Electric Car? How about a Compressed Air Car?

The recent discussion of the merits of various electric cars. I'd
summarize the current state of the art as one of interesting
technologial developments, but an unsolved basic problem: How to store
an adequate amount of the source of motive power in a manageable
package. Batteries aren't there yet - and may never be. NEVs are a
joke, and the 3-wheel "motorcycle" types are marginal at best.

Now it appears that someone has come up with the idea of running a
vehicle on compressed air. Check this out:
http://www.theaircar.com/ There is nothing novel about the
technology - air motors have been around for years. They are often
used where sources of ignition are a hazard. The only thing new is the
idea of combining an air motor and a source of supply in a compact
vehicle. The advantages would appear to be adequate power and range
for urban/suburban use - and zero pollution (not counting the
pollution generated in the process of compressing the air in the first
place). Such vehicles could be "recharged" by compressors overnight -
when surplus electric power is available. Downsides? High pressure
compressors are expensive, and require lots of power to operate. Not
to mention the fact that any high pressure tank is a potential bomb.
OTOH such tanks are in common use, such as SCUBA tanks and paintball
tanks - found everywhere.

Comments?

David Johnson

On Nov 13, 9:07 pm, Dave wrote:
The recent discussion of the merits of various electric cars. I'd
summarize the current state of the art as one of interesting
technologial developments, but an unsolved basic problem: How to store
an adequate amount of the source of motive power in a manageable
package. Batteries aren't there yet - and may never be. NEVs are a
joke, and the 3-wheel "motorcycle" types are marginal at best.

Now it appears that someone has come up with the idea of running a
vehicle on compressed air. Check this out:http://www.theaircar.com/ There is nothing novel about the
technology - air motors have been around for years. They are often
used where sources of ignition are a hazard. The only thing new is the
idea of combining an air motor and a source of supply in a compact
vehicle. The advantages would appear to be adequate power and range
for urban/suburban use - and zero pollution (not counting the
pollution generated in the process of compressing the air in the first
place). Such vehicles could be "recharged" by compressors overnight -
when surplus electric power is available. Downsides? High pressure
compressors are expensive, and require lots of power to operate. Not
to mention the fact that any high pressure tank is a potential bomb.
OTOH such tanks are in common use, such as SCUBA tanks and paintball
tanks - found everywhere.

Comments?

David Johnson

Yeah, I can't decide whether the idea of a compressed air vehicle
blows or suck... hmmm, definitely blows. Yet, it also sucks.
Blows. Sucks. Blows. Sucks. Either way, it's an air headed idea.

In article .com,
Dave wrote:
The advantages would appear to be adequate power and range
for urban/suburban use - and zero pollution (not counting the
pollution generated in the process of compressing the air in the first
place). Such vehicles could be "recharged" by compressors overnight -
when surplus electric power is available. Downsides? High pressure
compressors are expensive, and require lots of power to operate. Not
to mention the fact that any high pressure tank is a potential bomb.
OTOH such tanks are in common use, such as SCUBA tanks and paintball
tanks - found everywhere.

Comments?

More drain on the world's supply of both balonium and unobtainium.

You can't store enough compressed air to make it practical -- perhaps
they use a very long air hose?

"Orval Fairbairn" wrote in message
news
You can't store enough compressed air to make it practical -- perhaps
they use a very long air hose?

No... it has an optional gas-powered kicker motor that also recompresses
the carbon-fiber air tanks. Just caught something about it on television
the other day. Plus, it's loud as hell; sounds like somebody's driving an
air compressor.

-c

No. it has an optional gas-powered kicker motor that also recompresses
the carbon-fiber air tanks. Just caught something about it on television
the other day. Plus, it's loud as hell; sounds like somebody's driving an
air compressor.

Noisy they are. I have been around air tuggers (large winches) in
marine operations, and also air starters for diesels. Deafening.

David Johnson

More drain on the world's supply of both balonium and unobtainium.

You can't store enough compressed air to make it practical -- perhaps
they use a very long air hose?

The claimed range was (IIRC) something on the order of 40 miles - and
they said it would do 70 Mph. To me that makes for a practical urban
vehicle, whereas most of the electrics are not.
As others have said, what is needed is a thorough test by the
automotive Press. We'll see.

