The Battery technology thread - How will EVs be powered?

[Schrodinger]

A method may include... The electrolytic solution may include... The cathode may comprise... The external field may be... Examples... may include, but are not limited to...

It seems to me that there are no definite claims here at all. With this well couched language, I can't rule out that this is a set of instructions for buttering toast.

Or is this just how patents are worded?

[Adreitz]

My understanding is that the USPO doesn't check that your design actually fulfills any stated purpose when evaluating it. The design just has to be novel and well-described, not necessarily functional. (After all, the USPO can't be expected to be experts in every field, and so it's reasonable that they wouldn't be able to evaluate functionality for many submissions.)

I haven't bothered to read the patent, but my guess is this is just the Navy covering their bases and trying to patent anything that may possibly be useful (even for a different purpose than stated in the patent). I consider any claims of cold fusion to be pseudoscience until such time as a particular method has been confirmed by several established members of the scientific community.

Aaron

[randyd]

Originally Posted by Schrodinger

Or is this just how patents are worded?

Basically, this is just how patents are worded. The imprecision is intended to give the broadest possible scope of interpretation in case they (or some one else) come up with a slight variation. You will also find, "but not limited to" all over this and all other patents.

[rayfellow]

Here's one that could be 'the answer'.. first cell phones but with an implication for ev's...

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow...5710.html?vp=1

[Adreitz]

Hi, Ray.

I had seen articles about this yesterday. The quality of the reporting has been pretty bad, so it's difficult to tell what exactly the invention is, other than that it involves a supercapacitor. After looking at the Intel page summarizing the winners (I couldn't find any official in-depth analysis), it appears that the supercapacitor is for use inside of a chemical battery.

My guess is that its purpose is to quickly absorb enough charge to, when the device is unplugged, finish charging the battery from maybe 80% to full charge. My understanding is that this topping off of the battery is the slowest part of the charge cycle, so it might make sense to do something like this. Maybe. But if you already have a supercapacitor in the circuit, why would you not just keep the charge in it for use later, rather than accept charging losses to charge the battery and then further losses to get the energy back out of the battery later? I can't imagine that the capacitor is meant to completely replace the battery, as I've never seen even a lab supercapacitor that came close to the energy density of a Li-Ion battery.

Anyone have any better ideas or sources?

Aaron

[randyd]

More information on Eesha Khare's invention is here:
http://www.usc.edu/CSSF//History/201...ects/S0912.pdf There may be more around. That's just what I found quickly.

Basically, she invented a variant on the basic electrochemical double layer capacitor (EDLC) technology used by CapXX, Maxwell, and others to create currently sold supercaps. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superca...rid_capacitors

After a quick look, to me it seems that this invention is another incremental step toward using supercaps along side all kinds of batteries. Why not use Supercaps alone? Self-discharge. They leak current a lot more than batteries. You can put a charged Lithium battery on a shelf for 10 years and it will still be >80% of the original charge. Put any supercap on a shelf for 1 month, and the good caps will still have 25% of their charge left. That's still a useful number for cell phones that get charged almost every day, but not in the same class as batteries.

My personal bias is that the progress of chemical batteries will always outpace the progress of supercapacitor. For a lighthearted discussion of what's possible and what is not, try perusing here and especially here. While there, don't forget to ask, "Who is Y-Po?"

So, it seems like she has worked with a Prof at UC Santa Cruz. That's probably where she got the hydrogenated Titanium dioxide. Last time I tried to buy some, Fry's was all sold out.