Supercapacitor

[cadet]

This material (Graphene) is halfway between diamond and carbon. (Super hard if you're not chemistry savvy)
It's also very light, and would work wonders to be used in planes and cars.
It's been recently discovered, and the atomic structure has lead to many many things that are now possible due to this easy to process material.

It's also a great conductor of electricity, and the atomic structure basically make it a super capacitor capable of holding unheard of power. This will EASILY outdo the lithium ion batteries. This material is going to revolutionize the world as we know it. Imagine super dense and hard cars that are as light and fast as a racecar. (Like a big metal truck mixed with a plexyglass superlight car)

And ignore the mechanical properties, this thing you can put at molecular distance to hold electricity between all the molecules.

For those of you that don't understand, a capacitor is two metal sheets at some distance apart, electricity jumps between that space, and the closer you can get without touching the better. Also the higher the cross sectional area the better.

This thing has HUNDREDS of those that are at ATOMIC distances from eachother!!

Imagine a car batter the size of a calculator.
And due to the capacitors massive intake charge, imagine going from empty to fully charged in a matter of 30 seconds!!!

put this little battery into your phone, it needs to be plugged in and charged for 30 seconds, then lasts for days to a week!

And do you know what they're making this with??? Freaking disk burners that are in every computer!!!! Revolutionizing!!!




http://io9.com/5987086/meet-the-scientific-accident-that-could-change-the-world


http://vimeo.com/51873011


As the video above explains, Kaner and El-Kady had stumbled upon an energy storage medium with revolutionary potential. Imagine filling your smart phone with a long-lasting charge in just a couple seconds, or an electric car in a minute. Future applications, first described in a March 2012 issue of Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6074/1326), looked very promising.Fast forward one year, and Kaner and El-Kady are even closer to realizing a tomorrow rich with supercapacitor technology. In a paper published in a recent issue of Nature Communications (http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n2/full/ncomms2446.html), the researchers report that El-Kady's original fabrication process (highlighted in the video) can be made even more efficient. More efficient production of high quality graphene means it's scalable. And scalability, of course, can lead to manufacturing and wide-scale technological implementation. As the researchers note in the abstract to their paper (http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n2/full/ncomms2446.html)[emphasis added]:

Here we demonstrate a scalable fabrication of graphene micro-supercapacitors over large areas by direct laser writing on graphite oxide films using a standard LightScribe DVD burner. More than 100 micro-supercapacitors can be produced on a single disc in 30 min or less... These micro-supercapacitors demonstrate a power density of ~200 W cm−3, which is among the highest values achieved for any supercapacitor.
The upshot? The supercapacitors that Kanery and El-Kady are producing with freaking DVD burners could find their way into consumer tech way sooner than many might have originally guessed. (While minute-charge electric cars may still be a ways off, the fact these sheets are as unobtrusive and flexible as they are bodes well for their incorporation into near-future technologies like roll-up displays and e-paper.) According to Kaner, his lab is already courting partners in industry. Color us excited.

[revelarts]

Awesome I hope they don't die or the oil companies don't buy the tch or restrict it's use.
this could cost them and many other companies billions in losses.
and people kill over a lot less.

It seems like a left field discovery so it may get traction before it can be stopped.
I hope so.

the Car battery thing sounds great. seems it kills most of the issues naysayers have about electric vehicles.

[NightTrain]

This looks very promising!

[fj1200]

It's also a great conductor of electricity, and the atomic structure basically make it a super capacitor capable of holding unheard of power. This will EASILY outdo the lithium ion batteries. This material is going to revolutionize the world as we know it. Imagine super dense and hard cars that are as light and fast as a racecar. (Like a big metal truck mixed with a plexyglass superlight car)

OK genius birthday boy, :poke: what's the difference between a battery and a capacitor and why don't they use ultracapacitors, I've heard are becoming available, in cars now?

[cadet]

OK genius birthday boy, :poke: what's the difference between a battery and a capacitor and why don't they use ultracapacitors, I've heard are becoming available, in cars now?

A battery is a chemical reaction happening within the object. When the reaction goes off the elements inside give off a lot of their electrons.
Hence the chemicals inside are poison.

A capacitor is usually two plates held a certain distance apart with electrons flying from one to the other between them. This guy's talking about trading out batteries for these supercapacitors.

Ultracapacitors only hold about 5% of what a battery can. Also, ultracapacitors give off all their energy quickly. They don't discharge slowley like this graphene has been discovered to.

But this new supercapacitor can hold... (gonna put this mildly) a shitload. A shitload of energy. A hell of a lot more then a battery.

[cadet]

One last thing.

