Burning Water

[Maxfli]

So has anyone read about this company??? It is something like a Battery system called an Ultra-Capacitor. Can be refilled (Charged) in 5 minutes assuming you have enough power to throw at it.

EEstor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They claim to be nearly ready to mass produce their product. Normally I would say this is all a bunch of rubish, but then you look at the guys behind the scenes.

A few X-IBM'ers with a number of Pattens complete. I been in computers for years so the IBM thing means something to me (like maybe this will happen)

Morton L. Topfer, a former vice chair of Dell joined the company this year.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is the venture capital group and if you look at the companies they have backed in the past it is a long list of heavy duty technology startups.

In January they signed a deal to provide these to Lockheed so there has to be something there. There are a bunch of articles out there on this company, but the company website still shows as under construction.

[have_blue]

Originally Posted by Maxfli

They claim to be nearly ready to mass produce their product. Normally I would say this is all a bunch of rubish, but then you look at the guys behind the scenes.

The management is impressive, but you have to tell yourself if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

My guess is, they will either completely fail to deliver the technology, or deliver something that's not feasible. I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but unfortunately, that's how these things usually pan out. I hope I'm wrong, because the world is in dire need of such dense energy storage.

[Bill_C]

While I'm extremely skeptical of many energy schemes, I'm cautiously hopeful that the ultra-capacitor may work. At least it doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics!! (Homer Simpson: "Lisa! In this house we obey the rules of thermodynamics!!") The theory seems physically possible, at least.

Another hopeful scheme is a small-scale nuclear fusion processs being developed by Polywell. Unlike the "cold fusion" from a few years back, this has some degree of proof-of-concept. (Google "DIY nuclear fusion"....believe it or not, it IS possible for a high school student to make a desktop unit that actually demonstrates nuclear fusion.) So far, though, nobody has figured out how to make it self-sustaining and thus capable of generating energy--but Polywell may be on to something. (The "advanced science-fair" do-it-yourself demonstration models use an external energy source to keep the fusion process going. Fortunately the number of fusions per second are very low, but recordable, no quackery going on).

[cityfarma]

During my training as an electronics tech in the '70s, a 1 Farad capacitor was seen as a theoretical possibility. A few thousands of microfarads (thousandthsof a farad) was large. Now 1 farad capacitors are commonplace. If I could remember the formula, it would show that a lot of power can be stored in the capacitor.

The main problem has been the low working voltage of the devices. The voltage can be raised by putting the capacitors in series but this reduces the capacity (two capacitors in series give 1/2 the capacity and double the voltage.) So to get a working voltage of say 100v you could use 20 x 5volt, 1 farad capacitors but end up with an equivalent of a 100v and .05 farad capacitor.

There is still a way to go but it is getting closer.

Cityfarma

[have_blue]

Originally Posted by cityfarma

The main problem has been the low working voltage of the devices.

The ultra capacitor in question releases current at 3500-7000v! Even if it can only match the energy density of a lithuim battery, because it charges so quickly and produces such high current, it will still be very useful.

Remember those "Phasers" on Star Trek? The ultra capacitors bring them much closer to reality. I bet they would get pretty warm in your hand, though.

[Maxfli]

The Polywell articles are very interesting as well. Lets hope!!

[patrick_g]

It will be interesting to see what sort of hysteresis effects their capacitor has as well as self discharge rates, internal impedance and such.

Back in the late 60's when an undergrad physics student I was given a low impedance 15,000 volt capacitor by Capacitor Specialists Inc which I used in my home brew garage built pulse LASER which was tunable to various colors.

The pres of the corp was an alumnus of San Diego State and gave me a break. Later he confessed he thought I had fell out of a well and landed on my head when I said I was trying to build a color tunable pulse laser with 5 KW output power. Later after one of my buddies ratted me out to an optics prof at school and I was offered course credit to build the LASER at school I was allowed to buy a capacitor from the same outfit with school money. In just this brief interval of time many advances in capacitors for pulse LASER application had been made and the pres of the Capacitor company told me in the interim he had shipped at least one pulse LASER capacitor to every state in the union including Hawaii and Alaska and no longer thought I was a crackpot, just a little ahead of the crowd.

I sure hope this capacitor group is successful and can get the price to a point where volume will give the production a terrific economy of scale. I was all happy and excited over cold fusion too and hope this is not a repeat of that experience.

Pat

[have_blue]

Originally Posted by patrick_g

It will be interesting to see what sort of hysteresis effects their capacitor has as well as self discharge rates, internal impedance and such.
Pat

Self discharge rate is said to be only only .1% per month. Even at 5% per month, it's workable. It all hinges on the ability to produce ultra-pure barium titanate powder. I'm sure that will eventually be accomplished, but because they have never used the pure stuff yet, there will probably be other unforeseen hurdles. Fascinating times, these.

[patrick_g]

Originally Posted by have_blue

Self discharge rate is said to be only only .1% per month. Even at 5% per month, it's workable. It all hinges on the ability to produce ultra-pure barium titanate powder. I'm sure that will eventually be accomplished, but because they have never used the pure stuff yet, there will probably be other unforeseen hurdles. Fascinating times, these.

Well, the self discharge rate is good news as 0.1% per month is quite a half life. I didn't notice the ultra pure concerns in what I read but do recall a concern for getting a complete coverage with no holes in the thin barium titanate layer. Barium titanate has been used in significant quantities for decades in sonic transducers and is not hard to come by. I am not sure just how pure the commonly available stuff is (or the importance of purity - got to read more) but hope it doesn't turn into a hassle like uranium isotope separation.

I wonder what sort of hysteresis effects their caps will have. The 15KV oil filled unit I used had to be stored shorted with a conductive connector to prevent the hysteresis effect from charging it up enough to be dangerous (or at least quite exciting) to handle.

Pat

[Iron Horse]

Wheres the English translater on this thing ?