THIS BATTERY TECHNOLOGY MAY IMPROVE EV'S RANGE BY 3-10X - Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Sulfur power: This prototype lithium-sulfur battery was developed by Sion Power. In cooperation with BASF, the company intends to improve the battery design for use in electric vehicles.
Credit: Sion Power

Lithium-sulfur batteries, which can potentially store several times more energy than lithium-ion batteries, have historically been too costly, unsafe, and unreliable to make commercially. But they're getting a fresh look now, due to some recent advances. Improvements to the design of these batteries have led the chemical giant BASF of Ludwigshafen, Germany, to team up with Sion Power, a company in Tucson, AZ, that has already developed prototype lithium-sulfur battery cells.

"Compared to existing technologies used in electric vehicles, the plan is to increase driving distance at least 5 to 10 times," for a given-size battery, says Thomas Weber, CEO of a subsidiary of BASF called BASF Future Business. Other experts say that a threefold improvement is a more reasonable estimate, but that would still be an impressive jump in performance. Weber says that BASF's expertise in materials will help Sion Power further improve its technology and bring it to market faster. He declined to provide details of the arrangement, however, including how much money is involved and how the companies will share any profits.

ARTICLE CONTINUES AT MIT'S TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

US powers up fuel cell funding

Fork-lift trucks and stationary generators are big winners as more than $40m in stimulus funding is ploughed into fuel cell pilot projects

The division of President Obama's $100bn clean tech stimulus package continued last week with the announcement that $41.9m has been earmarked for investment across 13 different fuel cell projects.

An additional $72.4m of private sector funding will also be invested in the projects, which primarily focus on areas where fuel cells have already enjoyed some success, such as in providing back-up power for buildings, battery packs for consumer electronics devices, and fuel for fork-lift trucks.

Combined, the 13 pilot projects will result in nearly 1,000 fuel cells being deployed for emergency back-up power and material-handling vehicles, while a number of larger fuel cells will also be used to provide combined heat and power to residential and commercial buildings.

The projects will also cover a range of different fuel cell technologies, including polymer electrolyte, solid oxide and direct-methanol fuel cells.

Energy secretary Steven Chu said that the funding would help accelerate the commercialisation of fuel cells in markets where they have already proven to be technically feasible.

"The investments we're making today will help us build a robust fuel cell manufacturing industry in the US," he added. "Developing and deploying the next generation of fuel cells will not only create jobs – it will help our businesses become more energy efficient and productive."

ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE AT BUSINESSGREEN.COM

Researchers Make Battery Charging Breakthrough

Two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed battery cells capable of charging in under a minute, an amazing 100 times faster than a normal rechargable battery.

The breakthrough could revolutionize electric car battery technology and pave the way for ultra-fast power packs for everything from laptop computers to electric vehicles in as little as two years.

Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge have found a way to get a common lithium compound to release and take up lithium ions in a matter of seconds. The compound, which is already used in the electrodes of some commercial lithium-ion batteries, might lead to laptop batteries capable of charging themselves in about a minute. The work appears in Nature1 this week.

ARTICLE CONTINUES AT ALT.ENERGY

Congress pushing the Smart Grid forward

by Nancy Spring, Senior Editor, Power Engineering

Washington, DC, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]

The draft climate change bill released by House Democrats on March 31 calls on electric utilities to create a new infrastructure that will revolutionize the U.S. transportation system. Smart Grid technology will run it and clean electricity will power it.

"I would say we're asking the automotive industry to revolutionize the way they build cars and we're asking the utility industry to make sure we can charge those cars."

-- Mark Duvall, Director of Electric Transportation, Electric Power Research Institute

In the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the Clean Energy Title (Title I) calls for the development of an electric vehicle infrastructure that would support the use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles. Utilities will be weighing the merits of battery exchange and fast-charging infrastructure and other services. State regulators will also have a role to play. Among other directives, they will evaluate pricing options that would enable PHEVs and electric vehicles "to contribute to meeting peak-load power needs."

ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE AT RENEWABLEENERGYWORLD.COM

It’s On! Portland and San Francisco Battle For Electric Car Domination

The EV wars have begun.