I'd just like to send out a reminder that I'm a Mechanical engineer with a minor in robotics. So this discovery is revolutionizing in my fields. It's... Well... Like a godsend of super material. All it's properties are what any and all engineers have been trying to smelt or form. This stuff is going to revolutionize cars, airplanes, computers, cell phones, weapons, energy storage, etc.
Just looking at this stuff makes me think that Iron man suits could not be very far off....

http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/35061


Graphene has record-breaking strengthGraphene is the strongest material in the world, according to new experiments done by researchers at Columbia University in the US. The secret to the material's extraordinary strength, says the team, lies in the robustness of the covalent carbon-carbon bond and the fact that the graphene monolayers tested were defect-free.
Since "wonder material" graphene - sheets of carbon just one atom thick - was discovered in 2004, it has been shown to be an extremely good electrical conductor; a semiconductor that can be used to create transistors; and a very strong material. But now, Columbia University's James Hone, Jeffrey Kysar, Changgu Lee and Xiaoding Wei have shown that it is the strongest material ever (Science 321 385 (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5887/385)).
The researchers measured the intrinsic strength of the material — that is the maximum stress that a pristine (or defect-free) material can withstand just before all the atoms in a given cross-section are pulled apart at the same time. Essentially all materials contain defects, such as microscopic cracks or scratches, which are "weaker" than surrounding material. As a result, the breaking stress of a macroscopic material depends mainly upon the number and sizes of defects it contains, rather than its intrinsic strength.

[cadet]

I made a goal with myself when I started college to keep things in lay-mans terms, how am I doing thus far?

[cadet]

http://www.extremetech.com/tag/graphene

[Little-Acorn]

How about an example?

1.) What's the current density and power density of your favorite supercap?
2.) What's the typical charge-discharge profile of a supercap useable as a primary power source for an automobile?
3.) What's the MTBF of such an automotive power source supercap?
4.) What's the cost of manufacture of such a typical unit on a production line?

[cadet]

How about an example?

1.) What's the current density and power density of your favorite supercap?

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0906/0906.4156.pdf


2.) What's the typical charge-discharge profile of a supercap useable as a primary power source for an automobile?

regular automobile is about 12.6V.
This thing could bring the size/weight of an average car battery down to the size of a graphing calculator.


3.) What's the MTBF of such an automotive power source supercap?

I don't know.


4.) What's the cost of manufacture of such a typical unit on a production line?

He made it with a CD burner at home. It can't be that much!

Just check these things already being developed.
http://www.extremetech.com/tag/graphene

[Little-Acorn]

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0906/0906.4156.pdf



regular automobile is about 12.6V.
This thing could bring the size/weight of an average car battery down to the size of a graphing calculator.



I don't know.



He made it with a CD burner at home. It can't be that much!


None of these responses even came close to answering the questions. But all questions were necessary for any useable design.

You got an F on that quiz.

I suggest you change your forum title from "engineer" to "student". And write "student" in pencil.

BTW, RE your suggestion of charging a device with the capacity of a car battery in 30 seconds: That would require an input current on the close order of 1,000 Amps and a power consumption of 12,000 Watts, which would dim every light on your block if it didn't blow all your fuses first, even on a 220 circuit.

Back to the drawing board.

[Robert A Whit]

14 V is fine for automobiles but they also need a very high A output.

I did not notice any application that looked like the auto battery in operation and performance.

Capacitors I am aware of discharge very fast.

Carbon technology is awesome. Not clear yet it solves other problems for automobiles. This probably makes very fine auto bodies and other parts.

[Little-Acorn]

Capacitors I am aware of discharge very fast.


Present-day capacitors also have voltage ratings proportional to their percentage-chage state. That is, a half-discharged capacitor has only half the voltage of a fully-charged one. This is one of the characteristics that precludes their use in power applications.

I don't know if these carbon-based supercaps have that characteristic. If not, then they are very different from "ordinary" capacitors.

[cadet]

I suggest you change your forum title from "engineer" to "student". And write "student" in pencil.


Bah, same dif. And I don't wanna write it in pencil! My hand writing's hardly legible to me anyway! :laugh:

[Little-Acorn]

BTW, cadet, a switching-type charge-pump regulator would do a lot toward compensating for a capacitor's linear relation between charge level and output voltage.

You might want to set your sights on a slightly more modest, but still achievable, goal: a purely-electric powered automobile that can carry five passengers 300 miles in reasonable safety on a single charge, that can be recharged in 30 minutes, endure 1,000 charge/discharge cycles without degrading its energy capacity more than 20%, and would cost no more than a typical gasoline car such as a Ford Fusion or Toyota Camry.

Even if such a design can be done (including production costs), the current inrush during the charge cycle would still be significant, and would require extensive modification of neighborhood and city power grids.

It's not an easy problem - but one very worthy of an Engineer.

Start with the energy density (kilowatt-hours per pound) and power density (deliverable kiloWatts per pound) of your energy storage device. Compare those two quantities for each possible device, such as nickel-cadmium batteries vs. nickel-metal-hydride vs. lead-acid vs. supercaps vs. lithium-ion batteries (several kinds). Examine also the charge cycle of each.

Then look at several existing electric cars for some rough estimates of how many kWh it takes to push a small-to-medium car 300 miles under "typical" driving conditions. In particular examine the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S.

[cadet]

BTW, cadet, a switching-type charge-pump regulator would do a lot toward compensating for a capacitor's linear relation between charge level and output voltage.

You might want to set your sights on a slightly more modest, but still achievable, goal: a purely-electric powered automobile that can carry five passengers 300 miles in reasonable safety on a single charge, that can be recharged in 30 minutes, endure 1,000 charge/discharge cycles without degrading its energy capacity more than 20%, and would cost no more than a typical gasoline car such as a Ford Fusion or Toyota Camry.

Even if such a design can be done (including production costs), the current inrush during the charge cycle would still be significant, and would require extensive modification of neighborhood and city power grids.

