Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/electric-car-with-massive-range-in-demo-by-phinergy-alcoa-1.2664653

by Element_ • 12 years ago

85 80 12 years ago

venomsnake2• 12 years ago

Chances of the magical electrolyte that removes the corundum being mercury based?

stcredzero9• 12 years ago

Doesn't so much feel like a battery than a new kind of chemical reactor that oxidizes aluminum plates. More like a "Shipstone" from Robert Heinlein's science fiction stories. You can't charge it at home, you just get it from the factory and use it up, except that it holds over an order of magnitude more power for the weight. 3000 mile range? I hope it doesn't have an easily reached state where it can release all of that energy at once.

nwmcsween• 12 years ago

I highly doubt it can release that much energy at once, it's a catalytic reaction that removes the oxide from the aluminum.

beloch• 12 years ago

First, it was 3000 kilometers, not miles.

Second, the energy source is the oxidization of Aluminum. It takes specific preparation (e.g. thermite) to release that all at once. The contents of this "battery" are as safe as carrying around a bunch of crumpled up beer cans (very safe) and whatever the heck that solvent is (unknown). The solvent may be toxic, acidic, etc. but hopefully no worse than what's in your car battery, which is actually pretty nasty but not terribly dangerous unless you deliberately try to make it so (e.g. by shorting out the terminals).

Aluminum is currently under $2K/1000kg, so the yearly aluminum battery replacement would probably run a few hundred dollars. Aluminum is the most abundant metal on earth and this reaction is reversible, so costs should stay low. The real cost is likely to be the solvent.

venomsnake2• 12 years ago

There is a hint here about the solvent http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-09/amazing-rustin...

nardi2• 12 years ago

Aluminum is the most abundant metal on earth

Not technically true, since almost all natural aluminum exists in oxide form, not metal. The process of turning Al2O3 into metallic Aluminum is incredibly energy intensive, requiring temperatures of over 1,000 degrees Celsius and some seriously heinous chemicals (HF among them).

stcredzero9• 12 years ago

First, it was 3000 kilometers, not miles.

Whoops. Still and order of magnitude more than the Tesla Model S batteries.

TrainedMonkey• 12 years ago

"Because the car would still rely on its regular rechargable lithium-ion battery most of the time and would switch to the aluminum-air battery as a backup only if the lithium-ion battery ran out, and because most car trips are 50 kilometres or less, Alcoa estimates the aluminum-air batteries would only need to be changed about once a year."

This is a chemical battery with very limited lifespan. Additionally without any details on recycling of used batteries "green" qualities of this battery are suspect.

ianbicking• 12 years ago

The batteries are "charged" not from the electrical grid, but from hydroelectric power generated at Alcoa's smelter in Baie-Comeau, Que., Tzidon said. When they are full-charged, they are thick, heavy panels made mostly of aluminum.

In a sense it's green if they are produced from green energy, like hydroelectric power in remote Canada. In that case it's not just green because it's hydroelectric, but also because it's inconveniently located hydroelectric it's not displacing more productive uses of the electricity. Maybe geothermal energy in Iceland would be another option.

xur17• 12 years ago

This is actually a pretty ingenious way of solving the distance issue for electric cars. As long as replacing the backup isn't egregiously expensive, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

This solves the last issue I have with electric cars (other than cost).

dojomouse5• 12 years ago

It's highly recyclable. Aluminium oxide (the result of the reaction in the battery) is one of the feedstocks for industrial aluminium smelting. Recyclable isn't necessarily the same as 'efficient' or 'a good idea' though. It's energy intensive (haven't checked the efficiency of 'recharging'), and additionally has, as a byproduct, massive amounts of CO2 even before considering CO2 emitted in generating the electricity required for the smelting process.

I can't see how that a single use battery like this (which also needs swap infrastructure) has any net advantage over the rechargable swappable packs + fast chargers as Tesla use.

Maybe it could have applications in aerospace where existing lithium ion cells don't have sufficient energy density to even come close to a viable solution. But you'd want to compare it to other 'single use' options like synfuel.

