Archive for category Energy Storage

High-Performance Batteries Developed Using a Common Virus

Posted by Mike in Energy Storage on August 24, 2010

The development of a new hi-tech rechargeable battery has been discussed this week at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The new high-performance batteries are portable and can be woven into fabrics, for both military and civil purposes.

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New Micro Supercapacitor Much Faster Than Existing Ones

Posted by Mike in Energy Storage on August 19, 2010

Researchers from the U.S. and France have created a micro-supercapacitor that has the potential to power embedded micro sensors, biomedical implants, mobile electronics, RFID tags, wireless sensor networks and other electronic gadgets.

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Hydrogen Makes Metals Brittle: Fraunhofer Researchers Improving Material Technologies

Posted by Ovidiu in Energy Storage, Hydrogen Power on August 17, 2010

Being the core of the dispute between early electric car adopters, hydrogen may be the solution to the electric movement, eventually even beating batteries by cleanliness. The technology behind hydrogen powered cars poses a few issues, though.

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New Mysterious Battery Technology From MIT Professor Cuts Price by 85%

Posted by Ovidiu in Energy Storage on August 16, 2010

Having received $6 million from ARPA-E and $10 million from venture-capital funding, 24M (whose name stands for “24 molar”) is working with Rutgers University and MIT. Yet-Ming Chiang, the materials professor from MIT, who also founded A123 Systems, is behind the wheel and doesn’t yet reveal any in-depth technical details about the new battery.

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Wax Helps Scientists Reach Theoretical Storage Limit for Lithium Manganese Phosphate Batteries

Posted by Ovidiu in Energy Storage on August 14, 2010

In the war for efficiency, not only energy harvesters (like solar cells, wind turbines and others) have to win, but they will also have to be accompanied by storage devices, coming from behind. Daiwon Choi, working at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has discovered how paraffin (wax) can improve the battery manufacturing technology by enhancing their electrodes.

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Water-Based Lithium-Ion Batteries Performance Greatly Improved

Posted by Mike in Energy Storage on August 13, 2010

A team at Fudan University, Shanghai, China, discovered how to improve the performance of water-based lithium-ion batteries by removing oxygen from the power cells. These batteries also have great potential for large-scale applications such as storing the energy from solar panels and wind turbines.

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Energain: Specially Designed Plastic, Inserted Into Batteries, Improving Everything

Posted by Mike in Energy Storage on August 3, 2010

DuPont, a science-based products and services company has created a new polymer-based separator for lithium-ion batteries that will improve their life and power and make them perfectly suited for electric and hybrid vehicles.

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Lithium Manganese Phosphate Batteries Break Efficiency Records

Posted by Ovidiu in Energy Storage on July 30, 2010

Paraffin wax and oleic acid have been discovered to make up good materials for battery electrodes, which could have applicability in electric cars and power storage systems. A team of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers in Richland, WA, have discovered a technique that could turn materials otherwise unsuited for battery electrodes into ones that exceed even today’s most advanced.

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Archimede: World’s First Concentrated Solar Power Plant That Uses Molten Salts as Energy Storage

Posted by Ovidiu in Energy Storage, Solar Power on July 22, 2010

First of all, Italy is one of the leading innovators in solar power. On July 15, their electricity company Enel has unveiled Archimede, their most innovative power plant using concentrated solar power (CSP) technology, where parabolic mirrors focus the Sun’s light onto capturing surfaces which take the heat to the storage location. For the first time in the world, molten salts have been used as storage for the heat they captured from the Sun.

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9 Electric Car Battery Factories Opened in Michigan: Experts Say Too Many

Posted by Ovidiu in Car industry, Energy Storage on July 21, 2010

Michigan, once a prosperous area for the auto industry, saw a decline once the economy collapsed. Now, because of government incentives through grants under the Recovery Act, nine electric car battery factories have reborn there, creating new jobs and putting things on track again.