Electric Motors Are About to Get a Major Upgrade - Thanks to Benjamin Franklin (msn.com) 44
"A technology pioneered by Benjamin Franklin is being revived to build more efficient electric motors," reports the Wall Street Journal, "an effort in its nascent stage that has the potential to be massive."
A handful of scientists and engineers — armed with materials and techniques unimaginable in the 1700s — are creating modern versions of Franklin's "electrostatic motor," that are on the cusp of commercialization... Franklin's "electrostatic motor" uses alternating positive and negative charges — the same kind that make your socks stick together after they come out of the dryer — to spin an axle, and doesn't rely on a flow of current like conventional electric motors. Every few years, an eager Ph.D. student or engineer rediscovers this historical curiosity. But other than applications in tiny pumps and actuators etched on microchips, where this technology has been in use for decades, their work hasn't made it out of the lab.
Electrostatic motors have several potentially huge advantages over regular motors. They are up to 80% more efficient than conventional motors after all the dependencies of regular electric motors are added in. They could also allow new kinds of control and precision in robots, where they could function more like our muscles. And they don't use rare-earth elements because they don't have permanent magnets, and require as little as 5% as much copper as a conventional motor. Both materials have become increasingly scarce and expensive over the past decade, and supply chains for them are dominated by China.
"It's reminiscent of the early 1990s, when Sony began to produce and sell the first rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, a breakthrough that's now ubiquitous..." according to the article. "These motors could lead to more efficient air-conditioning systems, factories, logistics hubs and data centers, and — since they can double as generators — better ways of generating renewable energy. They might even show up in tiny surveillance drones."
And the article points out that C-Motive Technologies, a 16-person startup in Wisconsin, is already "reaching out to companies, hoping to get their motors out into the real world." ("So far, FedEx and Rockwell Automation, the century-old supplier of automation to factories, are among those testing their motors.") C-Motive's founders discovered that a number of technologies had matured enough that, when combined, could yield electrostatic motors competitive with conventional ones. These enabling technologies include super fast-switching power electronics — like those in modern electric vehicles — that can toggle elements of the motor between states of positive and negative charge very quickly... Dogged exploration of combinations of various readily available industrial organic fluids led to a proprietary mix that can both multiply the strength of the electric field and insulate the motor's spinning parts from each other — all without adding too much friction — says C-Motive Chief Executive Matt Maroon.
Electrostatic motors have several potentially huge advantages over regular motors. They are up to 80% more efficient than conventional motors after all the dependencies of regular electric motors are added in. They could also allow new kinds of control and precision in robots, where they could function more like our muscles. And they don't use rare-earth elements because they don't have permanent magnets, and require as little as 5% as much copper as a conventional motor. Both materials have become increasingly scarce and expensive over the past decade, and supply chains for them are dominated by China.
"It's reminiscent of the early 1990s, when Sony began to produce and sell the first rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, a breakthrough that's now ubiquitous..." according to the article. "These motors could lead to more efficient air-conditioning systems, factories, logistics hubs and data centers, and — since they can double as generators — better ways of generating renewable energy. They might even show up in tiny surveillance drones."
And the article points out that C-Motive Technologies, a 16-person startup in Wisconsin, is already "reaching out to companies, hoping to get their motors out into the real world." ("So far, FedEx and Rockwell Automation, the century-old supplier of automation to factories, are among those testing their motors.") C-Motive's founders discovered that a number of technologies had matured enough that, when combined, could yield electrostatic motors competitive with conventional ones. These enabling technologies include super fast-switching power electronics — like those in modern electric vehicles — that can toggle elements of the motor between states of positive and negative charge very quickly... Dogged exploration of combinations of various readily available industrial organic fluids led to a proprietary mix that can both multiply the strength of the electric field and insulate the motor's spinning parts from each other — all without adding too much friction — says C-Motive Chief Executive Matt Maroon.
An electrifying event. (Score:1)
So, Tesla is going to implement..a Franklin invention?