JoeAltmaier3• 12 years ago

Maybe if the aluminum could be packaged as a liquid or a gel, it could be pumped in and out like gas.

stcredzero9• 12 years ago

It's energy intensive (haven't checked the efficiency of 'recharging'), and additionally has, as a byproduct, massive amounts of CO2 even before considering CO2 emitted in generating the electricity required for the smelting process.

Aw come on! I'd rather see thinking two or more steps ahead from the HN crowd. If the CO2 emitted from the battery's materials came from the atmosphere in the first place, this will be a closed cycle and won't increase global CO2 levels. Supply the power to recycle the aluminum and charge the battery from renewable sources, and you're good.

The thing that might sink this is simply the sheer amount of energy needed. There is nothing inherently carbon intensive about it, though.

jff2• 12 years ago

This particular smelter uses hydroelectric power, mentioned in the article.

alephnil• 12 years ago

The reaction used by is not reversible, so the alumimium in the battery will be consumed, and the battery is not rechargeable. This is only said implicitly in the article. Thus this is more a fuel cell, using aluminium as fuel.

giarc• 12 years ago

But can the spent fuel cell be processed and used for something else? Perhaps not related to a car at all.

jccooper• 12 years ago

It's not reversible in the car, but it is reversible in an aluminum smelter. The power cell is turning the metal into aluminum oxide, which is (mostly) how we find Al in its ore form.

So once you burn it out, it gets shipped back to Alcoa and they treat it like some nice clean ore and shortly turn it back into metallic Al. Which is not entirely energy-cheap, but at current prices of less than $1/lb isn't too bad.

You can see where Alcoa would like such a process.

I don't know if the idea of a high-density consumable backup power supply will take off, but it's not a terrible idea until real batteries get much better.

maxerickson• 12 years ago

It sounds like a 20 pound module would make a great rescue battery, even if putting them in the cars doesn't take off.

kashkhan2• 12 years ago

with that definition of recycling even gasoline is recyclable in plants :)

trhway5• 12 years ago

metal-air batteries (fuel cells), rechargeable and not, is the future. Having comparable to gasoline energy density, yet higher efficiency - 60-90% vs. 30% of gasoline, it will transform cars and especially planes (subsonic ones). You can imagine that it is absolutely not an issue to replace a 100Kg spent aluminum fuel cell block on a small plane at airport. It would also be better than gas turbine for bigger commercial, though still propeller driven, planes (for pure jets the issue is that you need air to be hot to have high exhaust speed for the plane to reach speeds beyond 450+ knots). Interesting possibility for decreasing heat signature for military subsonic drones too :)

There is also very active development for rechargeable metal-air batteries though currently it is significantly skewed toward lithium-air which is non-starter pretty much. There is very promising results with zinc, sodium and especially potassium -air batteries.

frankus• 12 years ago

Vanadium-boride air is also a promising chemistry (http://phys.org/news/2013-09-molten-air-battery-storage-capa...).

For aircraft, I'm not sure it would be practical, but in theory you could jettison the spent batteries (which now weigh more thanks to the air adsorption) after takeoff, at which point they would fly/glide themselves to a nearby reprocessing station.

nardi2• 12 years ago

But what's the efficiency of the Hall–Héroult process? [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-Héroult_process

trhway5• 12 years ago

my bet actually is on potassium-air. The known and projected configurations of such batteries would most probably contain organic/aprotic electrolyte, so it is pretty nasty/flammable inside, yet they are rechargeable and availability and cost of components and efficiency seems to beat other commodity materials based schemas.

dredmorbius• 12 years ago

They are the highest power-density battery design available.

There are still renewable / sustainable liquid fuel options, though. Among the most interesting to me in recent months is the US Naval Research Lab's work on seawater-based Fischer-Tropsch fuel synthesis (SFTFS).

It uses electrical energy (from an external source: nuclear or OTEC in the NRL's scheme, solar, wind, geothermal, or other sources could also be substituted). The net efficiency is no better than 60% (the energy cost of electrolysis), my suspicion is that it will be around 50%, for a round-trip return of around 15-20% based on thermal engine applications (higher for electrical generation, lower for internal combustion).

But what this gives you is a sustainable, renewable, carbon-neutral source of energy-dense, highly-versatile liquid fuels.

