EEStor comes up with an Earth Day announcement - it's "a huge milestone"
Delays, hype, and more delays. This is the short history of EEStor, the company that keeps on talking about what is supposed to be an ultracapacitor that reinvents electric drive vehicle energy storage. Whatever is really going on, EEStor did put out a press release for Earth Day that keeps beating the hype drum. The announcement isn't about the ultracaps directly, but about EEStor's Composition Modified Barium-Titanate powders, which have apparently been verified by a third party to meet or exceed a relative permittivity of 22,500. The company says this "is a huge milestone" and that, "The automotive and renewable energy sectors are a few of the key markets that would benefit greatly with the technology."For the non-technical among us (that would include me), let's ask Wikipedia what that might mean:
Permittivity is a physical quantity that describes how an electric field affects, and is affected by a dielectric medium, and is determined by the ability of a material to polarize in response to the field, and thereby reduce the total electric field inside the material. Thus, permittivity relates to a material's ability to transmit (or "permit") an electric field.
I'll leave it to our readers to tell us if that "relative permittivity of 22,500" is a big deal or not.
[Source: EEStor, Inc.]
PRESS RELEASE:
EEStor, Inc. Announces Relative Permittivity Certification of Their Composition Modified Barium-Titanate Powders
CEDAR PARK, Texas, April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- EEStor, Inc. announces relative permittivity certification of their Composition Modified Barium-Titanate powders. The third party certification tests were performed by Texas Research International's Dr. Edward G. Golla, PhD., Laboratory Director. He has certificated that EEStor's patented and patent pending Composition Modified Barium-Titanate Powders have met and/or exceeded a relative permittivity of 22,500.
EEStor feels this is a huge milestone which opens the advancement of key products and services in the electrical energy storage markets of today. The automotive and renewable energy sectors are a few of the key markets that would benefit greatly with the technology.
Company background
EEStor, Inc. develops solid-state electrical energy storage units (EESU's) in the form of batteries and capacitors. This technology has a wide variety of application use which includes with the added benefit of being longer lasting, lighter, more powerful, and more environmentally friendly than current technology in use.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Tohe 1:29PM (4/23/2009)
I only hear crickets.
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Andy 7:14AM (4/24/2009)
Funny
Matt 1:30PM (4/23/2009)
Well, capacitors don't actually conduct electricity. The way they work is essentially storing a charge on two plates, so increasing the ability to transmit an electric field should increase their ability to store a charge... I think
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Scott 1:32PM (4/23/2009)
Are there any EEs out there with opinions about post #4 at the following website:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/09/10/eestors-ultracapacit.html
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Lad 4:15PM (4/23/2009)
The post would indicate the calculation error made by EEstor is substantial, easily making the difference as to whether the device can be used as a fast charge battery, where storage density is a major consideration, or if it's a fast charge/discharge add-on to a large density battery system.
The thought that comes to mind is its possible use as a Formula 1 KERS device, i.e., where the Capacitor is charged upon deceleration and discharged when fast acceleration is desired. For example, when a race car brakes before a turn, regen braking would be an aid in slowing the car down and would charge the device; then when the car accelerates out of the turn, the device would help bring the car up to speed quickly.
I believe that EEstor may have increased the efficiency of the capacitor device, in this case the ability to store more electrons/holes for a given size; but, not by a world shaking amount. Also, one need speak in generalities because no quantifiable data has been forthcoming from the company.
jpm 2:14PM (4/23/2009)
I'm sick of hearing about their permittivity. I will never believe it until Zenn has sold their highway speed car to someone who then can demonstrate the mileage to the public. Until then, stfu EEstor.
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paulwesterberg 3:32PM (4/23/2009)
This the quote that Sebastian should have copied from Wikipedia:
It is directly related to electric susceptibility. For example, in a capacitor, an increased permittivity allows the same charge to be stored with a smaller electric field (and thus a smaller voltage), leading to an increased capacitance.
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Previous attempts to improve ultracapacitors have focused on improving the metal sheets by increasing the surface area where charges can attach.
EEStor is instead creating better nonconductive material for use between the metal sheets, using a chemical compound called barium titanate. The question is whether the company can mass-produce it.
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If you look at the table of materials on this page it might give you an idea of how this compares to other materials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_constant
Barium titanate 1250–10,000
Barium-strontium-titanite 7500
So they must be doping the Barium-Titanate with another material or using a new materials/fabrication process to improve the relative permittivity significantly.
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Rud Istvan 5:09PM (5/19/2009)
If you look at their patents, they are using chemically modified barium titanate. That was been shown to have permittivity as high as 25000 as early as 2000. Measured at one volt, at 25C. Such an announcement is therefore no news at all. What would be news is (a) holding about that permittivy across temperature (typically -30C to +85C). their modified announcement said lost about 10 percent from -20C to +65C. That is encouraging. About 20000 across almost autograde temperature range. But still at one volt.
(b) holding permittivity above the requisite 19600 at 3500 V across the temperature range, which they must do to be real. That will be very difficult, in the Japanese sense.
EVan 3:46PM (4/23/2009)
Relative permattivity is just the amount of electrical permittivity a material has compared to a reference material, which in this case is air.
Whatever this material is it has a permittivity 22,500 times greater than air. Could also be 22,500 times less than air 'cause I don't remember it all that well.
Either way..... all this means is that they can place opposite charged particles closer together than before. In capacitors you can only store a charge if you can keep charges from crossing over through a medium or dielectric of some sort... the higher the relative permittivity of the dielectric the smaller this medium can be.