David Johnson

"Dave" wrote

The claimed range was (IIRC) something on the order of 40 miles - and
they said it would do 70 Mph. To me that makes for a practical urban
vehicle, whereas most of the electrics are not.
As others have said, what is needed is a thorough test by the
automotive Press. We'll see.

We'll see, indeed. The tank must be the size of an eighteen wheeler.

They should also publish how much energy it takes to pump up the tank. I
would expect to see unbelievably high numbers, if they are being honest.
--
Jim in NC

On Nov 13, 10:07 pm, Dave wrote:
The recent discussion of the merits of various electric cars. I'd
summarize the current state of the art as one of interesting
technologial developments, but an unsolved basic problem: How to store
an adequate amount of the source of motive power in a manageable
package. Batteries aren't there yet - and may never be. NEVs are a
joke, and the 3-wheel "motorcycle" types are marginal at best.


Don't be too quick to judge batteries that way. New advances in
lithium-air batteries have come a long way since their inception. The
Tesla electric car is using Lithium-ion batteries which has far less
efficiency, but still making waves. It is not unfeasible in the near
future to have a lithium-oxygen battery to power a light GA aircraft
with the same endurance as gasoline with comparable fuel+engine
weights.

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 06:02:33 -0000, Andrew Sarangan
wrote in
. com:

It is not unfeasible in the near
future to have a lithium-oxygen battery to power a light GA aircraft
with the same endurance as gasoline with comparable fuel+engine
weights.


Thank you for the information.

From the research below, it does indeed seem that the lithium-oxygen
battery offers the highest energy density that the laws of physics
permit.



http://www.polyplus.com/technology/laircell.htm
The high specific energy of the Li-Air couple is close to that of
liquid hydrocarbons such as gasoline, and much higher than that of
methanol.



http://www.excellatron.com/technology.htm
The performance of conventional lithium battery systems is limited
by the fundamental capacities of both the cathode and anode used
in these batteries. The best cathode materials in lithium ion
batteries have a specific capacity of less than 200mAh/g. The
most widely used anode material, graphitic or soft carbon, has a
specific capacity of 372mAh/g. Metal/air batteries have a much
larger specific energy than most of the available primary and
rechargeable batteries. These batteries are unique in that the
active cathode material (oxygen) is not stored in the battery.
Oxygen from the environment is reduced at a catalytic air
electrode surface forming either an oxide or peroxide ion that
then reacts with cationic species in the electrolyte.Among various
metal/oxygen batteries, Li/O2 couple is especially attractive
because it has the potential of the highest specific energy
(5,200Wh/kg) among all the known electrochemical couples. The
specific energy of lithium air batteries is expected to be an
order of magnitude larger than that achievable using conventional
lithium or lithium ion batteries. Excellatron has expanded its
technology base to lithium air batteries. Until now,
commercialization of these batteries has been hindered by several
problems such as corrosion and low capacity. The unique
technology developed by Excellatron has overcome these problems
and pushed Li/Air batteries closer to practical applications.
Recently, we have successfully demonstrated the feasibility of a
rechargeable lithium/oxygen battery, and Li/Air demonstration
samples have been successfully delivered to a customer.



http://www.batteriesdigest.com/lithium_air.htm
Although practical Lithium-air batteries are not yet available
from which to obtain data, the estimated value shown above, of
25% of the theoretical value, was selected. With technological
improvements, one wonders if practical densities over 1000 Wh/kg
are unreasonable to expect.

using a lithium anode with an air cathode to supply the oxygen (as
is commonly done with the very popular Zinc-air hearing aid
batteries) may result in the highest practical energy density
possible in a metal-based battery which has an abundant air
supply, environmental friendliness, and reasonable safety. Since
the anode is lithium metal which reacts aggressively with water,
a nonaqueous electrolyte is used with an organic polymer film
separator to facilitate the supply of oxygen from the air. The
cathode consists of a metal current collector surrounded by a
layer of carbon which provides the platform for combining the
oxygen with the lithium ion which moves from the electrolyte to
form lithium peroxide or lithium oxide. Electrolytes can either be
non-aqueous liquid or polymer electrolyte.