It's not an easy problem - but one very worthy of an Engineer.

Start with the energy density (kilowatt-hours per pound) and power density (deliverable kiloWatts per pound) of your energy storage device. Compare those two quantities for each possible device, such as nickel-cadmium batteries vs. nickel-metal-hydride vs. lead-acid vs. supercaps vs. lithium-ion batteries (several kinds). Examine also the charge cycle of each.

Note to self, little-Acorn know's stuff.
My respect for you has gone up.

[fj1200]

A battery is a chemical reaction happening within the object.

A capacitor is usually two plates held a certain distance apart with electrons flying from one to the other between them.

Thanks, I knew there was a simple answer.


regular automobile is about 12.6V.
This thing could bring the size/weight of an average car battery down to the size of a graphing calculator.

The issue is though that electric cars require ~240 volts or more???; far above what an ICE requires to run.


Present-day capacitors also have voltage ratings proportional to their percentage-chage state. That is, a half-discharged capacitor has only half the voltage of a fully-charged one. This is one of the characteristics that precludes their use in power applications.

Does an ultra-cap hold energy like a traditional battery or does it "leak" more quickly?

[Robert A Whit]

Note to self, little-Acorn know's stuff.
My respect for you has gone up.

There is both talent and education shown on this forum. Politics is like baby poop in the forum. Stinks but seems to be expected.

Cadet and Acorn have a good thing going. I am eager for the solution to power autos to be any form of electric. Storage of electricity on autos is the elephant in the room.

[aboutime]

Very impressive watching, and reading this thread based on man's ability to go outside the normal, status quo box everyone seems to be confined to, and within.

Congrats to both of you for your sharing of such purely, scientific thinking here.

As it sounds very promising, and probably answers many known problems. I fear the expected would occur from those who
have BIG BUCKS in the present day Failures designed to do nothing but SOAK people with the phony, new idea's.

The one, and only problem I see with your intended contributions...putting your minds together for the betterment of man is.... COST.

Such wonderful idea's usually become so expensive. They are often Lobbied in the political world of SCRATCH MY BACK, And I'LL SCRATCH YOURS...the price becomes Inhibited...INTENTIONALLY to save the special interests from drowning in their own selfishness.

Keep up the great work. Proving to all. A MIND...REALLY IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE....or....Ignore.

[Anton Chigurh]

"Recently discovered" would more accurately be put, "recently isolated (2004)" because it's been known about since at least the 50s.

It's alot like silicon in that, we always knew about it but never found a use for it. Until we did.

[Little-Acorn]

Cadet, a quote from the article you cited:

"More than 100 micro-supercapacitors can be produced on a single disc in 30 min or less... These micro-supercapacitors demonstrate a power density of ~200 W cm−3... "

Power density means that, if you hook one of these up to a big light bulb, the supercap can put out a large blast of current and light up the bulb quite well, until its charge is exhausted.

But it doesn't tell you how long it can do that, before its charge is exhausted. How long it can do that, is better measured by its Energy density.

The Power density figure the article gave, was measured in Watts per cubic centimeter. I suppose the figure for Energy Density, would be measured in Watt-hours per cubic centimeter. Or maybe Watt-seconds per cubic centimeter.

But, I didn't see a figure for Energy Density for these supercaps. Can you dig around and find what it is?

"Energy density" is really an answer to the question, "How much energy can it hold when charged up as full as it will go?"

As a capacitor gets charged, its voltage goes higher and higher (unlike a battery). For ordinary capacitors, they have a maximum-voltage rating. Try to charge them beyond that, and you'll damage the capacitor and render it useless. Some of them fail quite spectacularly (BOOM!), others don't.

I don't know if these carbon supercaps have a max-voltage rating, it might depend on temperature, what their other internal components are, etc. But any figures you can find, would be very useful.

What is the maximum Energy density of this technology?

[cadet]

Cadet, a quote from the article you cited:

"More than 100 micro-supercapacitors can be produced on a single disc in 30 min or less... These micro-supercapacitors demonstrate a power density of ~200 W cm−3... "

Power density means that, if you hook one of these up to a big light bulb, the supercap can put out a large blast of current and light up the bulb quite well, until its charge is exhausted.

But it doesn't tell you how long it can do that, before its charge is exhausted. How long it can do that, is better measured by its Energy density.

The Power density figure the article gave, was measured in Watts per cubic centimeter. I suppose the figure for Energy Density, would be measured in Watt-hours per cubic centimeter. Or maybe Watt-seconds per cubic centimeter.

But, I didn't see a figure for Energy Density for these supercaps. Can you dig around and find what it is?

"Energy density" is really an answer to the question, "How much energy can it hold when charged up as full as it will go?"

As a capacitor gets charged, its voltage goes higher and higher (unlike a battery). For ordinary capacitors, they have a maximum-voltage rating. Try to charge them beyond that, and you'll damage the capacitor and render it useless. Some of them fail quite spectacularly (BOOM!), others don't.

I don't know if these carbon supercaps have a max-voltage rating, it might depend on temperature, what their other internal components are, etc. But any figures you can find, would be very useful.

What is the maximum Energy density of this technology?

