capstan-based mechanism ensures that the battery-powered device can lift two soldiers sometimes carrying 80 to 100 pounds of equipment swiftly along an attached rope, without jamming.
A lightweight, interchangeable battery capable of hundreds of feet of hoisting per charge snaps into the front.
as with conventional pulleys and winches, the rope fed through the APA weaves between a series of rollers that sit on top of a turning, battery-powered spindle.
Using drill batteries and other custom-designed equipment, the team completed a working prototype that achieved a 50-foot lift in seven seconds.
however, will require extremely low-power sensors that can run for months without battery changes or, even better,
Where most of its ultralow-power predecessors could use a solar cell to either charge a battery
and it can power the device directly from the battery. All of those operations also share a single inductor the chip main electrical component which saves on circuit board space
the chip power consumption remains low. e still want to have battery-charging capability, and we still want to provide a regulated output voltage,
Ups and downs The circuit chief function is to regulate the voltages between the solar cell, the battery,
If the battery operates for too long at a voltage that either too high or too low, for instance, its chemical reactants break down,
#New manufacturing approach slices lithium-ion battery cost in half An advanced manufacturing approach for lithium-ion batteries, developed by researchers at MIT and at a spinoff company called 24m,
says Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT and a cofounder of 24m (and previously a cofounder of battery company A123).
The existing process for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, he says, has changed hardly in the two decades
In this so-called low battery, the electrodes are suspensions of tiny particles carried by a liquid
and pumped through various compartments of the battery. The new battery design is a hybrid between flow batteries and conventional solid ones:
In this version, while the electrode material does not flow, it is composed of a similar semisolid, colloidal suspension of particles.
Chiang and Carter refer to this as a emisolid battery. impler manufacturing processthis approach greatly simplifies manufacturing,
and also makes batteries that are flexible and resistant to damage, says Chiang, who is senior author of a paper in the Journal of Power Sources analyzing the tradeoffs involved in choosing between solid
and flow-type batteries, depending on their particular applications and chemical components. This analysis demonstrates that
while a flow battery system is appropriate for battery chemistries with a low energy density (those that can only store a limited amount of energy for a given weight),
for high-energy density devices such as lithium-ion batteries, the extra complexity and components of a flow system would add unnecessary extra cost.
Bendable and foldablein addition to streamlining manufacturing enough to cut battery costs by half, Chiang says,
the new system produces a battery that is more flexible and resilient. While conventional lithium-ion batteries are composed of brittle electrodes that can crack under stress
the new formulation produces battery cells that can be bent, folded or even penetrated by bullets without failing.
This should improve both safety and durability, he says. The company has made so far about 10,000 batteries on its prototype assembly lines, most
of which are undergoing testing by three industrial partners, including an oil company in Thailand and Japanese heavy-equipment manufacturer IHI Corp. The process has received eight patents
By 2020, Chiang estimates that 24m will be able to produce batteries for less than $100 per kilowatt-hour of capacity.
and go-no go decisions. iswanathan adds that 24m new battery design ould do the same sort of disruption to lithium ion batteries manufacturing as
one of their biggest limitations is the capacity of their tiny batteries to deliver enough power to transmit data.
At the moment, the coin-sized batteries used in many small electronic devices have limited very ability to deliver a lot of power at once,
So an alternative is to go to a combination of a battery and a capacitor, Hunter says:
the battery for long-term, low-power functions, and the capacitor for short bursts of high power. Such a combination should be able to either increase the range of the device,
The new nanowire-based supercapacitor exceeds the performance of existing batteries, while occupying a very small volume. f youe got an Apple Watch and
because other energy storage technologies such as fuel cells, batteries, and flywheels tend to be less efficient, or simply too complex to be reduced practical
These are in the chargers that charge the battery, and the inverters that convert the battery power to drive the electric motors.
#Carbon nanotube finding could lead to flexible electronics with longer battery life University of Wisconsin-Madison materials engineers have made a significant leap toward creating higher-performance electronics with improved battery lifend the ability
#Nanoparticle network could bring fast-charging batteries (Phys. org) A new electrode design for lithium-ion batteries has been shown to potentially reduce the charging time from hours to minutes by replacing the conventional graphite electrode with a network of tin-oxide nanoparticles.