I’m gonna need to get my electric popcorn maker out for this marketing spin.
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The Founding Fathers were clear in their opposition to electric vehicles. This is more than spin - it's revisionist history, and socialism.
cool (Score:1)
"It's reminiscent of the early 1990s, when Sony began to produce and sell the first rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, a breakthrough that's now ubiquitous..."
Cool technology, but the hype here is a little ridiculous.
dont tell me, let me guess (Score:1)
Did I misunderstand the article? (Score:3)
"These motors could lead to more efficient air-conditioning systems, factories, logistics hubs and data centers, and — since they can double as generators — better ways of generating renewable energy. They might even show up in tiny surveillance drones."
But that's valid for any electric motor. It's not a specialty of electrostatic motors as suggested here.
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I think the key is that "They are up to 80% more efficient than conventional motors". And thus making more efficient air-conditioning etc.
Re:Did I misunderstand the article? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure exactly how that works. Existing properly designed electric motors are about 98% efficient anyway. What's 80% more efficient than that? Obviously they're not more than 100% efficient, because that would be dark magic. So I can only assume they mean up to 99.6% efficient. Either that, or they are simply comparing against a specific motor or class of motors that have much lower efficiency around 50%, allowing them to claim that their, let's say, 90% efficient motor is more efficient. If that's the case, it may be a type of motor for a very specific purpose, like some sort of timing motor, where high-efficiency isn't the point in the first place.
Of course, if that's the case, that would not be air conditioning motors... Overall, I would say that it's likely that the author of the breathless summary has no idea what they're talking about.
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https://www.c-motive.com/ [c-motive.com]
Obviously any 80%-type calculation would depend entirely on how long
Re:Did I misunderstand the article? (Score:4, Interesting)
Even 1-2% efficiency is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a motor that runs most of the time.
It's the same principle as a vehicle that gets 1 more MPG than another - it doesn't SEEM like much, but for every 10 gallons of fuel that vehicle has gone 10 miles further. Once you start getting up to using 10, 20 , 30 tanks of fuel the cost savings start to add up significantly. Even more so when you take into account 1,000, 2,000, or a million vehicles getting "only" 1 MPG more than the rest. It becomes an absolutely massive amount of fuel saved.
It's the same for these electric motors. Sure, saving maybe 20-30 cents per day on ONE motor may not be a lot, but if millions or billions of these motors start needing 1-2% less electricity to run the same loads it will save a LOT of capacity on the power grids. Probably even enough to avoid brown / black outs on grids that are currently stressed as it is. Like in Texas / California where many places suffer from low voltages that border on brownouts in the summer.
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At the same time, as a counterpoint... one could always just post the real world charts of what the actual real world wattage is for cars: The measure method is using the defined speed(90kmh or 120km/h, a few on 200km/h) via cruise control at highway, in similar weather conditions, blasting the climate system.
https://docs.google.com/spread... [google.com]
A quick peak will lend such insights as: The refresh 64kWh Nissan Leaf has the same power consumption at 90km/h as a Tesla Model 3 Highlander at 120km/h.
There being a c
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Existing properly designed electric motors are about 98% efficient anyway.
Can be up to 98% efficient, "be up to" being the important phrase. Depending on load and design they can also be quite a bit lower. I'm not a motor expert but this article seemed to have some decent data. The authors were focused on robotics, not vehicles. In EVs, I assume you'd put a lot of effort into getting the motors to run closer to 98% efficient. [tytorobotics.com]
That said, it does seem a gross generalization to say 'motors can be 80% more efficient." I have no idea what that might actually mean.
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"They are up to 80% more efficient than conventional motors" is logically equivalent to "They are *no more than* 80% more efficient than conventional motors." It sounds like you're making a bold claim, but in fact you're saying very little -- in fact you're saying less the higher the percent you throw out. "Motor A is 101% up to more efficient than Motor B" is always true, even when Motor A is *less* efficient than B.