This is the best one I could find.

http://www.gizmag.com/graphene-supercapacitor-energy-density-record/17188/

Specific energy density of the new capacitor (a measure of how much electricity can be stored per weight) has been measured at 85.6 Wh/kg at room temperature and 136 Wh/kg at 80 degrees Celsius (176 F), which is comparable to Ni-mh batteries. These are the best values for electric double layer supercapacitors based on carbon nanomaterials recorded to date.

[Robert A Whit]

Cadet, a quote from the article you cited:

"More than 100 micro-supercapacitors can be produced on a single disc in 30 min or less... These micro-supercapacitors demonstrate a power density of ~200 W cm−3... "

Power density means that, if you hook one of these up to a big light bulb, the supercap can put out a large blast of current and light up the bulb quite well, until its charge is exhausted.

But it doesn't tell you how long it can do that, before its charge is exhausted. How long it can do that, is better measured by its Energy density.

The Power density figure the article gave, was measured in Watts per cubic centimeter. I suppose the figure for Energy Density, would be measured in Watt-hours per cubic centimeter. Or maybe Watt-seconds per cubic centimeter.

But, I didn't see a figure for Energy Density for these supercaps. Can you dig around and find what it is?

"Energy density" is really an answer to the question, "How much energy can it hold when charged up as full as it will go?"

As a capacitor gets charged, its voltage goes higher and higher (unlike a battery). For ordinary capacitors, they have a maximum-voltage rating. Try to charge them beyond that, and you'll damage the capacitor and render it useless. Some of them fail quite spectacularly (BOOM!), others don't.

I don't know if these carbon supercaps have a max-voltage rating, it might depend on temperature, what their other internal components are, etc. But any figures you can find, would be very useful.

What is the maximum Energy density of this technology?

Every capacitor I ever worked with charged super fast and discharged super fast.

As thin as that nano tube tech is, and his comments about a CD I expect the voltage is not very high and it discharges fast.

[cadet]

Every capacitor I ever worked with charged super fast and discharged super fast.

As thin as that nano tube tech is, and his comments about a CD I expect the voltage is not very high and it discharges fast.

The video said it discharged slowly, but charged super fast.

[aboutime]

The video said it discharged slowly, but charged super fast.


cadet. What is often forgotten in this electronic Mix is Resistors, and Transistors that cause, or help speed up, or slow down, and even re-direct the charges required.

[Robert A Whit]

cadet. What is often forgotten in this electronic Mix is Resistors, and Transistors that cause, or help speed up, or slow down, and even re-direct the charges required.


Who are you now claiming forgot this mix?

Someone needs to remind you what a capacitor is.

[revelarts]

None of these responses even came close to answering the questions. But all questions were necessary for any useable design.

You got an F on that quiz.

I suggest you change your forum title from "engineer" to "student". And write "student" in pencil.

BTW, RE your suggestion of charging a device with the capacity of a car battery in 30 seconds: That would require an input current on the close order of 1,000 Amps and a power consumption of 12,000 Watts, which would dim every light on your block if it didn't blow all your fuses first, even on a 220 circuit.

Back to the drawing board.

You guys lost me a while ago, but here's a -super-ignorant- suggestion for the problem i think your talking about here.

Ok I think your saying a car needs X numbers of volts to recharge.
If one car takes that much of a charge to fast - 1 minute to 30secs- from the pump at the pumping station. That would pull energy to fast from the local electrical grid and dim the area or blow a fuse.


If i've got the idea, here's my sugestion.
Each pump at the Pumping station is made with the super capacitors as well. They are connected to the grid. They are continuously charged and holding a chrage that could be(?) discharged quickly without dimming or fuse blowing?
(If a pump sized supercapacitor is too small maybe use the fuel tank space below ground filled with supercapcitors?)

Or would that still cause a problem? If there was a switch that turned the supercapacitor filled pump (or underground) off from the grid and it discharged it's load into a car. then it switched to the grid with a regulators after it's drained. basically the pump pumps slower off the grid?

like i said,
technically i don't know what i'm saying here,
just came to mind.

[cadet]

http://www.gizmag.com/graphene-supercapacitor-energy-density-record/17188/

In case anyone missed it. Energy density of the supercap is 85.6 Wh/kg at room temp.
Your lead acid battery is 41 Wh/kg
alkaline is 110 Wh/kg
NiMH is 95 Wh/kg
NiCad 35 Wh/kg
lithium 100 Wh/kg


While this might look like it has a fairly regular energy density compared to others, and it's probably the first capacitor that can compete with a battery.
in 2010, they were excited about a 7.1 Wh/kg capacitor. http://phys.org/news/2012-10-sponge-like-graphene-supercapacitor-electrodes.html
This thing's good for the environment, recyclable, easy to make, and all in all better then your average battery. (IMO)

[glockmail]

One last thing.

I'd just like to send out a reminder that I'm a Mechanical engineer with a minor in robotics. So this discovery is revolutionizing in my fields. It's... Well... Like a godsend of super material. All it's properties are what any and all engineers have been trying to smelt or form. This stuff is going to revolutionize cars, airplanes, computers, cell phones, weapons, energy storage, etc.
Just looking at this stuff makes me think that Iron man suits could not be very far off....

I'm not into the iron man suit thing but I think this is exciting for battery (energy storage) technology. It's about time we came up with a breakthrough on this. I envision a cell phone battery that charges in 30 seconds and lasts 4 days, a car battery as small as a cell phone, and an electric car with a battery the size of a conventional gas tank that can charge in 5 minutes and run an electric motor at 80mph for a 300 mile range.