Batteries have called two electrodes an anode and a cathode. The anodes in most of today's lithium-ion batteries are made of graphite.
The theoretical maximum storage capacity of graphite is limited very at 372 milliamp hours per gram hindering significant advances in battery technology said Vilas Pol an associate professor of chemical engineering at Purdue University.
and contract or breathe during the charge-discharge battery cycle. These spaces are very important for this architecture said Purdue postdoctoral research associate Vinodkumar Etacheri.
Without the proper pore size and interconnection between individual tin oxide nanoparticles the battery fails. The research paper was authored by Etacheri;
and limits how much lithium the particle can take in when a battery charges. At the same time they found that the alucone coating softens the particles making it easier for them to expand
but it can be recharged much faster than a battery and has a great deal more power. They are used mostly in any type of device where rapid power storage
They posses a high surface area for better electron transfer which can lead to the improved performance of an electrode in an electric double capacitor or battery.
and inorganic-based energy devices such as battery solar cell and self-powered devices that require high temperature processes s
The Rice lab of materials scientist Jun Lou created the new cathode, one of the two electrodes in batteries,
and mice so you never have to install batteries. Normal room light is sufficient to keep them alive."
Take the electrode of the small lithium-ion battery that powers your watch for example ideally the conductive material in that electrode would be very small
But what if we wanted to make the watch's wristband into the battery? Then we'd still want to use a conductive material that is very thin
#A billion holes can make a battery Researchers at the University of Maryland have invented a single tiny structure that includes all the components of a battery that they say could bring about the ultimate miniaturization of energy storage components.
but the bitsy battery performs well. First author Chanyuan Liu a graduate student in materials science & engineering says that it can be charged fully in 12 minutes
Many millions of these nanopores can be crammed into one larger battery the size of a postage stamp.
which allows them to pack the tiny thin batteries together efficiently. Coauthor Eleanor Gillette's modeling shows that the unique design of the nanopore battery is responsible for its success. The space inside the holes is so small that the space they take up all added together would be no more than a grain of sand.
Now that the scientists have the battery working and have demonstrated the concept they have identified also improvements that could make the next version 10 times more powerful.
The next step to commercialization: the inventors have conceived strategies for manufacturing the battery in large batches s
#Team grows uniform nanowires A researcher from Missouri University of Science and Technology has developed a new way to grow nanowire arrays with a determined diameter length and uniform consistency.
Though they don't store as much energy as an electrochemical battery they have long lifespans and are in wide use
because they can deliver far more power than a battery. The Rice lab built supercapacitors with the films;
These could be fuel cells supercapacitors and batteries. And we've demonstrated two of those three are possible with this new material l
and high electrical conductivity and are used in products from baseball bats and other sports equipment to lithium-ion batteries and touchscreen computer displays.
#Tracking heat-driven decay in leading electric vehicle batteries Rechargeable electric vehicles are one of the greatest tools against rising pollution and carbon emissions and their widespread adoption hinges on battery performance.
Scientists specializing in nanotechnology continue to hunt for the perfect molecular recipe for a battery that drives down price increases durability and offers more miles on every charge.
One particular family of lithium-ion batteries composed of nickel cobalt and aluminum (NCA) offers high enough energy density a measure of the stored electricity in the battery that it works well in large-scale and long-range vehicles including electric cars and commercial aircraft.
There is however a significant catch: These batteries degrade with each cycle of charge and discharge.
As the battery cycles lithium ions shuttle back and forth between cathode and anode and leave behind detectable tracks of nanoscale damage.
Crucially the high heat of vehicle environments can intensify these telltale degradation tracks and even cause complete battery failure.
The relationship between structural changes and the catastrophic thermal runaway impacts both safety and performance said physicist Xiao-Qing Yang of the U s. Department of energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory.
To get a holistic portrait of the NCA battery's electrochemical reactions researchers in Brookhaven Lab's Chemistry department
During this transformation oxygen leaves the destabilized battery compound. This excess oxygen leached at faster and faster rates over time actually contributes to the risk of failure and acts as fuel for a potential fire.
These new and fundamental insights may help engineers develop superior battery chemistries or nanoscale architectures that block this degradation.