I seriously doubt metal-air batteries will work for serious air transport.

scythe• 12 years ago

So I've posted this before, but aluminum smelting is just plain old too hard for this to be as cheap as batteries. I mean, it's great if you're Alcoa, an aluminium smelter, but let's take a look at bulk prices:

Aluminium costs $1.80/kg: http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=aluminum

Alumina, the product of the aluminium-air reaction, costs ~$0.45/kg: http://www.indexmundi.com/en/commodities/minerals/bauxite_an...

The cost of refining aluminum from ore, in bulk, is therefore >$1.35/kg (otherwise, Alcoa would be cleaning up on the commodities market). The cost of a 3000km battery with 100kg of aluminium is therefore $135, or roughly 4.4 cents per kilometer, or 7 cents per mile.

That's nearly as expensive as gasoline, going off of commodity metal prices and assuming absolutely no overhead or profit margin. That's not to mention the environmental consequences of aluminium refining w.r.t. the massive amount of energy therefor required.

It's impressive tech, but it's not feasible. The Hall-Héroult process has been the subject of intense scientific scrutiny for over 100 years; everyone and their brother has tried to make it more efficient: we use aluminium for everything. Aluminium is not going to get any easier, barring massive breakthroughs in fusion energy and/or the Second Coming.

EDIT: Originally my calculated cents/mile was off by a factor of 10. However, the latter point, "nearly as expensive as gasoline", stands: it costs $250 for a gas car to drive 3000 km, at 30 mpg and $4/gallon. I didn't notice the error because I used this latter comparison rather than figuring out gasoline's cents/mile.

stcredzero9• 12 years ago

Aluminium is not going to get any easier, barring massive breakthroughs in fusion energy and/or the Second Coming.

How about vast solar thermal plants in the Sahara?

trhway5• 12 years ago

that would lead to even better thing - silicon-air cells :)

kashkhan2• 12 years ago

Alumina is not all aluminum (Al2 O3 ) so you need to correct for that.

abat• 12 years ago

The idea is it's a backup battery instead of a backup gasoline engine. Being "nearly as expensive as gasoline" could still be a win because it could be used in electric vehicles without having to add a backup generator engine. Also it could have other benefits like being safer (less combustible), producing fewer emissions on the road, and weighing less than gas.

That said, I'm not saying I'm believer in this tech

trhway5• 12 years ago

The cost of a 3000km battery with 100kg of aluminum is therefore $135, or roughly 44 cents per kilometer, or 70 cents per mile.

$135 / 3000km = $0.04 , not $0.44

That is the beauty of metal "burning" in fuel cells instead of gasoline - gasoline is expensive because it is too little of oil on our planet compare to any common metal.

cwt137• 12 years ago

Is this technology similar to the Bloom Box, but with Aluminum instead of some type of ceramic material?

abalone4• 12 years ago

Doesn't aluminum smelting use crazy amounts of electricity and emit significant greenhouse gases? So not only would we be doing that, we'd also have to ship these 220 lb modules back to the smelters every 1,000 miles?

Is there anybody advocating for this besides aluminum smelters?

lotsofmangos2• 12 years ago

Read article. The smelter they are using is hydroelectric and the 1000 miles air battery range is only used on long journeys as mostly the car runs on lithium.

fancyketchup2• 12 years ago

I think... you might want to read up on aluminum smelting, which converts alumina (Al2O3) into aluminum (Al). The process involves passing a large current between two graphite (carbon) electrodes via the alumina.

Al2O3 + carbon => Al + CO2

Edit: I can only guess that the down votes are for not providing a source? Here you go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting

It doesn't matter if the smelter runs on fairy dust or hippie juice. Reducing aluminum oxide to aluminum produces CO2 no matter the energy source.

abalone4• 12 years ago

I read the article. Hydroelectric is not free -- to scale up to powering the automotive industry requires more dams with massive ecological impact -- and you left out the part out greenhouse gases and the transportation of heavy batteries over hundreds or thousands of miles per recharge.