[aboutime]

Who are you now claiming forgot this mix?

Someone needs to remind you what a capacitor is.

ROBERT. "S.T.F.U!" I wasn't talking to you. God forbid I did. You would even scold me for that. So...KMA, and STFU.

[cadet]

I just started looking into it's electromagnetic properties too,
Needless to say, awesome.
http://www.livescience.com/24336-thz-waves-graphene-devices-nsf-bts.html

One last thing, according to my teacher, supercapacitors resistance go to 0.

[aboutime]

I just started looking into it's electromagnetic properties too,
Needless to say, awesome.
http://www.livescience.com/24336-thz-waves-graphene-devices-nsf-bts.html

One last thing, according to my teacher, supercapacitors resistance go to 0.

cadet. That seems to be what makes them so valuable, and greatly improves the potential of such devices in having ZERO resistance.
You could almost say it has UNLIMITED potential for use, no matter how it might be used in the future. But I still believe the Costs will initially be very high.

[cadet]

cadet. That seems to be what makes them so valuable, and greatly improves the potential of such devices in having ZERO resistance.
You could almost say it has UNLIMITED potential for use, no matter how it might be used in the future. But I still believe the Costs will initially be very high.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/makechemicalsyourself/a/How-To-Make-Graphene.htm


http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/02/dvd-burners-make-graphene-micro-supercapacitors

"The process is straightforward, cost-effective and can be done at home," El-Kady says. "One only needs a DVD burner and graphite oxide dispersion in water, which is commercially available at a moderate cost."
:dance:

[aboutime]

http://chemistry.about.com/od/makechemicalsyourself/a/How-To-Make-Graphene.htm


http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/02/dvd-burners-make-graphene-micro-supercapacitors

:dance:


cadet. I agree. But we must remember. The vast majority of Americans STILL haven't figured how to set the time on their Old VCR's.

Asking them to do something so simple, based on scientific principles will only work if Somebody else pays for, and does it for them.

Remember. Our society..here in the USA isn't a collection of the BRIGHTEST BULBS in the box.

[Little-Acorn]

Cadet, in case you want to work out some answers for how big and heavy a battery or supercap has to be to push a "typical" car, here's some info I looked up.

Well, a Tesla car may not be "typical", but it's a place to start.

You may be able to find other sizes, capacities, and prices of batteries and cells, but again, this data may give you a place to start.

You might want to pin down your professor on what the internal resistance of a supercap really is. A resistance of 0.000000000000000 Ohms is very rare, but I guess it's possible. Maybe. Some materials, if cooled to cryogenic temperatures, can achieve close to that. They are called superconductors, and (in theory) they can be used as batteries. Induce a spinning current in one, then take away the induction and the current keeps spinning forever, since resistance is exactly zero (or close enough to let the current spin for years with little degradation).

Battery and car info from a few websites I've used:

----------------------------------------

Battery info:

LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate):
Single Cell: Headway 40152: 3.2V, 15Ah, 480g, 10C discharge, 3C charge, 165mmLx40mmD $23.09/cell
60V 15Ah Ebike battery made from 20pcs 40152 cells: weight: 10kg $559.00 Does this include BMS (Battery Mgmt System)?
http://www.bmsbattery.com/7_headway


LiPo (Lithium Polymer):
Single Cell: Turnigy 5000mAh cell, 3.7V, 128x42x10mm, 114g, 20C discharge, 2C charge, $12.02 ea
Turnigy 5000mAh 6s 20Cdischarge, 152x50x51mm, 793g, 2C charge, 3.7V/cell, $41.82
http://www.hobbyking.com


Tesla Model S automobile:
Range:
301 miles at 55mph with 85kWh battery, 230 miles at 75mph
232 miles at 55mph with 60kWh battery, 190 miles at 75mph
161 miles at 55 mph with 40kWh battery, 140 miles at 75mph
http://www.teslamotors.com/goelectric

Battery slang: A “C” rating for a cell or battery, is an indication of how much current it can produce without its voltage falling below a certain level (perhaps its nominal level).

A 10C battery can put out 10 times its rated capacity: A 5000mAh 10C battery can put out 50 Amps, though it may last LESS than 1/10 of an hour doing it. Batteries are less than 100% efficient, some of their energy comes out as heat which is usually wasted.

A battery with a “Maximum 2C charge rate” can be charged at a maximum current of 2 times its capacity: A 5000mAh battery with a 2C maximum charge rate can be charged at 10 Amps, no more.

Due to a battery’s internal resistance, high charge or discharge rates produce heat inside the battery, and excessive heat can damage batteries and shorten their life.

--------------------------------------------------------

If you dig, you can probably find some better prices, different weights and capacities etc. But these are a fairly good start. Battery prices here are for products in China, which is where most such devices are made due to government EPA restrictions on hairy chemicals in this country. So you have to add shipping to the U.S. A number of companies import them.

Questions you might want to try answering from this data:

1.) What size and weight would a battery be, that can push a Tesla-type car 200 miles at 75 mph? How about 300 miles as I said earlier? Same question for a battery made of supercaps.

2.) How long would it take to charge each of those batteries at its maximum charge rate? (That one's easy.)