It they are trying to claim that in some situations they can achieve *as much as* a 80% g
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I didn't read it as they were suggesting it was a special property of eletrostatic motors, just that dynamos are another area where their increased efficiency could be beneficial.
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I don't think an electrostatic motor would make a good generator anyway, except in something like MEMS. You *could* use it that way, but they're inherently high voltage (theirs is 2 kV), low current devices.
Buried lede (Score:2)
Okay then.
I mean the induction motors commonly used in those applications are already dead simple
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Not to mention that induction motors use no rare earths at all. Nor do synchronous motors.
A very small subset of small permanent magnet motors use rare earths. Canned rotor pumps often do have magnets. Will this new pump be able to run at least 1800 rpm for efficient pumping? Sure you can pump at lower rpm, but the pump will have to be a larger diameter to get the impeller's circumferential speed to the needed level.
Torque (Score:5, Interesting)
If I recall correctly, some company in Japan was actually looking into further developing this specifically because it does not rely on rare-earth elements as it has no permanent magnets. The biggest issue with this type of motor seems to be that it is low torque, far too low to be used for motor vehicle propulsion. That said, there are applications where torque isn't an issue.
The article confirms this as well:
Electrostatic tech isn’t suitable for fast-spinning motors like those in the powertrains of electric vehicles and conventional drones, says C-Motive’s Maroon. But if they prove compelling in industrial applications, it’s possible that some systems that are currently designed for conventional motors could be redesigned to use electrostatic ones, such as home heating and cooling systems.
If they can improve the efficiency of refrigeration compressors then this could be a real winner.
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ICE's (particularly turbines) don't have great torque at 1:1 ratio either. The solution was a transmission.
IIRC, electric motors are heavy due to the high density materials they use (incl copper). I don't know if the savings in copper / rare earth would make up for the addition of a transmission, but transmissions are probably easier to incorporate in a design than removing rare earths that have few source companies.
More efficiency is welcome but (Score:5, Insightful)
The efficiency is not the big deal here as electric motors are already really, really efficient. Like, 95%+ in EVs, even when acting as a generator.
Making them 80% more efficient will take them from 95% to 99%. So you're going to see 4% more EV range, right?
Except, a) EV range is very much a matter of both efficiency and regenerative braking and b) TFA says the technology isn't suitable for fast-moving motors and explicitly calls out EVs, and it doesn't at all address efficiency when being used as a generator.
It then goes on to say that in applications like "home heating and cooling systems" the systems would have to be redesigned to take advantage of these motors, and that "Electrostatic motors also require much higher voltages than traditional motors [...] potentially adding to the cost of the total system". Those home heating and cooling systems have very small margins because there is substantial competition in that market. They are not going to make the system more expensive in order to try to sell you on saving a few dollars per year on your energy bill.
And none of this is even the best objection to the technology, which is that it requires a non-air working fluid. TFA states that this is the actual key to the technology, and that's what's going to torpedo it. (Ironically, not being suited to high speeds means it won't work for torpedoes either.) One of the best things about electric motors, especially the modern brushless ones whose control technology is said in TFA to have made these electrostatic motors possible, is their longevity. Even brushed motors can last a very long time without any maintenance, and brushless ones can go much longer. Introducing a heavier-than-air fluid into the motor not only has its own negative effects on efficiency (which besides the issue of time to achieve field saturation is probably a reason why the tech doesn't apply to high-speed motors) it also makes other kinds of problems much more likely. Besides leakage of the fluid, there is also the chance of contamination or corrosion.
In TFA one of the suggestions is drones, but they'd better be nearly as light as air, because the heavier than air ones depend on high motor speeds (and TFA explicitly says they're not suited for "conventional drones".)
It seems like most of the potential applications are industrial and stationary, where a few more percentage points of efficiency would add up to a significant amount — and where fluid maintenance is not a major drawback, both because access is convenient and because there is already a maintenance schedule. And of course where the savings in copper is significant, although these stationary applications could already be using aluminum since more bulk is not as much of a drawback.
