New Supercapacitor technology may allow cars to recharge in minutes

[raadsel]

I found this interesting, a UK company, Augmented Optics, has filed for patents of a new supercapacitor breakthrough that may allow batteries to charge in minutes. They are hoping to build a prototype car next year that will be able to travel 150 miles and charge in seconds. Apparently there capacitors are using soft contract lens technology to create a polymer that can hold a large amount of electricity and recharge quickly. They also believe it will cost less to produce than lithium ion batteries.

 

It will be interesting to see if this pans out, or at least leads to a further breakthrough. It will be interesting to hear more once this technology is tested in a prototype car.

[ptjones]

Very interesting. :)

 

Paul

[SnowStorm]

Naysayer Alert! - Naysayer Alert!  The ICE Age is ending!

[ Or maybe not - :sad: - there may always be folks who prefer to pump smelly gasoline, change their engine oil, etc just so they can hear a battery and electric motor crank-crank-crank the archaic thing to life.... :lol: .... gotta love the nostalgia! ]

Here's the University of Bristol article and the SuperCapacitor Materials site, makers of the electrolyte.  The University article says the new capacitors would make it "possible to recharge your mobile phone, laptop or other mobile devices in just a few seconds."  For cars, they say recharging will "take just a few minutes to perform."  You won't recharge your electric car in "a few seconds".  In fact, a 60 kWH recharge in 10 minutes will need a 350 kW charger!  But wait!  That's exactly what BMW, Volkswagen and Ford(!) are doing in Europe!  That's almost 3x more power than a Tesla Supercharger!  400 chargers going in next year and 1000s by the end of the decade.  They just better bring that system to the USA!  Range anxiety?  What's that? :shift:

[ptjones]

With that much wattage involved you would think there would be significant heat to dissipate. :headscratch: It didn't say anything about heat in the article. :) 

 

Paul 

[plus 3 golfer]

The inherent issue with super capacitors has been energy density.  Based on the one link it's only 3-7 Wh per kg for the super cap (let's assume an optimistic value of 10 Wh per pound with ongoing development). So, say a 12 kWh super cap would weigh about 1200 pounds - Tesla's 85 kWh battery pack weighs 1200 pounds. That might be okay for the buses in China but it appears that there's a lot more work to get the energy density up for super caps to compete with ICE vehicles on range and energy replacement times.

 

• The new technology is believed to have the potential for electric cars to travel to similar distances as petrol cars without the need to stop for lengthy re-charging breaks of between 6-8 hours, and instead re-charge fully in the time it takes to fill a regular car with petrol.

[fbov]

 

The inherent issue with super capacitors has been energy density. ...

+1

 

That 1200 lb super cap has the energy content of ~2 lb of gasoline. Only three orders of magnitude to go!

 

Have fun,

Frank

[raadsel]

I've seriously started to wonder if Hyundai/Kia is using some type of super capacitor in their Ioniq and Niro models, where they've gotten rid of a lead acid 12V battery. Though the story that is more or less stated (they never expressly state how they do it) is that it is a part of the Hybrid battery pack, what has me curious is that apparently the car doesn't maintain a 12V battery "charge" more than a day or two. Additionally, if the "battery" doesn't have enough power to "start" the car (being hybrids, the 12V only starts the computers to get the car in "ready to drive" mode), you press a button on the dash and the battery is pretty much instantly charged -- which again would seem more like a capacitor than a battery. I'm really wishing Hyundai would release more information on their 12V battery and how it works.

[plus 3 golfer]

I've seriously started to wonder if Hyundai/Kia is using some type of super capacitor in their Ioniq and Niro models, where they've gotten rid of a lead acid 12V battery. Though the story that is more or less stated (they never expressly state how they do it) is that it is a part of the Hybrid battery pack, what has me curious is that apparently the car doesn't maintain a 12V battery "charge" more than a day or two. Additionally, if the "battery" doesn't have enough power to "start" the car (being hybrids, the 12V only starts the computers to get the car in "ready to drive" mode), you press a button on the dash and the battery is pretty much instantly charged -- which again would seem more like a capacitor than a battery. I'm really wishing Hyundai would release more information on their 12V battery and how it works.

No super cap.

 

"The 2017 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid is the first modern production car without a traditional 12-volt battery. Instead, engineers left open space at the furthest left section of the hybrid’s main battery housing, and installed a lithium-ion starter battery inside. One engineer likened this battery setup to a computer hard drive with two partitions: They operate in the same box with the same materials, but function as separate units. (The Kia Niro uses similar battery hardware)."

 

My guess is that the 12 V reset button simply allows the HBV to "jump start" the small battery through a DC/DC converter.  Once the car is turned on a converter would supply power to the 12 V system and recharge the 12 V lithium ion battery.   This though begs the question: how long is the small battery going to last?? and how much to replace the modules that make up the 12 V battery. 

[raadsel]

No super cap.

 

"The 2017 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid is the first modern production car without a traditional 12-volt battery. Instead, engineers left open space at the furthest left section of the hybrid’s main battery housing, and installed a lithium-ion starter battery inside. One engineer likened this battery setup to a computer hard drive with two partitions: They operate in the same box with the same materials, but function as separate units. (The Kia Niro uses similar battery hardware)."

 

My guess is that the 12 V reset button simply allows the HBV to "jump start" the small battery through a DC/DC converter.  Once the car is turned on a converter would supply power to the 12 V system and recharge the 12 V lithium ion battery.   This though begs the question: how long is the small battery going to last?? and how much to replace the modules that make up the 12 V battery. 

 

The answer to me is that the starter battery will last as long as the hybrid battery will; which in the case of a LIon (or actually LiPo) should be (as Ford says) for the life of the car. I'd also think (though would have to see how they have worded things) that the battery should be protected under the Hybrid Components warranty, and very possibly under Hyundai's Lifetime Hybrid battery warranty for the original owner.

[plus 3 golfer]

I initially had the same thoughts. 

 

But, what we don't know is how the 12V battery is cycled.  Is it charged to near 100% and allowed to deplete down to 20% when car is off, is it cycled to limits like our HVB from about 70% max. charge to 30+% minimum depletion when car is off or something else.  So, life of the 12V battery may be different than the HVB.

[raadsel]

I initially had the same thoughts. 

 

But, what we don't know is how the 12V battery is cycled.  Is it charged to near 100% and allowed to deplete down to 20% when car is off, is it cycled to limits like our HVB from about 70% max. charge to 30+% minimum depletion when car is off or something else.  So, life of the 12V battery may be different than the HVB.

 

I'm about 99% sure that Hyundai cycles their 12V LiPo battery the same as they do their Hybrid battery; it doesn't make sense to replace the 12V lead acid battery if you make it so you have to replace the LiPo battery instead. With a hybrid, since the 12V doesn't start the ICE, there is no reason to fully charge the battery or let it fully deplete.