1K miles could be easily used up on a couple roundtrips. That's not even 2 roundtrips between SF and LA.

patrickg_zill• 12 years ago

Aluminum does use a lot of electricity. The first time; that is why recycling aluminum which is cheap, very easy to do, and does not require much power, is such a win.

abalone4• 12 years ago

Are you suggesting "recharging" these batteries happens via recycling? That is not true. Aluminum is converted to alumina via the reaction and they need to be resmelted, just like the first time.

marvin2• 12 years ago

I hate being a naysayer - this is cool technology - but the energy economics won't work out for metal-air batteries if they're used as the main power source. Recharging a metal-air battery is grossly inefficient, and a big part of the advantage with electric cars is that they use less energy in every step of the process except initial manufacturing. This means that the general economics of metal-air batteries will not work out either, because the system requires a physical supply chain that is much more expensive to build out than the electricity distribution network that already exists. Add to this that range anxiety is for the most part eliminated with >60kWh electric vehicles, and this is a no-starter.

Where metal-air batteries could have a place, is as a trickle charging device that will be replaced only rarely, perhaps during an annual checkup, and used as a backup only on the few occasions where fast charging is unavailable or unwanted. But battery vehicle companies are onto this idea already - the Tesla Model S has space for what some suspect is in fact an upgrade slot where a metal-air trickle charging battery can be installed.

The problem is, most mainstream news articles writing about progress in battery-electric vehicles are already far behind the state of the art. Tesla's innovation and execution in this space has largely removed range anxiety for all but a small (<5%) number of trips, and already have a very strong quick charging presence in multiple countries. The future is electric and is already here - most people just haven't noticed.

greglindahl• 12 years ago

Huh, the article addresses this issue pretty directly -- did you read it?

  Because the car would still rely on its regular
  rechargable lithium-ion battery most of the time and
  would switch to the aluminum-air battery as a backup only
  if the lithium-ion battery ran out, and because most car 
  trips are 50 kilometres or less, Alcoa estimates the 
  aluminum-air batteries would only need to be changed 
  about once a year.

pocketstar• 12 years ago

Yes but then you are hauling around an extra 100kg of unused batteries for 95% of your trips.

esbonsa2• 12 years ago

"... and a big part of the advantage with electric cars is that they use less energy in every step of the process except initial manufacturing."

The most important part for me for electric cars is the simpler power-train system which is less likely to break... which is why i would never buy an hybrid that has both systems.

mikeash4• 12 years ago

Oddly, hybrids seem to be really reliable, despite the additional stuff to break. Priuses get top marks for reliability. I'm not sure why, but I imagine it comes down to the electric stuff being extremely reliable due to the nature of the beast, and the gasoline end being treated more nicely (more consistent RPMs and throttle settings, no idling, not being used at all for a substantial fraction of your miles) more than compensates for the tiny increase in potential failures from adding the electric system. Also consider that there is essentially no transmission in the more advanced hybrids, which removes a potentially expensive breakage that regular gas cars are subject to.

ZoFreX• 12 years ago

A hybrid is still a lot simpler than a regular IC vehicle, even when running on the ICE.

akouts• 12 years ago

I worked at a large automotive manufacturer in near Detroit a number of years ago when they were considering whether or not to design and manufacture an electric vehicle. The had engaged in full "well to wheels" analysis of potential designs as well as that of competitors and concluded that the energy economics never made sense. That analysis considered how "carbon expensive" it is to spin up manufacturing, manufacture, service and operate a vehicle going all the way back to raw materials sourcing. They felt more optimistic about diesel hybrids but also chose not to pursue that. I find it unfortunate that we don't see a more standardized process for conducting full "well to wheels" analysis that takes into account the full life cycle of a designs, manufacturing and product lifecycle. Would be awesome if a consumer watchdog group existed that had the access and technical competence needed to audit these technologies.

scotty792• 12 years ago

Any chance of popping this kind of battery into laptop and running it for few days before replace is needed?

Also, could it power sensor that wirelessly communicates gathered data from time to time for extended periods of time?

hardoncollider• 12 years ago

Anybody else notice in their demo video, that the car is pulling to the side of the road to let semi-trucks pass?

Everything aside, that's quite a deceiving field test, considering they aren't simulating any type of normal driving pattern.

salem• 12 years ago

It sounds like this battery would be much more suitable for Tesla's automated battery swap station. Except you would install it in the frunk/trunk for longer trips, and ditch the extra weight when you're done.

Electric car with massive range in demo by Phinergy, Alcoa

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