If you’re anything like me, you’re a prisoner of your batteries. You skulk around airports and conference centers looking for outlets that can give you a few more minutes of precious device life. Battery technology has changed little over the last couple of decades and improvements have been incremental and slow, but that may be all about to change. Here are some notable new projects that are rethinking the basics of how we store and generate power.
The ‘Hourglass’ Liquid Battery Runs on Gravity
Although the technology is more than 40 years old, liquid flow batteries have never caught on because of complexity and high maintenance costs. The technology pushes a material containing charged particles between positive and negative terminals to produce power, a process that typically requires storage tanks, pumps and valves. But a team of MIT scientists has come up with a remarkably simple new take on the concept that uses gravity instead.
Their liquid battery prototype flips over like an hourglass and lets physics do the rest. The design enables the rate at which energy is produced to be varied by changing the angle of the device. The Hourglass battery is still just a concept, but scientists say they’re confident they can build a working prototype. When in production, this design could help scale up wind and solar power systems by providing bigger storage containers.
A Battery that Lasts Basically Forever
The rechargeable batteries in my wireless phone once powered hours of use, but they now die – rather suddenly – after about 30 minutes. This is an annoying characteristics of lithium ion batteries caused by a buildup of lithium on the electrodes that decreases battery life over time.
Now researchers at the University of California at Irvine have created a prototype cell based on nanowire technology that can be recharged more than 200,000 times without apparent damage or loss of capacity. Nanowires are tiny rods made of semiconducting material that have interested battery researchers for long time. The problem was that they were too fragile for practical use. But the Cal Irvine researchers came up with a new formula based on gold, manganese dioxide and an electrolyte gel that appears to solve the fragility problem.
Interestingly, the breakthrough was actually an accident. Scientists were seeking a way to improve capacity and stumbled upon the durability premium during testing.
Flash-charging Comes to Transportation.
One of the most exciting technologies in the newer breed of smart phones is “quick-charging,” which can charge a phone to between 60 percent and 80 percent of capacity in just a few minutes. Well, it turns out the same concept can apply to municipal buses as well.
Or at least Geneva, Switzerland thinks so. The city is adding a dozen electric buses to its municipal service that will use “flash-charging” technology developed by ABB Group to give the vehicles a jolt of usable energy in as little as 15 seconds.
The technology is being tested on a line connecting Geneva airport with a nearby suburb. Thirteen charging stations are being deployed along the route, as well as in terminals. A bus can pull up to each charging station and get a 600 kW boost of power in 15 seconds that’s enough to move it along to the next charging station. Once it reaches the terminal, it’s hooked up for a full five-minute recharge. The city expects the 12 buses that are testing the technology will save as much as 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year compared to diesel-powered vehicles.
Tesla’s Powerwall home storage system has gotten a lot of publicity for its promise of powering a family’s overnight electrical needs from solar energy generated during the day. Now the founder of the company that popularized the Tetris video game says he’s done Tesla one better.
Henk Rogers claims his eight kilowatt-hour Blue Ion Continuum battery stores 25 percent more energy than a Powerwall and is made of stronger materials. To back up its claims, the company is offering a warranty that promises 75 percent capacity after 15 years of use, compared to 10 years for the Powerwall. One $12,950 battery provides enough storage for a family of three, but multiple cells can be stacked together – kind of like Tetris blocks.
A Battery that Runs on Urine – Really
Scientists have been studying microbial fuel cells (MFCs) for decades, hoping to come up with a combination of materials that can create inexpensive energy out of natural biological processes such as plant decay. It turns out a cheaper and readily available materials is better: human urine.
A team of U.K.-based researchers claims pee does a better job of generating electricity than organic decomposition, which has been the standard up until now. And because urine is free and available anywhere, this discovery could help MFCs fulfill the promise of providing low-cost power for areas of the world that lack modern infrastructure.