X-ray snapshots of heat-driven decompositionthe first study published in Chemistry of Materials explored the NCA battery using combined x-ray diffraction
We were able to test the battery cycling in situ meaning we could watch the effects of increasing heat in real time said Brookhaven Lab chemist and study coauthor Seong Min Bak.
But that temperature threshold dropped for a highly charged battery suggesting that operating at full energy capacity accelerates structural degradation and vulnerability.
The next study also published in Chemistry of Materials used transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to pinpoint the effect of an initial charge on the battery's surface structure.
The highly focused electron beams available at CFN revealed individual atom positions as an applied current pushed pristine batteries to an overcharged state.
and Technology (KIST Even with just one charge on the NCA battery we saw changes in the crystalline structure
and leave holes in the NCA surface permanently damaging the battery's capacity and performance.
and began to shift toward disorder down at temperatures below 100 degrees Celsius definitely plausible for a lithium-ion battery's normal operation.
and that free oxygen would feed the fire springing from an overheated battery. The corroborating data in the three studies points to flaws in the chemistry
and architecture of NCA batteries including the surprising atomic asymmetries and suggests new ways to enhance durability including the use of nanoscale coatings that reinforce stable structures.
We plan to push these investigative techniques even further to track the battery's structure in real-time as it charges
When the solid surface is charged just like an electrode in a working battery it can drive further changes in the interfacial liquid.
Miquel Salmeron a senior scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials sciences Division (MSD) and professor in UC Berkeley's Materials science and engineering Department explains this in the context of a battery.
because they carry a steady current as in batteries and other electrochemical systems. While the emitted electrons from nearby molecules are indeed detectable this contribution to the current is dwarfed by the normal Faradaic current of the battery at finite voltages.
When measuring current off the electrode it is critical to determine which part is due to the x-rays and
which is due to the regular battery current. To overcome this problem the researchers pulsed the incoming x-rays from the synchrotron at a known frequency.
The global market for graphene is reported to have reached US$9 million this year with most sales concentrated in the semiconductor electronics battery energy and composites.
and tablets smart phones and other portable devices photovoltaics batteries and bioimaging. The technique has proved so successful that Hersam
and batteries that can improve efficiency and reduce the cost of solar cells and increase the capacity and reduce the charging time of batteries he says.
The resulting batteries and solar cells are also mechanically flexible and thus can be integrated with flexible electronics.
They likely even will prove waterproof. It turns out that carbon nanomaterials are hydrophobic so water will roll right off of them he says.
#Flexible paper electrodes with ultra-high loading for lithium-sulfur batteries With the rapid development of portable electronic devices, electric automobiles,
Lithium-ion batteries, though mature and widely utilized, have encountered the theoretical limit and therefore can not meet the urgent need for high energy density.
Lithium-sulfur batteries, owning a theoretical energy density of 2600 Wh kg-1, which are approximately 4 times as much as commercially used lithium-ion batteries,
are considered to be strong candidates. The abundance and environmentally friendly nature of the element sulfur as cathode material are factors in the huge potential of lithium-sulfur batteries.
The combination of nanocarbon and sulfur is effective at overcoming the insulating nature of sulfur for lithium sulfur batteries."
"Due to excellent electrical conductivity, mechanical strength and chemical stability, nanocarbon materials have played an essential role in the area of advanced energy storage,
"The areal capacity of commercially used lithium-ion batteries is about 4 mah cm-2,
and therefore, the areal loading of sulfur in the cathode of lithium-sulfur batteries needs to be improved greatly,
Recently, scientists from Tsinghua University have created a freestanding carbon nanotube paper electrode with high sulfur loading for lithium-sulfur batteries.
"The as-obtained freestanding paper electrode is promising for the ubiquitous applications of Li-S batteries with low cost,
This new method of graphene fabrication by self-assembly is a stepping stone toward the production of self-assembled graphene devices that will vastly improve the performance of data storage circuits batteries and electronics.
three-dimensional (3d) structures for applications in devices such as batteries and supercapacitors. Their study was published recently in the journal Nature Communications.
The breakthrough in morphology control should have widespread use in solar cells batteries and vertical transistors he adds.