3.) How much current at 110V or 220V, would it take to charge them in that time?

4.) What would each of the above batteries cost, for materials only?

Don't just blow off the questions as you did the last time. Take your time. If you want to get serious, get serious.

[Robert A Whit]

ROBERT. "S.T.F.U!" I wasn't talking to you. God forbid I did. You would even scold me for that. So...KMA, and STFU.

Sorry to the rest of the posters, but this crap is precisely what I endure when he replies and gives his off the wall remarks.

I scold you for your piss poor attitude. And proof of it is right above signed by Abouttime..

Carry on gang. I made my point. This clown disrupted another thread and made false accusations.

Also, keep in mind your own remarks when I say what you said to you in different form of course.

BTW, I have made several comments to the point of this topic.

To Acorn, I really like the data you posted on batteries etc. I plan to check on the weight of the Tessla. The problem it has is the price to the customer. A guy who can afford one is not to disturbed by fuel prices.

They don't sell many of them and it seems like it is still a rich man's stab at saying he is pro environment. But when he disposes of the batteries, then what will he claim?

[Robert A Whit]

The video said it discharged slowly, but charged super fast.

Cadet, I am very busy with my studies of a number of things but this has me so curious I must stop something else to study this.

I admit not watching the video but it is all above so I plan to put more effort into this. Acorn has provided more valuable data and I understand all of this so need to do more research of my own. I am intrigued by a capacitor that charges fast but discharges slowly. That is quite a feat. Acorn has addressed energy density very well and of course to power an automobile uses a lot of energy density. Gasoline is outstanding as an energy rich product.

There is an amazing amount of energy in a 15 gallon fuel tank.

[Little-Acorn]

An example calculation to start:

DISCHARGE RATE

If you want to drive a Tesla car 225 miles at 75 mph and use up the charge completely, that means you drove it for 3 hours. Right?

So you discharged your battery in 3 hours, which means you discharged it at a 1/3 C rate. That's well within the capabilities of all the batteries I listed.

BATTERY SIZE (and price)

From Tesla's figures, it takes that 85kWh battery they bragged about, to drive that 225 miles at 75 mph (actually Tesla said 230 miles, less than a 3% difference).

So how many of those Headway 40152 cells does it take to make an 85kWh battery? One cell holds 15Amp-hr at 3.2V, which makes it a 48 Watt-hr cell. So it would take 1,771 of them to make an 85,000 Watt-hr battery. At $23.09 each, that means the battery would cost $40,892. And that's just the battery alone, without the rest of the car it goes into. And at 480 grams (16.96 ounces, or a hair over 1 pound) each, the battery would weigh 1,877 pounds, or just short of a ton. Not counting the wiring, packaging etc. to put it together.

In contrast, 10 gallons of gasoline weighs about 60 pounds. That would push a Tesla-like car 225 miles easily, if the car got 22.5 miles per gallon. Even my minivan can do that.

So, there you go. It takes a $40,000 battery weighing almost a ton, to push a car this size approx. 225 miles. You begin to see why electric cars haven't caught on yet, don't you.

CHARGING

The good news is, you can charge these Headway 40152 cells at a 2C rate, which means you can fully charge it in 1/2 hour, or 30 minutes. (Told you this one was easy.)

What current inflow do you need, to charge it that fast? It's an 85 kWh battery. Unfortunately, batteries aren't 100% efficient, so to get it to produce 85 kiloWatt-hours tomorrow, you have to put more than that into it today, like maybe 100 kiloWatt-hours.

To get 100 kWh into it in 30 minutes, you have to flow 200,000 Watts into it for those 30 minutes. That's a BUNCH of Watts. If you are using a 110V power outlet in your house, your current will be 200,000/110 or 1,818 Amps. If you have a 220V outlet, it's half that many Amps, or "only" 909 Amps. For 30 minutes.

You may want to keep in mind, that most houses' 110V outlets have 15-Amp or 20-Amp fuses. Draw any more current than that, and the fuse blows. 220V outlets can let you draw maybe 40 Amps, which is 8,800 Watts. To put 100 kWh into your battery using that 220V outlet, will take you about 11.4 hours. (And the electric meter on the side of your house, is spinning REALLY fast all that time.)

Imagine if you and all your neighbors, all plugged in your electric cars to charge at night, all at the same time.

It turns out that the limitation on how long it takes to charge up your car, doesn't depend so much on the battery's charge characteristics, as on the characteristics of the power grid you're charging it from. Do you start to see why you have to charge a Nissan Leaf, which only goes 70 miles on a charge, all night?

Revelarts' suggestion, that you have another supercap (slowly) charging at home while you're out driving your electric car, then coming home, plugging your car into the home's supercap, and blowing all that power into the car's supercap in 30 minutes, has much merit. Though you're still talking about a thousand Amps or more flowing for those 30 minutes. I think I'd rather be far away while that was going on.

Now go find out what a supercap weighs, and how much it costs. And do the above calculations for that instead of a battery.

And keep in mind that even if the supercap is perfect, 100% efficient, the greatest thing since sliced bread, you'll still have to put huge amounts of current into it all night, to recharge it after that 225-mile trip. It's no better than the motor it's powering and the car it's pushing.

