New Patent Reveals Details of EEStor’s Ultracapacitor Technology
A newly-granted US patent (PDF) for the upcoming ultracapacitor technology from secretive Texas-based EEStor contains a ton of detailed information about their near-mythical Electrical Energy Storage Unit (EESU), which has the potential to revolutionize transportation and our energy infrastructure.
Apparently one EESU weighs 281 pounds, has a volume of 2.63 cubic feet, can be fully charged in 3-6 minutes, is completely unaffected by temperature, will not explode or catch fire in an accident, and provides 52 kWh of electricity (nearly the same amount of energy the Tesla Roadster battery can hold, which reportedly takes the Roadster about 240 miles).
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The speed at which an EESU can be charged is fully dependent on the type of power source used to charge it. Ultracapacitors, in general, can accept a near-instantaneous charge, so, if you want to take advantage of the super fast recharge time, you’ll need to get a heavy-duty circuit installed. For instance, if you are trying to charge it from a regular US 110V/15A outlet, it could take you up to 30 hours to get a full charge.
Continuing on with the Tesla Roadster comparison (why the hell not?), we find that one Tesla lithium-ion battery pack (PDF), containing 6800 small batteries, weighs almost 1000 pounds and takes up about 4-5 cubic feet of space. The Tesla Battery can be charged in about 3.5 hours, again given a high enough voltage and amperage. Given this comparison, you can clearly see how the EESU, if it ever comes to market, would truly be a game-changer.
I spent a couple hours last night combing through the detailed EEStor patent (PDF) looking for other clues and made some minor discoveries of my own. The EESU consists of thousands of tiny “components,” each consisting of 10 “elements.” In turn, each element has 100 alternating screen-printed dielectric layers of barium-titanate ceramic powder (94%) mixed with PET plastic (4%) and screen-printed layers of an aluminum electrode.
EEstor says the volume of each dielectric layer is 0.0005651 cubic centimeters and the volume of each electrode layer is 0.00005806 cubic centimeters. Given that there are a thousand of each layer in each component (10 elements X 100 layers), the total volume of each component would be: 0.5651 cubic centimeters + 0.05806 cubic centimeters = 0.62316 cubic centimeters.
To get to a capacity of 52 kWh of electricity, EEStor calculates that each EESU would need about 31,351 of these components. Therefore, the total volume of an EESU’s charge holding parts with a capacity of 52 kWh, according to my calculations, would be: 31,351 X 0.62316 cubic centimeters = 19,537 cubic centimeters, or roughly 0.7 cubic feet.
What’s odd about this is that, according to the patent, the volume of a 52 kWh EESU plus its “box, connectors and associated hardware” is 2.63 cubic feet. So, almost 2 cubic feet of the EESU is devoted to the “box, connectors and associated hardware”? I find this hard to believe. Maybe somebody else should check my calculations (look at column 5, Table 1, and columns 9 and 10 of the patent for the details).
If you were to combine two of these EESUs in one vehicle, it would still weigh roughly half as much as a Tesla battery pack, but take the car twice as far (almost 500 miles). Additionally, because of the nature of ultracapacitors, it would still only take 3-6 minutes to charge both packs (again, only if you have a powerful enough outlet).
I’ve still got my fingers crossed that EEStor is really making progress on the EESU. The fact that they’re backed by ZENN Motors and Lockheed Martin lends some credence to their claims, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Source: GM-Volt
Image Credit: EEStor Patent
30 hrs with a 110 connection is brutal. So what kind of a connection would you need?
Doug,
You know, this is problem with all electric cars that most people don’t realize. The way Tesla gets around this is to offer installation of a special Tesla charging station in your house. I believe their charging station is 220V/80A. At that rate it would take 3.1 hours to fully charge a Roadster — 53,000 kWh/(220V * 80A). So if you wanted a shorter recharge time you’d need to either pump up the voltage or the amps, or both. For instance a 240V/120A circuit would reduce the time to charge a 53 kWh battery to 1.8 hours.
If you wanted to charge 104,000 kWh of EESU (2 EESUs, 500 mile range) to full in 5 minutes, you’d need something like 5000 volts at 250 amps. That’s a boatload of juice.
I’m not an electrician and don’t know what the highest power outlet you can install in a residence is… anybody out there able to help?
