Report: MIT students develop liquid fuel for electric cars

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/06/08/mit-students-develop-liquid-fuel-for-electric-cars/

A group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students may have come up with the perfect solution to our electric vehicle charging woes. Instead of relying on lithium or nickel, the new battery design stores its electrons in semi-solid flow cells. Charged particles are suspended in an electrolyte solution and pumped between compartments used for storing or releasing energy. The tech supposedly makes the batteries up to ten times more efficient than their traditional counterparts, and even more importantly, the new tech is cheaper to produce. Estimates say that the design could cut the size and expense of current batteries by as much as 50 percent.

That's all well and good, but the really cool part is that charging the cells is as simple as pumping the drained fluid out and pumping fresh charged fluid in. That means that getting on your way could take as little time as a standard gasoline fill-up, greatly reducing the inconvenience and range woes associated with modern EVs. An operational prototype is expected to be completed in the next 18 months or so.

aaaaaaaaand I botched the thread title, great.

This thread would be awesome if the title wasn't redundant and that would make the thread awesome because of redundancy.

Cool idea. Maybe this will put EV's over the top? Anyone know if the kids will make any cash from their invention?

They deserve to

Xceler8x wrote: This thread would be awesome if the title wasn't redundant and that would make the thread awesome because of redundancy. Cool idea. Maybe this will put EV's over the top? Anyone know if the kids will make any cash from their invention?

If it's like Drexel's policy, the students will get to keep 100% of profits up until a certain dollar amount, then as you hit higher profits or royalties from the patent, it is divided up according to different percentages until the top tier where a 90%+ ends up going to the University...

So if it is marketable, the kids will get paid, but at the end of the day if it takes off, the University will reap the benefits of their allowing the research to take place...

flountown wrote: If it's like Drexel's policy, the students will get to keep 100% of profits up until a certain dollar amount, then as you hit higher profits or royalties from the patent, it is divided up according to different percentages until the top tier where a 90%+ ends up going to the University... So if it is marketable, the kids will get paid, but at the end of the day if it takes off, the University will reap the benefits of their allowing the research to take place...

That sounds fair.

This whole deal sounds pretty awesome though. Stop at a charging fill up station and motor up the road once you deplete your own tank of juice. The more I think about this the better it sounds.

Let's not even consider the potential for mobile power for remote cabins. Also smaller versions for laptops with the possibility of having charging tank at your house to refill it with once you've depleted the previous fill-up/charge.

It sounds like this innovation solves a lot of problems.

For those looking for more info, here is an article from MIT that goes more in-depth.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/flow-batteries-0606.html

One thing I noticed is that this doesn't look like a very flee flowing liquid, it's more of a sludge/goo filled with solid sand like particles, not something I would want to drip on my car/clothes/whatever at a gas station. Also, pumping a sludge like that would be quite slower, so I am really interested to see what the true energy density is compared to conventional fuels.

Well, I'm guessing you wouldn't need 10-15 gallons of it like gasoline.

That said, concerns of disposal and ability to manufacture enough of the stuff would arise.

THAT said, awesome to see another advance in battery technology. It's always a case of "when battery technology improves..." Well, maybe that time is here.

I wonder how much energy is needed to create the goo vs. how much you can extract from a tank of it, and how that compares to, say, mining crude & refining it into gasoline. Or for that matter making conventional batteries.

Jay wrote: I wonder how much energy is needed to create the goo vs. how much you can extract from a tank of it, and how that compares to, say, mining crude & refining it into gasoline. Or for that matter making conventional batteries.

Good point, also.

Standard batteries are highly recyclable.

The whole big idea behind batteries is that it's renewable energy. If it comes from a finite source...

e_pie wrote: aaaaaaaaand I botched the thread title, great.

It's not that bad. Easy to fix...(while stuck in a Boston hotel.)

FORESHADOWING:
Electric / hybrid observers will want to pay attention to Monday's new car review.
/FORESHADOWING

I'm so glad someone finally figured this out. I'm very excited for electric vehicles to take over. I have absolutely no issues with driving an electric car, as long as all the kinks are worked out.

Me neither.... just don't want to be bored to death. Tesla 2.5 was an absolute blast, but a little beyond my means at $170,000+ Cdn. Leaf was acceptable transport - I could live with it as long as I had something fun to play with. Wonder if this will have any influence on existing infrastructure plans – up here, three of our provinces have already signed a "memorandum of intent" to make it as easy as possible to plan charging stations. Sure would be a lot more efficient if it was just a matter of a "fillup" instead of several hours of downtime.

The idea of "swappable" battery packs is more appealing to me than refillable electrolyte.

Maybe if the voltaic goo were cycled out of and into a reusable container, like a propane tank? It could be pumped from the container to the cells, then back out to the container when it's time to refuel.

Electric cars - NO! They're no fun, BUT just think of the other possibilities!!!

I don't know... easily modifiable power output with instant torque.... or programmable torque characteristics.

Taiden wrote: I don't know... easily modifiable power output with instant torque.... or programmable torque characteristics.

No roar of the engines!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZwwYXNzgM

hahaha

maybe no roar of the engines.. but I bet you could get a really cool star trek like electric scream at pedal to the metal

Yeah, absolutely! The Tesla roadster emits a banshee whine when you really push it, I loved the bloody thing. Simply monstrous torque.

It looks like the idea behind the substance is that it is rechargeable. Pump out drained goo. Pump in charged goo. Drained goo gets charged on site to fill another car later.

I wonder what the lifespan is of the goo. How long can it last and how many charges can it take before it needs to be reprocessed?

It's suspended in liquid polymer, no? I'm picturing some phosphorescent Star Trekian nastiness...

Salanis wrote: It looks like the idea behind the substance is that it is rechargeable. Pump out drained goo. Pump in charged goo. Drained goo gets charged on site to fill another car later. I wonder what the lifespan is of the goo. How long can it last and how many charges can it take before it needs to be reprocessed?

That's kinda what I was thinking. Fuel stations would have charged fuel ready to pump into your vehicle. As you pump the recharged fuel into your vehicle, the spent fuel would go through a return line to the station to be recharged. Theoretically, this method would have similar refueling times as filling up with gas and eliminate one of the biggest drawbacks to electrically powered vehicles.

Also, recharging and reusing fluid on site means less need for shipping fuel, and smaller holding tanks on site.