[Robert A Whit]

An example calculation to start:

DISCHARGE RATE

If you want to drive a Tesla car 225 miles at 75 mph and use up the charge completely, that means you drove it for 3 hours. Right?

So you discharged your battery in 3 hours, which means you discharged it at a 1/3 C rate. That's well within the capabilities of all the batteries I listed.

BATTERY SIZE (and price)

From Tesla's figures, it takes that 85kWh battery they bragged about, to drive that 225 miles at 75 mph (actually Tesla said 230 miles, less than a 3% difference).

So how many of those Headway 40152 cells does it take to make an 85kWh battery? One cell holds 15Amp-hr at 3.2V, which makes it a 48 Watt-hr cell. So it would take 1,771 of them to make an 85,000 Watt-hr battery. At $23.09 each, that means the battery would cost $40,892. And that's just the battery alone, without the rest of the car it goes into. And at 480 grams (16.96 ounces, or a hair over 1 pound) each, the battery would weigh 1,877 pounds, or just short of a ton. Not counting the wiring, packaging etc. to put it together.

In contrast, 10 gallons of gasoline weighs about 60 pounds. That would push a Tesla-like car 225 miles easily, if the car got 22.5 miles per gallon. Even my minivan can do that.

So, there you go. It takes a $40,000 battery weighing almost a ton, to push a car this size approx. 225 miles. You begin to see why electric cars haven't caught on yet, don't you.

CHARGING

The good news is, you can charge these Headway 40152 cells at a 2C rate, which means you can fully charge it in 1/2 hour, or 30 minutes. (Told you this one was easy.)

What current inflow do you need, to charge it that fast? It's an 85 kWh battery. Unfortunately, batteries aren't 100% efficient, so to get it to produce 85 kiloWatt-hours tomorrow, you have to put more than that into it today, like maybe 100 kiloWatt-hours.

To get 100 kWh into it in 30 minutes, you have to flow 200,000 Watts into it for those 30 minutes. That's a BUNCH of Watts. If you are using a 110V power outlet in your house, your current will be 200,000/110 or 1,818 Amps. If you have a 220V outlet, it's half that many Amps, or "only" 909 Amps. For 30 minutes.

You may want to keep in mind, that most houses' 110V outlets have 15-Amp or 20-Amp fuses. Draw any more current than that, and the fuse blows. 220V outlets can let you draw maybe 40 Amps, which is 8,800 Watts. To put 100 kWh into your battery using that 220V outlet, will take you about 11.4 hours. (And the electric meter on the side of your house, is spinning REALLY fast all that time.)

Imagine if you and all your neighbors, all plugged in your electric cars to charge at night, all at the same time.

It turns out that the limitation on how long it takes to charge up your car, doesn't depend so much on the battery's charge characteristics, as on the characteristics of the power grid you're charging it from. Do you start to see why you have to charge a Nissan Leaf, which only goes 70 miles on a charge, all night?

Revelarts' suggestion, that you have another supercap (slowly) charging at home while you're out driving your electric car, then coming home, plugging your car into the home's supercap, and blowing all that power into the car's supercap in 30 minutes, has much merit. Though you're still talking about a thousand Amps or more flowing for those 30 minutes. I think I'd rather be far away while that was going on.

Now go find out what a supercap weighs, and how much it costs. And do the above calculations for that instead of a battery.

And keep in mind that even if the supercap is perfect, 100% efficient, the greatest thing since sliced bread, you'll still have to put huge amounts of current into it all night, to recharge it after that 225-mile trip. It's no better than the motor it's powering and the car it's pushing.

That is the sort of analysis you can find in the book called Physics for future presidents and is why I highly recommend the book.

Acorn in a brief post explains why gasoline is better.

[Little-Acorn]

Acorn in a brief post explains why gasoline is better.

No, I named one advantage of gasoline over battery power.

I did not go into an in-depth comparison between the two, examining pluses and minus from both sides.

[Robert A Whit]

No, I named one advantage of gasoline over battery power.

I did not go into an in-depth comparison between the two, examining pluses and minus from both sides.

I apologize for giving you too much credit. Sorry.

[Little-Acorn]

.)
One [Headway 40152] cell holds 15Amp-hr at 3.2V, which makes it a 48 Watt-hr cell.

At a weight of 1.06 pounds, that gives the Headway 40152 cell a specific energy capacity of 45.28 Watt-hours per pound. And since the 48 Watt-hour cell costs $23.09, you can say that a battery made of those cells costs $481 per kiloWatt-hour.

BTW, that other battery cell I mentioned (Turnigy 5000mAh lithium-polymer cell, 3.7V, 128x42x10mm, 114g, 20C discharge, 2C charge, $12.02 ea.) has a specific energy capacity of 73.48 Watt-hours per pound. Meaning, it can hold more energy per pound, than the Headway cell. And a battery made of these lithium-polymer cells would cost $650 per kiloWatt-hour.

So, you can drive your Tesla-like car 225 miles at 75 mph, with either of these two batteries:

1.) A battery made of Headway 40152 lithium-iron-phosphate cells, weighing 1,877 pounds and costing $40,982;
2.) A battery made of Turnigy 5000mAh lithium-polymer cells, weighing 1,157 pounds and costing $55,250.

Or, a battery made of supercaps costing... well, you tell me.