Reversability of the reaction to allow electrical recharge of
Lithium-air is possible. Despite classifying the Lithium-air cell
as a primary battery, the literature does include data on the
performance of a rechargeable form, researched by Abraham, et. al.

As noted in the Zinc-air experience, a virtually unlimited amount
of ambient air can be used to supply the oxygen, but as a result,
it also adds the limitation of convenience limiting the operating
life of about two weeks after exposing the cathode material to the
air. Unlike Alkalines, which just ‘sit there’ when not used for
days weeks or years, the Lithium-air battery cannot be put into a
standby mode conveniently. The solution here is to choose the
application which properly suits the continuous period after
activation.


Very low power density is another constraint of the Lithium-air
battery. Unlike the high power providers of chemistries such as
Lead-acid, current densities of Lithium-air can be as much as
1,000 times lower in order to extract the maximum amount of
energy. Low current may not be a problem if the application is
tailored to the capability, but one does not look upon Lithium-air
as a replacement car starting battery.

The problem of temperature range must be considered again because
the performance of Lithium-air varies by a factor of 5 over the
-20 0C to +40 0C range. It is important to note that the battery
must be tuned to the application because Lithium-air batteries are
not going to start Minnesota autos in January.

But the Army realizes that major obstacles exist for Lithium-air,
especially in the area of temperature range. The present study
looks at liquid electrolyte and the carbon black coated anode
current collector. Over temperature ranges from -30 0C to +40 0C,
the cells were discharged at constant currents from 0.05 to 0.5
mA/cm2. Cells operated at +40 0C gave nominally 10 times more
specific capacity than those at -30 0C.



http://www.freshpatents.com/x1429144000psbc.php
patent applications listed are from June 2005 to current and
include Date, Patent Application Number, Patent Title, Patent
Abstract summary and are linked to the corresponding patent
application page.




http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/electrom.../metalair.html
Figure 1 shows a rope battery, which is a type of aluminum/air
battery. At its tip is the aluminum anode, followed by the
separator, oxygen cathode, and protective outer layer.



http://www.batteriesdigest.com/metal_air.htm
High Energy density Lithium-Air... with No Self-Discharge (Session
8.2) Polyplus has approached the challenge of the Lithium metal
electrode with a coating of a glass-ceramic membrane, sealing the
Lithium from an aqueous catholyte. The resultant structure
exhibits very small self discharge, ordinarily a large contributor
to cell failure. Test cells have produced 0.5 mAh/cm2 for 230
hours exhibiting approximately 100% Coulombic efficiency.


A production oriented cell construction with double sided lithium
anode, solid electrolyte and double sided air/cathode is
anticipated to have 600 to 1000 Wh/kg energy density.


To reduce fears of mechanical safety hazards, the cells have been
subjected to crush tests which have fractured the glass-ceramic
membrane with only a 2-30 C temperature rise, followed by a
gradual decline in open circuit potential over several hours. An
operational sample of the water-activated cell was shown at the
conference.




http://www.michigansmalltech.com/Pre...E-1741B7A8EC46
Oxazogen obtains $100,000 grant for lithium air battery research
May 9, 2007

“The lithium air battery is seen by many in the field as the
ultimate battery, so improving it is something that could affect
our very way of life,” Sarkar said.

“Lithium air batteries show great promise in terms of energy and
power density,” he said. “Their market potential is in the
billions of dollars. If our approach is successful, the membrane
that we’re developing could help make the lithium air battery a
marketable success.”

From the research below, it does indeed seem that the lithium-oxygen
battery offers the highest energy density that the laws of physics
permit.

Big snip of fascinating stuff

Thanks for posting that, Larry.

The problem of temperature range must be considered again because
the performance of Lithium-air varies by a factor of 5 over the
-20 0C to +40 0C range. It is important to note that the battery
must be tuned to the application because Lithium-air batteries are
not going to start Minnesota autos in January.

That's the kiss of death, I'm afraid. Perhaps a mix of lithium-air
with lithium-ion batteries would work, but the climate in the US is
too widely variable to rely on a power supply that is so temperature-
sensitive.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"