PLANET SAVING CARBON?
October 3, 2007 – Vol.12 No. 28
Poor carbon. It’s getting a bum rap. It’s blamed for drifting around in the atmosphere and warming up the planet. No one ever blames its oxygen partner in carbon dioxide. If carbon wasn’t so attached to oxygen in the first place it wouldn’t be there.
Carbon’s a bad guy. So people think. Wrongly.
Overall carbon is really useful stuff. It’s light. Its molecular bonds are strong. It stands up to high temperatures. Manipulated a bit it makes a great material to make things with. Someday soon you might be riding in a jetliner built largely of carbon fibers: Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner.
Carbon is forever. How many engagements have been sealed with a small chunk in its clear cystal form?
Carbon conducts electricity too. It works so well as a conductor it has been and will continue to be used in carbon electrodes in batteries.
And that’s what this story is really about, energy saving, planet saving batteries - using carbon.
What the world needs now is not just love sweet love but better and really cheap energy storage devices. Excess, surplus, and unsold power from the grid needs to be stored for later use at peak demand periods. (And thus displacing power (and related emissions) that is generated to meet high demand.) Energy storage devices, too, are needed for mating with renewable energies. The power from wind turbines that go thump in the night - but not put to productive use - needs to be stored.
When I see the words batteries, low cost, and carbon cobbled together in the same news tip I get excited: Researchers are closing in on some really good, really cheap energy storage technologies.
Axion Power International has been making a pretty much all-carbon electrode that replaces the negative electrode (the cathode) ordinarily made of lead in lead acid batteries. Their relatively simple invention is the lead/nano-Carbon (PbC(tm))-acid battery.
The company says this: “The resulting PbC-acid battery offers energy storage approaching lead acid batteries, coupled with far longer cycle life and power output approaching super-capacitors. These low-cost devices recharge rapidly and are environmentally friendly because they use substantially less lead – up to 60% in some applications. Axion has been producing prototype PbC-acid batteries at its lead-acid battery plant in New Castle, Pennsylvania for over a year using the same cases, positive electrodes, separators, electrolytes and manufacturing equipment as its specialty lead-acid batteries. The only notable manufacturing difference is the use of its proprietary carbon electrode assemblies that replace the lead-based negative electrodes. Early results from seven months of demonstration testing at an integrated wind and solar power installation in Ontario are very encouraging.”
“Axion believes its PbC-acid batteries are only class of advanced battery that can be assembled on existing lead-acid battery production lines with no significant changes to production equipment and fabrication processes. It also believes it will be able to manufacture carbon electrode assemblies in volume at low cost using standard automated production methods that are commonly used in the electronics industry. When its electrode manufacturing methods are fully developed, Axion believes it will be able to sell carbon electrode assemblies as virtual plug-and-play replacements for the lead based negative electrodes used by all other battery manufacturers.”
“Axion’s goal is to become the leading supplier of carbon electrode assemblies for the lead-acid battery industry.”
Interest is already building for the technology.
Axion will be providing its proprietary lead/nano-Carbon (PbC)-acid batteries. as well as an advanced battery management system for an 18-month, 250 kW/750 kWh demonstration project funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The project will use Axion batteries to provide additional power at peak demand periods. The batteries will be provided to Gaia Power Technologies, Inc., the prime contractor with NYSERDA. Axion will receive $225,000 for its batteries, power management system and related services.
It’s the cost that should open eyes. Axion’s batteries are about $200-250 per kilowatt. A similar grid-buffering project by American Electric Power (AEP) with sodium sulfur (NAS) battery technology will cost about $4500 per kilowatt.
And other uses for lead/nano-Carbon (PbC)-acid batteries? Axion mentions hybrid vehicles and motive power in its website. Heavier than lithium for sure, but carbon would be much, much lighter on the wallet.
Love your carbon. There’s lots of it in you too.
Links:
Axion Power International axionpower.com
green-energy-news.com |