BTW, electricity in my area costs about $.27 per kiloWatt-hour. San Diego Gas & Electric tends to hike the price on people who use a lot, and if you have an electric car you'll use a LOT. So the 85 kWh you just used on that 225-mile trip, cost you $22.95. That's AFTER you bought the $40,000-plus battery to put it in. No matter what the battery is made of.

Or you can pull into the Shell station and fill 'er up for $40 after that trip. (Gas prices here haven't gone below $4/gal for months, unless you pay cash.)

Cadet, what do supercaps weigh, and how much do they cost?

[cadet]

.)

At a weight of 1.06 pounds, that gives the Headway 40152 cell a specific energy capacity of 45.28 Watt-hours per pound. And since the 48 Watt-hour cell costs $23.09, you can say that a battery made of those cells costs $481 per kiloWatt-hour.

BTW, that other battery cell I mentioned (Turnigy 5000mAh lithium-polymer cell, 3.7V, 128x42x10mm, 114g, 20C discharge, 2C charge, $12.02 ea.) has a specific energy capacity of 73.48 Watt-hours per pound. Meaning, it can hold more energy per pound, than the Headway cell. And a battery made of these lithium-polymer cells would cost $650 per kiloWatt-hour.

So, you can drive your Tesla-like car 225 miles at 75 mph, with either of these two batteries:

1.) A battery made of Headway 40152 lithium-iron-phosphate cells, weighing 1,877 pounds and costing $40,982;
2.) A battery made of Turnigy 5000mAh lithium-polymer cells, weighing 1,157 pounds and costing $55,250.

Or, a battery made of supercaps costing... well, you tell me.

BTW, electricity in my area costs about $.27 per kiloWatt-hour. San Diego Gas & Electric tends to hike the price on people who use a lot, and if you have an electric car you'll use a LOT. So the 85 kWh you just used on that 225-mile trip, cost you $22.95. That's AFTER you bought the $40,000-plus battery to put it in. No matter what the battery is made of.

Or you can pull into the Shell station and fill 'er up for $40 after that trip. (Gas prices here haven't gone below $4/gal for months, unless you pay cash.)

Cadet, what do supercaps weigh, and how much do they cost?


I found this.
http://www.wfs.org/blogs/james-lee/investing-graphene-nanomaterial-future


Since 2005, raw graphite prices have almost tripled. Annual graphite production is at about one million tons per year, seventy percent of which is coming from China. Interestingly enough, today’s lithium-ion batteries use more graphite than lithium. Roughly 130 pounds of graphite are needed for a single electric car battery.

Here's a taste of the beginning of the article, read the whole thing, it's pretty cool.


Name one material that has the following qualities: superstrength, superconductivity, self-cooling, anti-bacterial, anti-corrosive, photovoltaic. Carbon is one of the most abundant elements on the planet, yet in the form of graphene it has unique qualities. Graphene is a sheet of carbon that is just one-molecule thick. Rows upon rows of interconnected six-sided carbon molecules are linked together in a way that is unusually strong, yet flexible.
Despite its humble origins (it was first discovered by peeling a thin layer of pencil graphite using sticky tape), graphene is already showing a head-spinning array of research applications. Here are some headlines from the past few months:

[Little-Acorn]

I found this.
http://www.wfs.org/blogs/james-lee/investing-graphene-nanomaterial-future



Here's a taste of the beginning of the article, read the whole thing, it's pretty cool.

Time for you to answer the questions, instead of just citing articles that may or may not have the info and waiting for others to drag the answers out of them.

What do supercaps weigh, and how much do they cost?

[Robert A Whit]

Time for you to answer the questions, instead of just citing articles that may or may not have the info and waiting for others to drag the answers out of them.

What do supercaps weigh, and how much do they cost?

Can't weigh to much since it is one molecule thick. Peeling it off using tape is not much of a way to get it and he talks of getting it using a DVD recorder.

Maybe it can be made into an auto energy source but so far, it seems to be used mostly in the lab or making a sort of fabric that seems to be another carbon fiber type product with differences.

[cadet]

Time for you to answer the questions, instead of just citing articles that may or may not have the info and waiting for others to drag the answers out of them.

What do supercaps weigh, and how much do they cost?

This is an idea for massive production.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-researchers-develop-new-technique-243553.aspx

There is really no price yet. It's yet to be put into manufacturing. It's fairly new... And besides that, carbon is the single most abundant material on earth. And it's EVERYWHERE. Literately. The price for carbon is basically free when doing metallurgy to strengthen materials. I assume something that's carbon would be pretty dang cheap. They're already thinking about how to process massive amounts of it.

And if you really want a price, go make your own, it's pretty easy and there's already youtube videos of how to make it by the bucket load at home.
And not only that, but there are a bunch of applications for it as well. If you're using the carbon nano-tubes (The strong and hard type), it's quite expensive. But if you're using the Carbon-oxide (flexible capacitor), it's pretty damn cheap.

And it's one molecule thick, if you've been paying attention. So I assume that the weight per energy is pretty negligible when it comes to cell phones, batteries, and computers.
I've been searching, but I can't seem to find how big of a car battery made of graphene would weigh or cost.
I found a 300% jump in energy density compared to your regular car battery if replaced with graphene.

But other then that, everything is just predictions at this point. It's so new that you'll have to do the math yourself. It's amazing and fantastic and new! Not all the answers are here yet!