Toshiba To Launch "Super Charge" Batteries 202
ozgood writes in to let us know about Toshiba's announcement that it has developed a new type of rechargeable battery dubbed the Super Charge ion Battery, or SCiB. Toshiba claims the new battery will mainly target the industrial market, though they hint the technology may eventually find a home in electric vehicles. The SCiB can recharge to 90% of total capacity in under five minutes, and has a life span of over 10 years. "Toshiba also says the battery has excellent safety with the new negative electrode material having a high level of thermal stability and a high flash point. The battery is also said to be structurally resistant to internal short-circuiting and thermal runaway."
Another article on SCiB (Score:4, Informative)
According to this article, hybrid cars will be the first use for these batteries.
As long as the energy density is comparable to current Lithium-ion batteries, then this will be some pretty cool tech.
Problem: top current (Score:5, Informative)
Amps without volts (Score:5, Informative)
Dan East
Re:Amps without volts (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Amps without volts (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Amps without volts (Score:3, Informative)
Re:awesome! (Score:4, Informative)
Energy Density 180kJ/kg (Score:4, Informative)
Batteriy capacity is NOT why the burn (Score:5, Informative)
If this was the case a discharged battery would be safe, yet it contains just as much lithium as when it was charged, meaning it is still a fire hazard. The problem with lithium ion batteries is NOT their electrical energy density, it is the low activation energy of the chemicals they are made of.
To really put this in perspective, your cutlery and pots all contain A LOT of chemical potential energy. Burning iron in air releases vast quantities of it. Of course, because steel has a very good heat conductivity, and as the activation energy is high, you can't really set a piece of steel on fire at normal temperatures. If, on the other hand, you were to grind that iron into a fine powder, then you better make sure not to bring it close to sources of ignition as it will explode into a fireball.
Similarly, iron oxide doesn't burn in air because it is already oxidised, but if you mix it with aluminium powder, a strong reducing agent, then you got a Thermite mix which will burn at such a high temperature that it is little you can do but wait until it has completed. Even choking it doesn't work since it contains its own oxidiser.
The reason lithium ion batteries can catch fire is simply that lithium is easy to ignite. If the energy recoverable from a battery was directly related to how strongly it burns, then you would most certainly see batteries made from titanium or aluminium, and not lithium ( which releases a lot less energy when combusted than does many other metals ).
Re:awesome! (Score:4, Informative)
TFA says it can take 50 amps. It is a lithium cell, therefore 3.6 volts.
That is 1.6 amps at 120volts. Not a big deal (and yes, I didn't account for conversion losses so say 2 amps max at 120v). Now this is for your cell phone or PDA.
So, while your wall wart will grow some and will probably end up close to the unit being charged instead of being plugged into the wall, the power cord is fine and you won't be blowing any house breakers.
Now for your laptop at 20volts which is 5 or 6 cells, you will need 8.8 amps at 120v so say 10 amps total. Still not a deal breaker but you may need 18 ga wire in the power supply to wall connection instead of 20 or 22 ga. The thing that gets big here is the wire ga to the unit itself. Now THAT could be a problem so we will probably not see a full 50 amps into the unit itself. The physical space for the leads inside the cell phone, computer, etc, get a bit large.
Re:awesome! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:awesome! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Problem: top current (Score:3, Informative)
A cassettes/VHS tape at least used to have advantages over CD/DVDs, but CD/DVDs won despite being different.
For example, people might only be willing to wait 5-10 minutes while gassing up their car, but that's partially because it's their primary activity during that time.
Let's say that Olive Garden sticks chargers in their parking lot. In which case they hook their car up, go inside and have a meal while their car is charging. So it could take 30-60 minutes and they wouldn't care, because that's how long it takes to eat there, and it's just charging out in the lot. Same with charging at home. It can take 8 hours to charge because they're in bed.
Now, for long trips, I'd say 300 mile range at highway speeds and a half hour charge is the 'magic point', at least for more relaxed drivers. 300miles@75mph is 4 hours of range, or enough that you start driving, have breakfast, lunch, and early dinner - driving up to another 300 miles before going to bed - traveling up to 1200 miles over the course of 16 hours, not including stops. Add some 'charging' 15 minute rest breaks every 2 hours like you're supposed to, and range isn't a problem anymore.
Once you have the half hour charge down, I'd concentrate on increasing range more than speeding up charge times. 400 mile range would give you quite a bit of margin.
Re:Amps without volts (Score:3, Informative)
LiIon energy density (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Poor energy density (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know anything about the Prius battery (or other hybrid batteries); sorry. I'm referring to larger traction batteries that we've installed in high-performance EVs.
State of the art Li-ion modules [from A123] are getting just over 100 Wh / kg at the moment.
A123 cells may be state of the art, and they do indeed appear to have high power density, but they have a rather unimpressive energy density, on the order of your 100 Wh/kg metric, above. Commodity form-factor 18650 cells, as used in AC Propulsion's eBox and Tesla Motors' Roadster have a specific energy of ~200 Wh/kg, and no, they're not dangerous. The batteries in those vehicles are way over 100 Wh/kg as installed in the vehicle, including all packaging, cooling, and monitoring systems.
Bleeding edge cells are approaching 250 Wh/kg, but thus far those have proven difficult to manufacture without defects, leading to the infamous laptop fires.