into a general availability product. But if the NAWA guys can actually print these sheets with no trouble at all maybe Aldrich could use them as a supplier and get the price down to something more accessible?
I'm really interested in a reasonably high voltage (say 48V+ super capacitor in the 800 - 1000F range) even better if it weighs less than 50 lbs. But I've got a railgun out back that doesn't do squat without a 500kW power source.
[1] Basically this is saying you're willing to pay list price for quantity 1 to get a sample, as opposed to demanding a free sample which involves lying about market opportunity :-)
[2] https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/top-suppliers/capacitor-m... These guys basically have teams of people trying to figure out where to get stuff, so they usually know who is actually shipping.
[3] Get your own carbon nanotube array, 1 x 1 cm https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/687812?...
Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electric airplanes need significantly better energy density.
"significantly" sells it short. Electric airliners need a couple orders of magnitude of improvement to even come close to viability.
Serious question, would nuclear powered planes be viable? As far as energy density goes it seems pretty hard to beat!
Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
#139Won't charging become an issue?
Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't know. Sure, if you can build batteries with the energy density of gasoline, you can build an electric plane with them. But is this really necessary? Only if you value overseas travel... It currently takes ~16 hours to fly from SF to Singapore depending on weather. Any longer, and you're going to see a lot of that travel disappear.
Only if you value overseas travel... It currently takes ~16 hours to fly from SF to Singapore depending on weather. Any longer, and you're going to see a lot of that travel disappear. It takes that long because it's more efficient to do it in a single flight. Taking off and landing are a massive waste of time and fuel. If we only had short range planes people would change their destinations in some cases or they'd pl…
it's not really true that ultra long range direct flights (eg. from sfo to sin) are more efficient.
the efficiency gain by not taking off and landing is eaten away by the efficiency loss of having to carry so much fuel (which also comes at the expense of useful load..)