Charges closer together => more stored energy per unit volume => a better UCap.
All in all, this doesn't mean diddly squat unless they can actually make the thing and slap it in an application of some sort.
Until then, stfu EEStor
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John Rowell 4:18PM (4/23/2009)
Thanks for the useful reply. I learned something today.
jharlan 4:07PM (4/23/2009)
This is coming, folks. It may not be EEstor that brings it on, but it is coming, and when it does it will revolutionize most electrical technologies as well as automotive design. There are several other companies quietly approaching the threshhold. Can you imagine never having to buy a battery of any kind again?
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Skeptic still 4:29PM (4/23/2009)
Oh my, another cryptic press release from EEstor that has the whole battery-brained interwebs buzzing. Here's a suggestion for the Marketing Guru's over at EEstor, if you want people to believe that you are truly on the brink of a major discovery concerning energy storage quit putting out these indecipherable updates coded in nerdese. Lay it out in simpleton terms so that the rest of the world who didn't do so hot in their high school physics classes can understand what the crap you're talking about.
OR show the world a prototype!
I've been following the EEstor story for a while now and I want so desperately to believe. But every time they come to the press with a statement like this, it makes me feel like maybe EEstor's ultracapacitor is just like Santa Claus.
Matt 10:00AM (4/27/2009)
What's wrong with Santa Clause?
BlackbirdHighway 10:58PM (4/23/2009)
If it maintains this level of permittivity in the presence of a high electric field, and if it doesn't breakdown under high voltage, and if it is manufacturable, and if it doesn't breakdown over time, and can handle temperature extremes, then it's a great achievement. That's a lot of ifs, but if it was easy someone else would have already done it.
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Ian Bruce 1:59AM (4/24/2009)
That's actually not a lot of ifs. Even so, if each one was a coin toss -- that is:
Permittivity at high EFs,
Stability at high voltage,
Manufacturability,
Stability over time, and
Temperature resistance,
... it works out to just over a 3% chance of complete success (.5 x .5 x .5 x .5 x .5). I hope they have some of these items nailed down already. I want to see this succeed.
PeterG 4:48PM (4/23/2009)
These guy are about as credible as Steorn Orbo. I remember claims EEStor units would be powering cars in 2007.
Here we are in 2009 and they still haven't demoed one single capacitor. All they have demoed is a material.
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DaveD 5:56PM (4/23/2009)
This is so sad because it's pulled so many people into wanting to believe in it and waiting for it. We all want it to be true so badly.
But this is like making a claim to people 100 years ago that you were going to build a plane out of balsa wood. Hey, it's light, you can shape it like a plane and it would HAVE to be better than using metal because it's so light, etc etc..right???
Oh, forgot to mention that it breaks if you put any weight on it so that won't hold up too well. Well, we all know about balsa wood and why that wouldn't work. But most of us don't know about Barium Titanate and that is has similar limitations. So who cares how pure it is.
So we all want to believe it MUST work because it has this huge permitivity number...yada yada yada.
And we all believe it because these "scientist" claim it will?
Did they also tell you that Barium Titanate breaks down if you apply a voltage to it? Did they tell you that it stops working if it gets hot? Did they tell you that it starts to degrade in a matter of weeks?
I'm sure they mean well and they're really, really trying to find a way to get around these problems. But there is a reason that they can't demonstrate even a single capacitor after all these years.
It's just basic research guys...and it will probably end up as a dead-end. They are hoping to find some combination of other chemicals or steps to add to the mix that will make it get around these problems.
Honestly, I wish them well and would love more than anyone for them to make it happen and be richer than Gates and the Saudi oil barons and everyone else combined.
It may even be possible in the next few decades...but more likely never. It's at about the equivilant stage as fusion research right now...except nobody serious thinks this problem will get solved. At least not with Barium Titanate. I know a researcher at Ga Tech who's probably got a shot at winning a Nobel one day because of his work with nano-tech for both solar as well as Capacitors. He's spent years playing with Barium Titanate along with most of his peers. They are polite when asked about this, but they will honestly tell you that it is so far from reality that it's just something we could only dream worked in the real world.
Sorry, Santa Claus and EESTOR have a lot in common. They both sound good and make us feel better, but that doesn't make them real.
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daddyjoe 7:57PM (4/23/2009)
The funny thing about some of your comments is the EEStor actually doesn't make 1/10th the public announcements that most other companies do. The only reason that they made this one is because it is a milestone in production that triggers a $700,000 payment from Zenn Motor Company and also give Kleiner Perkins and Zenn a right to invest 5 million more for a bigger chunk of the company.
You guys might belittle this announcement, but it seems that it is important enough to warrant a big investment if one of these companies exercises their option. I'm hearing that Zenn is planning on doing just that if given the opportunity. KP gets first crack.
Sure, this doesn't mean that they will ever make a ultracap that works, but it is definitely a big step toward making that happen. As a previous poster stated, this is huge. Imagine buying a car and the power source in it will still be going strong over 100 generations after you buy it. Charging once a day (most people won't even require this much) the cap will last over 2,500 years and still be cheaper than purchasing the equivelant power in batteries.
One more thing. There have actually been airplanes made mostly of balsa wood, the Mosquito being the most famous. They were actually quite sturdy in combat during WWII as a shell would pass right through them without causing much damage.
Rob 8:28AM (4/24/2009)
daddyjoe 7:57
Close, but the Mosquito was built of plywood not balsa.
tinman 8:36PM (4/23/2009)
Umm, Steorn is real apparently. I would say before the year is out there will be undeniable proof in the form of products, not theirs. Check out their website.
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