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Revolutionary Zinc-Air Battery Developed For EV Use

 
9 5,248 views October 25, 2009

APET Salamander Test Platform

APET Salamander Test Platform

According to Advanced Power and Energy Sources Transportation (APET) in Hong Kong,  the cordless, no-solar-panel  EV is about to become a reality.   Developments in Zinc-air battery technology have been made which promise to make the technology a serious contender in the EV world.

Zinc-air batteries need only Zinc, air and water to produce electricity via a simple oxidation reaction.  The existing technology is quite mature; in hearing-aids for instance, Zinc-air batteries currently control a large share of the market. They are cheap to produce, high energy-density, and actually biodegradable.  Moreover, Zinc is among the most abundant and inexpensive metals on earth and therefore Zinc-air batteries are not susceptible to materials shortages or production bottlenecks.

But up until now Zinc-Air, arguably the "greenest"  high-density battery technology, has had three drawbacks making it unsuitable for EV applications.  APET believe that they have now overcome all three:

Weight - The usual materials needed to create a zinc-air battery are relatively heavy, but APETs new ZOE design creates a battery which has twice as many Wh/kg (watt hours/kilogram) as a typical lithium-polymer (Li-Po) solution.

Cost - Existing technology results in batteries which are quite expensive, but the new technology has yielded a phenomenal reduction in price, estimated at one-tenth of a Li-Po solution and one-fifth of a NiMH one.

Rechargeability - with traditional Zinc-air batteries, once the zinc has been exhausted they’re dead and cannot be recharged.  Current units are designed to be disposable (and are in fact, biodegradable), but the new ZOE battery is designed to allow the casing to be taken apart and reused with a fresh batch of zinc. No external charging need take place.   Moreover, the exhausted Zinc removed from the discharged battery can be reconstituted  by the application of extreme heat, then simply placed in a depleted battery casing and re-used.  This is about the most environmentally friendly battery technology imaginable, and has functional similarities to cutting edge redox-flow  in that "recharge" of an individual unit takes place by simply adding material rather than by plugging in and waiting.  This closely resembles the existing petroleum fuel model, and potentially takes "range-anxiety" out of the EV equation.

APET is currently testing a ZOE powered concept car called “The Salamander”, and further refining the technology in an effort to bring it to market.  If they are successful in their efforts,  a revolutionary new paradigm for EV cost, refueling and infrastructure may alter the way electric vehicles everywhere are going to operate.

[SOURCE: Gas2.0]





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Comments (9)

  1. By  Chris O Posted: 10/26/2009 1:25am PDT

    Technically this is not a battery but a fuel cell. Fuel cells are different from conventional electrochemical cell batteries in that they consume reactant from an external source, which must be replenished, in this case zinc. Double the energy density of Lithium-polymer is still not great and they need to be taken apart afterwards to be replenished with fresh zinc? Doesn't sound very practical since this will have to be done almost on a daily basis considering the limited energy density. Lot's of heat(=energy) is needed to reform the zinc-oxide to zinc again? Wouldn't is be more energy efficient to use the energy involved in this cumbersome sounding "recharging"process to charge more conventional electrochemical cell batteries?
     
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  2. By Desertstraw Posted: 10/26/2009 2:49am PDT

    The Electric Fuel Company, now Arotech, successfully demonstrated the zinc air battery over a decade ago. It passed numerous tests including an extensive one by the German Post Office. A bus using these batteries was demonstrated in the United States with a big show in Las Vegas with United States Senators aboard. It was also shown in New York and washington. And then it disappeared.
    Using Google, I found that Arotech is still selling a few:
    "Arotech Announces $1.6 Million in New Battery and Charger Orders
    "
    Press Release
    Source: Arotech
    On 8:00 am EDT, Thursday October 22, 2009
    AUBURN, AL--(Marketwire - 10/22/09) -
    The various battery components will be used in communications equipment, night vision surveillance and to power unmanned air vehicle (UAVs)."
    I have never understood why this battery was dropped. When I wrote to Arotech, they did not answer me. Has this new company reinvented the wheel which nobody wanted?
     