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While your point is valid, the claimed efficiency of electric motors might be overstated. Based on research, the actual efficiency is more like 70-85%.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/v9dm... [app.goo.gl]
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Making them 80% more efficient will take them from 95% to 99%. So you're going to see 4% more EV range, right?
No, wrong. If you increase the efficiency of the system by 80% in the sense that it now does 80% more work per fixed unit of input, you'll see an 80% increase in range. The fact that it was previously 50% or 90% or 99.999% efficient doesn't enter into it.
Now, I get that your numbers are about motor efficiency not EV efficiency so yes it's not going to increase range by 80% but the point is, this 99%-95%=4% is the wrong formula.
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This is an assumption you're making, and since in this particular case it creates a perpetual motion machine, the OP has made the reasonable assumption that is not actually what they're claiming.
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So you're going to see 4% more EV range, right?
The EV isn't the only motor applications. Consider a small refinery which may be running hundreds of motors in the ranges of 25-250kW continuously, 24/7. You can quickly come up with some quite significant differences in energy consumption.
E.g. assume the average motor is 50kW (probably correct for a small refinery) and you're running 100 of them. That's 50MW continuous power draw. 4% of that figure is 2MW, which is more power than on onshore wind turbine (duty factor considered), for one facility.
It's not
Very niche (Score:2)
Well, it's like a typical advertorial (Score:2)
They completely ignore the severe problems of electrostatic motors, like that they need highly problematic voltages.
Reading through it, it's unclear where they might get their "efficiency" from, but they talk about currents that need to go through conductors. There is in fact one situation where the efficiency of many types of electric motors is low, and that's when they are standing still. Without superconductors you will still need to have some current flowing through the coils in order to have some torqu
The newsboy ripped the corner off (Score:3)
When I saw Benjamin Franklin is being revived to build more efficient electric motors, l was alarmed. But then I figured it made sense, being so close to Halloween. So I went online, skeptic as I was.
Could (Score:2)
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AI.
For years, it was prophetized that It could free humanity from toil, solve the world's problems and cure disease. Now it's a thing, and it's concretely used for everything but that.
Might be interesting as a stepper motor (Score:2)
The only real advantage I see is efficient holding torque at standstill, could be interesting for steppers.
a better article (Score:3)
Here's a more informative article;
https://spectrum.ieee.org/elec... [ieee.org]
" one of the team’s greatest challenges was producing a dielectric fluid that has a much higher permittivity and breakdown field strength than air, and that was also environmentally friendly and nontoxic. "
"Another challenge was supplying the 2,000 volts their machine needs to operate. High voltages are necessary to create the intense electric fields between the rotors and stators."
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Here's a more informative article; https://spectrum.ieee.org/elec... [ieee.org]
" one of the team’s greatest challenges was producing a dielectric fluid that has a much higher permittivity and breakdown field strength than air, and that was also environmentally friendly and nontoxic. "
"Another challenge was supplying the 2,000 volts their machine needs to operate. High voltages are necessary to create the intense electric fields between the rotors and stators."
Came here to say the same thing. For obvious reasons, the IEEE article is much more satisfying for people with tech and science backgrounds.
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The big problem I see with a motor of this type is the high voltages it requires, and more to the point, the high-voltage electronics necessary to manipulate that high-voltage supply. It's bad enough when your circuitry has to work with a few hundred volts, but in this case, for the motors to scale up, it's going to be several thousand volts, and apparently as the motors get bigger and bigger, the voltage will have
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They claim the motor is "based on readily available 4.5-kilovolt insulated-gate bipolar transistors".
Its possible that this high voltage tech will have less energy loss from waste heat than conventional electric motors, which presumably operate with much larger current. That would explain the efficiency claims.
Wow, C-Motive Technologies is in Wisconsin (Score:2)
The Twentieth Century Motor Company in Atlas Shrugged was in Wisconsin, and John Galt designed his motor based on the Casimir effect there. Coincidence?
Electrostatic socks are now a thing (Score:2)
It's for razor sharp technological insights like this that keeps me coming back to slashdot.