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From: h...@eng.umd.edu (Henry K. Yu)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: new battery, nickel-metal hydride
Keywords: battery
Message-ID: <1992May26.224001.4513@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 26 May 92 22:40:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: eng.1992May26.224001.4513
Distribution: na
Organization: Project GLUE, Merriversity of Uniland, College Purgatory
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Originator: h...@frob.eng.umd.edu
On Monday, May 25, 1992, The Washington Post's Science Techonology section,
page A3 has an article titled "New Battery Required For Autos of Future" by
Boyce Rensberger, Washington Post Staff Writer.
What follows is a summary of the new battery's description.
I would like comments and contacts concerning this battery.
Can anyone who has the experience offers insight on this technology?
Comparison to current battery technology (nickel-iron, silver-zinc, lead-acid,
nickel-air, sodium-sulfur, etc.) would be very helpful.
Developed by Ovonic Battery Co. of Troy, Michigan, USA.
The small subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices Inc. received $18.5 million
from the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium last week.
`` The prototype battery will propel a compact car 300 miles on one charge,
go 0 to 60 miles per hour in eight seconds, attain a top speed of 100 miles
per hour, last 100,000 miles and recharge in 15 minutes.
`` Whereas the electrodes of conventional batteries are made of single metals
or simple alloys whose atoms are arrayed in the orderly spacing of crystal
lattices, the atoms in Ovonic's electrodes are of many kinds and are
deliberately positioned in extremely disordered, jumbled relationships with
one another.
``. . . one of its electrodes is made of an atomically disordered alloy of many
metals -- vanadium, titanium, zirconium, nickel, chromium and several others.
It is made by mixing vapors of the various metals so that atoms are deposited
individually in various ratios and relationships.
`` The Ovonic electrode can react all through its interior as well because
hydrogen ions can slip between atoms and bind deep inside.''
A sidebar of the article list the following comparisons:
``Source: Energy Conversion Devices Inc.''
Current Battery The Ovonic
Technology Battery
Range 120 miles More than 250 miles
Top speed 100 miles per hour 100 mph
Acceleration 0-60mph 8 seconds Less than 8 seconds
Battery lifetime 20,000 miles More than 100,000 miles
Recharge time 2 hours 15 minutes
Materials Toxic Nontoxic
---------------
Henry Yu
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
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From: he...@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: new battery, nickel-metal hydride
Message-ID: <BoxLA5.7zn@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 27 May 1992 22:32:27 GMT
References: <1992May26.224001.4513@eng.umd.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
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In article <1992May26....@eng.umd.edu> h...@eng.umd.edu (Henry K. Yu) writes:
>I would like comments and contacts concerning this battery.
Sounds like a nickel-hydrogen battery. These are the new high-tech
replacement for nicads, with better capacity and no cadmium (significant
because cadmium is seriously poisonous). They're available from a
wide range of suppliers, although still a bit pricey.
Sounds like Ovonics is jumping on the latest bandwagon; it wouldn't be
the first time. Ovonics, aka Energy Conversion Devices, has been in
the business of issuing press releases about the glories of non-crystalline
materials for decades. (Okay, so I'm being uncharitable... but very few
of those press releases have ever turned into practical, long-lived
products.)
--
I'd rather have a network file | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
system than NFS. -Geoff Collyer | he...@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
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From: h...@hanauma.jpl.nasa.gov (Howard Chu)
Subject: Re: new battery, nickel-metal hydride
Message-ID: <1992May28.064719.15820@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>
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References: <1992May26.224001.4513@eng.umd.edu> <BoxLA5.7zn@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Thu, 28 May 1992 06:47:19 GMT
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In article < BoxLA...@zoo.toronto.edu> he...@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Sounds like Ovonics is jumping on the latest bandwagon; it wouldn't be
>the first time. Ovonics, aka Energy Conversion Devices, has been in
>the business of issuing press releases about the glories of non-crystalline
>materials for decades. (Okay, so I'm being uncharitable... but very few
>of those press releases have ever turned into practical, long-lived
>products.)
Doesn't quite seem to be thru any fault of their own, tho. More like, the
only folks willing to pay to license their technology from 'em tended to be
the big oil companies who wanted to see to it that such technology never saw
the light of day. I was pretty surprised to finally see amorphous silicon
solar cells on the market, but definitely welcomed their public arrival...
I've met Stan Ovshinsky, and talked with him pretty earnestly. He really does
seem to have the greater good in mind, not self-aggrandizement. It's just
tough to find the right investors to support certain things... The investors
with the money tend to be the same folks who stand to lose big if these hot
new toys make it into the market. So it goes.
--
-- Howard Chu @ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
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From: na...@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: new battery, nickel-metal hydride
Message-ID: <gf7kg0f.nagle@netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 31 May 92 02:15:30 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
References: <1992May26.224001.4513@eng.umd.edu> <BoxLA5.7zn@zoo.toronto.edu>
Lines: 35
he...@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Sounds like Ovonics is jumping on the latest bandwagon; it wouldn't be
>the first time. Ovonics, aka Energy Conversion Devices, has been in
>the business of issuing press releases about the glories of non-crystalline
>materials for decades. (Okay, so I'm being uncharitable... but very few
>of those press releases have ever turned into practical, long-lived
>products.)
Stanly Ovishinsky, founder of ECD and inventor of "Ovonics", has
indeed been touting amorphous materials for decades. When he first
developed the amorphous transistor, based on chalconide glass,
he was accused of being a fraud. But it was real, and it worked.
Unfortunately, it didn't offer a big enough advantage over silicon
to justify developing a new fabrication technology.
So then he developed the amorphous EEPROM. Burroughs used
some of these, but it never caught on. It was a fast-read, slow-write
device, with writing times in the milliseconds. Nobody could quite
figure out what to use it for, and it wasn't super-cheap, so nobody
paid much attention.
His next great idea was the amorphous solar cell. These
work OK, and you can buy them today. They're flexible, unlike other
solar panels, which is useful in some specialized applications, primarily
on boats. But they're slightly more expensive than crystalline cells.
And now we have the battery. Based on ECD's track record, it
will indeed work, but not as well as advertised, and won't achieve
the promised price/performance.
The guy's a genius, but he never quite hits it big. Inventing is
like that.
John Nagle