#Scientists improve microscopic batteries with homebuilt imaging analysis (Phys. org) In a rare case of having their cake
and eating it too scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and other institutions have developed a toolset that allows them to explore the complex interior of tiny multilayered batteries they devised.
It provides insight into the batteries'performance without destroying them resulting in both a useful probe for scientists and a potential power source for micromachines.
The microscopic lithium-ion batteries are created by taking a silicon wire a few micrometers long and covering it in successive layers of different materials.
Instead of a cake however each finished battery looks more like a tiny tree. The analogy becomes obvious
when you see the batteries attached by their roots to silicon wafers and clustered together by the million into nanoforests as the team dubs them.
But it's the cake-like layers that enable the batteries to store and discharge electricity
and other parameters it's crucial to know the best way to build each layer to enhance the battery's performance as the team found in previous research.**
With STEM electrons illuminate the battery which scatters them at a wide range of angles.
To see as much detail as possible the team decided to use a set of electron detectors to collect electrons in a wide range of scattering angles an arrangement that gave them plenty of structural information to assemble a clear picture of the battery's interior down to the nanoscale level.
The promising toolset of electron microscopy techniques helped the researchers to home in on better ways to build the tiny batteries.
MEMS manufacturers could make use of the batteries themselves a million of which can be fabricated on a square centimeter of a silicon wafer.
Toward making lithium-sulfur batteries a commercial reality for a bigger energy punch More information:
Miniature all-solid-state heterostructure nanowire Li-ion batteries as a tool for engineering and structural diagnostics of nanoscale electrochemical processes.
and have been studied for enhance conductivity for applications related to batteries and fuel cells. Using simulations that explicitly account for the position of each atom within the material the Los alamos research team examined the interface between Srtio3
Johnson said the company's graphene supercapacitors are reaching the energy density of lithium-ion batteries without a similar energy fade over time.
Our graphene-based supercapacitors charge in just a fraction of the time needed to charge lithium-ion batteries.
#Study sheds new light on why batteries go bad A comprehensive look at how tiny particles in a lithium ion battery electrode behave shows that rapid-charging the battery
The results challenge the prevailing view that supercharging batteries is always harder on battery electrodes than charging at slower rates according to researchers from Stanford university and the Stanford Institute for Materials & Energy Sciences (SIMES) at the Department of energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
or change the way batteries are charged to promote more uniform charging and discharging and extend battery life.
We have found a new way to think about battery degradation. The results he said can be applied directly to many oxide
One important source of battery wear and tear is the swelling and shrinking of the negative and positive electrodes as they absorb
and get ruined degrading the battery's performance. Previous studies produced conflicting views of how the nanoparticles behaved.
But when the batteries discharged an interesting thing happened: As the discharge rate increased above a certain threshold more and more particles started to absorb ions simultaneously switching to a more uniform and less damaging mode.
The scientists also hope to take snapshots of the battery while it's charging and discharging rather than stopping the process and taking it apart.
Live from inside a battery: Researchers observe the phenomenon of'lithium plating'during the charging process More information:
The as-fabricated N-ACNT/G sandwiches described in the journal Advanced Materials on Sep 17 2014 demonstrated high-rate performances in lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries.
One of the most promising candidates for next-generation power sources Li-S battery is with very high theoretical energy density of 2600 Wh kg-1 natural abundance
and rate performances of Li-S batteries for practical application with the N-ACNT/G hybrids as cathode materials. said Prof.
Facile Catalytic Growth on Bifunctional Natural Catalysts and Their Applications as Scaffolds for High-Rate Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.
Batteries weigh a lot, and less power consumption means reducing the battery weight of electronic equipment that soldiers are carrying,
which will enhance their combat capability. Other potential military applications include electronics for remote sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and high-capacity computing in remote operations.
Understanding how materials grow at the nanoscale level helps scientists tailor them for everything from batteries to solar cells.
which for example the next generation of batteries will operate. Engineering new materials to address today's societal problems is a complex and demanding agenda Zaluzec said.
but immensely powerful batteries) and an array of new materials that could make many of today's common metals and polymers redundant.
#Scientists fabricate defect-free graphene set record reversible capacity for Co3o4 anode in Li-ion batteries Graphene has already been demonstrated to be useful in Li-ion batteries,
and size-tunable for battery applications has remained so far elusive. Now in a new study, scientists have developed a method to fabricate defect-free graphene (df-G) without any trace of structural damage.