Sounds like they have found a “gas can” analog for photovoltaic solar or perpetual energy! If we take a train load of these to the radiant resource rich South western U.S. deserts fill them with desert sun, converted to electricity by solar cells, and ship them “transmission loss free” and ready to use, to market, we will be selling “Buckets of Power” - Now who needs Arab and OPEC oil? Certainly not the radiant resource rich U.S.A.! We need to standardize these units, build carbon fiber ultralight commuter cars with exchange bays, and distribute the units like blocks of ice - everywhere! Intermittent wind power can charge them too! This may be the way out of the (GRD)great republican depression, at last!
Wow! With 5000 volts I can jump start my flux capacitor. Still 3.1 hours is not bad on the 220volt.
Editor’s note: Kerry bradshaw is a troll who is paid by big oil companies to comb through alternative energy sites and instill doubt in people’s minds about the use of anything but gasoline/petro-diesel. See this link for more info:
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/off-topic/672-ken-kent-kerry-beauchrt-beuchert-beuchrt-biker-rider-krider-8.html
AND, just so you know, Mr. Bradshaw is full of shit. Look here for an example of the same calculations:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/07/06/charging-a-tesla-roadster-from-household-outlet-could-take-30-ho/
Original comment follows:
You need to revisit basic electricity : a 110/15A input doesn’t require 30 hours to produce 25 kilowatthours of juice. Now, do you really think I have any confidence in your ability to evaluate anything electrical after that demonstration of ignorance?
Wow bitch much. A simple I think your math may be off would have worked just fine.
The whole idea of these products would be to replace gas stations with current stations. You can just use a constant current source to charge these. 250A isn’t too unreasonable, with higher just as easy to come get.
If you have only one or two vehicles an in-house charging system isn’t difficult either. It simply charges itself over the 24hrs and dumps the charge into your vehicle once or twice a day.
Who says that they are “backed” by Lockheed Martin? LMT signed an agreement. Zenn Motors “backed” Eestor but Ian Clifford’s latest Q and A with skeptics was essentially “per our NDA I cannot comment”.
Eestor is a joke.
I don’t care how many patents are issued - they still have not produced ANYTHING, except for cleverly worded press releases.
From the Yahoo Finance Message Boards
Eestor claims that they have a gold mine.
Credible geologists have gone on record as saying that there is little to no gold in this gold mine.
Geologic surveys support the claims of the credible geologists.
Eestor claims that not only is there gold in this mine, there is 30x more gold in this mine than what has ever been discovered in ANY mine!!!!
Eestor, despite the claims of vast amounts of gold in this mine, has not produced even one tiny spec of gold dust in 7 years of operation.
Initial backers of the Eestor mine no longer mention any connection between themselves and Eestor.
Current business partners, when quizzed about the details of the mine and production schedules, defer to Larry de Lawya and non-disclosure agreements.
This should raise some red flags - even for a gambler.
“If You Don’t Know Who the Sucker Is, Then It’s You!”
“You need to revisit basic electricity : a 110/15A input doesn’t require 30 hours to produce 25 kilowatthours of juice. Now, do you really think I have any confidence in your ability to evaluate anything electrical after that demonstration of ignorance?”
Well, first off, he said 52 kW-hr NOT 25.
Okay so, 110V x 15A = 1.65 kW.
52 kW-hr / 1.65 kW = 31.5 hr.
What universe’s physics were you using?
One more thing - practically everything regarding Eestor is always prefaced by “If” - Eestor has not produced ANYTHING. I would settle for a “demonstration” with cables coming out from behind a curtain connected to any electrical device … for all I know it could be plugged into the wall behind the curtain, but they have not even done this. No credible business or research group conducts business this way! Patents stacked up to the moon mean absolutely nothing - one engineering sample, one small demo unit is all that it takes to put an end to this nonsense. Do we have any of this? No - we have a guy in a company with 9 employees, 3 of which all have the same last name, headquartered between a car insurance office and the yoga wellness center who CLAIMS to be able to do what no one else can do, yet cannot produce one shred of evidence in support of this claim in 7 years.
Who gives a rip about Zenn - they don’t make anything either. They buy an existing automobile from a French manufacturer without an engine - put in an electric golf cart motor and a battery - and there you have it a Zenn Car! Ian Clifford CEO of Zenn has a background in professional photography and marketing for Christ’s sake! What the heck does he know about anything? Clifford made the same “forward looking statements” about a natural gas powered car that never saw the light of day - prior to hooking up with Eestor.