Written by Nick Chambers

Published on April 7th, 2009

Just a few weeks ago San Francisco’s visionary Mayor, Gavin Newsom, wrote a post for us describing his plan to make the Bay Area the electric car capital of the world by aggressively developing the charging infrastructure to support full-scale EV deployment. At the time he proclaimed:

“Electric vehicles have the possibility to transform our economy, revive our car industry, and improve our environment. To make sure electric vehicles succeed this time around we need to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in battery technology and [charging] infrastructure.”

Well, San Francisco, you have a challenger.

ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE AT GAS2.0

The 5-minutes Rechargeable Hydrogen Tank Invented

Robin Gremaud, a researcher from Netherlands, found out through experimentation that an alloy of the metals magnesium, titanium and nickel is absorbing hydrogen very well. What’s most interesting about his discovery is that the three metals form a very light alloy, about 40% lighter than a Lithium Ion battery pack at the same size (for example, a Prius battery weights 317 kg, while this hydrogen tank would only weight 200 kg).

It’s a known fact that hydrogen is considered the gas of the future. It can be burned normally in combustion engines, or it can be used in a hydrogen fuel cell to create electricity, which can be used in whatever purposes (mostly in electric vehicles, where mobility is the key). It’s also known that hydrogen is very explosive, and making safe storage for it is as demanding for its scientists as it is for the battery makers to make lighter and more powerful units.

article continues at Green Optimist

Cheaper Fuel Cells

Carbon nanotubes could replace expensive platinum catalysts and help finally make fuel cells economical. By Prachi Patel-Predd

Better than platinum: A scanning electron microscope image shows an array of vertical carbon nanotubes that are doped with nitrogen. The array could replace the expensive platinum catalyst used in fuel-cell electrodes. Credit: Science

Researchers have shown that arrays of vertically grown carbon nanotubes could be used as the catalyst in fuel cells. The carbon nanotubes, which are doped with nitrogen, would be much cheaper and longer lasting than the expensive platinum catalysts used now.

More than half the cost of fuel-cell stacks comes from platinum, according to the Department of Energy. "Fuel cells haven't been commercialized for larger-scale applications because platinum is too expensive," says Liming Dai, a materials-engineering professor at the University of Dayton, in Ohio, who led the work. "For electrodes, you need a cheaper material that still has a high performance."

Dai and his colleagues make electrodes by depositing the carbon-nanotube arrays on a composite film of polymer and carbon nanotubes. In a Science paper, the researchers show that using the material as a cathode gives four times higher current densities than do conventional platinum-coated electrodes. "There has been very limited success to finding a replacement for platinum, and [carbon nanotubes] could be one," says Prashant Kamat, a chemistry professor at the University of Notre Dame.

ARTICLE CONTINUES AT MIT'S TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

Hydrogen-Powered Gadget Charger Debuts At Consumer Electronics Show 2009

We’ve seen solar-powered cell phone chargers before, but this is the first pocket-size device I can remember powered exclusively by hydrogen. It’s called the Mini-Pak and comes to us from Horizon. According to the release, the charger combines the company’s mass-produced consumer fuel cells with compact solid-state hydrogen cartridge systems. It can be used to charge everything from cell phones to MP3 players and contains no heavy metals (mercury, lead or cadium). Up to 1,000 charge cycles can be expected from the unit.

In terms of refills, the press pack indicates that you can purchase 2 packs or 6 packs. Even more interesting, the company is planning a home refueling station for 2010. Of course, pricing is currently unavailable — so we’ll be left guessing until we catch up with the future. Still, great to see such products emerging.

article conintues here at EcoTality.com

14 US companies and US govt lab team up on future lithium batteries

12.18.08, 09:56 AM EST By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Aiming to mass-produce a lithium battery for vehicles, 14 U.S. companies with expertise in batteries and advanced materials have formed an alliance with a government laboratory, the lab said on Thursday.

The alliance, which includes battery industry giants such as 3M (nyse: MMM - news - people ) Co and Johnson Controls (nyse: JCI - news - people )-Saft, intends to secure $1 billion to $2 billion in U.S. government funding over the next five years to build a manufacturing facility with an 'open foundry' for the participants to pursue the goal of perfecting lithium-ion batteries for cars.

'It's a huge deal for the nation, and for the lab,' said Mark Peters, who is in charge of transportation and battery research at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, which will advise the group.

China, Japan and South Korea are the current leaders in lithium battery research, he said in a telephone interview.

article continues here at FORBES.COM