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  3. By Jason M. Hendler Posted: 10/26/2009 4:46am PDT

    This approach may work for Better Place, assuming people don't mind swapping batteries every time.
     
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  4. By JonV Posted: 10/26/2009 10:02am PDT

    As far as opening the battery, I assume that in developing the idea they will move to some sort of port in the battery pack for adding new material and removing the old. Obviously, disassembling the battery every day would be impracticable.
    For recharging the exhausted Zinc, APET is working on solar ovens. They hope to create a closed-loop system in which you dump some material in the oven daily/weekly, transfer some from the oven to the car. Or this might take place at "stations".
    This technology(and the redox-flow battery) are conceptually similar to what better place is suggesting, but the crucial difference (it seems to me) is that in this case one still owns the battery and is just replenishing it with material as necessary, much like we add fuel to our cars. Perhaps easier to accept for the general public than the idea of swapping out whole batteries, which implies a lot of questions about ownership and responsibility.
     
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  5. By Desertstraw Posted: 10/26/2009 10:21am PDT

    The forgotten or untold story:
    August 12, 2003 — Arotech Corporation (NasdaqNM: ARTX) announced today that its all-electric bus powered by the Company's Electric Fuel zinc air fuel cell technology has demonstrated a record 145-mile range under rigorous urban conditions. In a test conducted last week a new pack of ultra capacitors was installed on the bus, together with improved energy management systems, greatly increasing the system's efficiency. Conducted under the same conditions of an earlier tests, these improvements increased the bus's range from 127 to 145 miles, a 14% increase from July 2002 testing and a 43% improvement from the same test in 2001.
     
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  6. By Desertstraw Posted: 10/26/2009 10:23am PDT

    Continued:
    This drive was the last performance test drive planned under phase III of the Zinc-Air All Electric Transit Bus program with the Federal Transit Administration. As in previous drives, the test drive was conducted on the former Griffith Air Force base near Rome, New York, with the bus traveling under typical city bus driving conditions, including stop and go, acceleration and constant speed. The Company believes the 145 miles driven to be a world record. As a measure of comparison, the average normal full day cycle for New York City buses is less than 90 miles. The Company believes that these test results clearly indicate that all-electric buses utilizing Electric Fuel's Zinc-Air technology have sufficient range to offer a practical solution for helping to eliminate bus pollution in central cities.
    The Electric Fuel All Electric Transit Bus is designed to operate as a full-size, zero emission 40-foot bus having a 20-ton gross vehicle weight (including passengers) and operating all standard bus features, including air conditioning.
     
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  7. By JonV Posted: 10/26/2009 1:01pm PDT

    Desertstraw,
    Thanks for the tip. I'll see if I can reach Arotech for more info.
    Zinc-air technology has existed for a long time of course, but the problems are weight(energy density), cost, and rechargeability. It's possible that Arotech's battery did not solve one of these, at least not sufficiently, or it's possible that they were under capitalized or simply caught a bad break in some other way. There's no telling without more information.
     
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  8. By Greg Simpson Posted: 10/27/2009 1:54am PDT

    Zinc is not the fourth most abundant metal in the Earth's crust. Aluminum, iron, magnesium, titanium, vanadium, zirconium and a number of others are more common than zinc. However, zinc is common enough for scarcity not to be a problem, and it's fairly cheap.
     
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  9. By jazz Posted: 10/28/2009 7:49am PDT

    Electric fuel was almost bankrupt after their mass investment to apply ZnAir technology to cellular phone back in 2002~2004. Further more pertrol price has never reach to such status back than. Electricfuel is focusing their resources and production in Li batteries.
    With assembly of the cells at the charging station APET has claimed to be made automatically thru a dishwasher alike facility.
     
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