Wrapping a large sheet of negatively charged df-G around a positively charged Co3o4 creates a very promising anode for high-performance Li-ion batteries.
including batteries, fuel cells, and capacitors r
#Copper shines as flexible conductor Bend them, stretch them, twist them, fold them: modern materials that are light,
and all 307 million United states users switched from batteries to flexible solar it could save more than 1500 megawatts per year.
or do away with batteries completely by tapping into the stray energy that is all around us is an exciting concept.
#New graphene framework bridges gap between traditional capacitors batteries Researchers at the California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA have set the stage for a watershed in mobile energy storage by using a special graphene material
putting them on a par with lead acid batteries. The material, called a holey graphene framework,
Compared with traditional batteries, ECS typically have superior power density and cycle lifehe number of complete chargeischarge cycles an energy source can support before it decreases to 80 percent of its original capacity
"But they have had energy density of at least one order of magnitude below batteries. Because the main component of an EC is its electrode material,
Current state-of-the-art ECS generally use porous activated carbon electrodes with energy densities much lower than lead acid batteries to 5 watt hours per kilogram vs. 25 to 35 watt hours per kilogram (5
with acid batteries.""The holey grahene EC bridges the energy density gap between traditional capacitors and batteries, yet with vastly higher power density,"Duan said."
"It creates exciting opportunities for mobile power supplies for many applications from cell phones to electric vehicles. v
#Nanoscale details of electrochemical reactions in electric vehicle battery materials Using a new method to track the electrochemical reactions in a common electric vehicle battery material under operating conditions,
The results, published August 4, 2014, in Nature Communications, could provide guidance to inform battery makers'efforts to optimize materials for faster-charging batteries with higher capacity."
"Our work was focused on developing a method to track structural and electrochemical changes at the nanoscale as the battery material was charging,
or positive electrode, of electrical vehicle batteries-as the battery charged.""We wanted to catch
known as delithiation, is the key to recharging the battery to its fullest capacity so it will be able to provide power for the longest possible period of time.
Many previous methods used to analyze such battery materials have produced data that average out effects over the entire electrode.
they also conducted the same in operando study using smaller amounts of electrode material than would be found in a typical battery.
The detailed images and spectroscopic information reveal unprecedented insight into why fast charging reduces battery capacity.
and could give industry guidance to help them develop a future fast-charge/high-capacity battery,
"So rather than focusing only on the battery materials'individual features, manufacturers might want to look at ways to prepare the electrode
"These discoveries provide the fundamental basis for the development of improved battery materials, "said Jun Wang."
"In addition, this work demonstrates the unique capability of applying nanoscale imaging and spectroscopic techniques in understanding battery materials with a complex mechanism in real battery operational conditions."
In addition, the lithium-ion batteries that had applied modified graphenes to it, exhibited a higher capacity than the theoretical capacity of graphite
which was used previously in lithium-ion batteries. It presented high chemical stability which resulted in no capacity degradation in charge and discharge experiments.
alternative chemical material by demonstrating performance comparable to that of the expensive platinum catalyst used for the cathode of fuel cell batteries.
or negative side of the battery. Graphite is the current standard material for the anode,
That porosity has proved to be the key to improving the performance of the batteries built with the nano-silicon l
QSI plans to demonstrate the potential of these"extremely green"circuits that can make use of smaller, longer-lasting batteries.
#Chemists seek state-of-the-art lithium-sulfur batteries When can we expect to drive the length of Germany in an electric car without having to top up the battery?
Chemists at the NIM Cluster at LMU and at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, have synthesized now a new material that could show the way forward to state-of-the-art lithium-sulfur batteries.
Whether or not the future of automotive traffic belongs to the softly purring electric car depends largely on the development of its batteries.
The industry is currently placing most of its hopes in lithium-sulfur batteries, which have a very high storage capacity.
the lithium-sulfur battery still presents several major challenges that need to be resolved until it can be integrated into cars.
For example, both the rate and the number of possible charge-discharge cycles need to be increased before the lithium-sulfur battery can become a realistic alternative to lithium-ion batteries.
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