SEP 24

Japanese battery company Furukawa has just closed a deal with East Penn, a US battery manufacturer. The latter will soon be distributing a new battery made by the Japanese company. What is so special about this battery? It’s a hybrid! This hybrid, though, has nothing to do with fossil fuels. Instead, the “Ultrabattery” combines two existing technologies: standard chemical batteries (the type of battery seen virtually everywhere) and supercapacitors (not as common).

Let’s quickly review some basic electricity-storage ABCs, shall we? A “regular” battery consists of two chemicals which want to react with each other, but are separated by a barrier that keeps them effectively separated. However, when you build a circuit between them, they cause electrons to flow through the circuit – and thus, your battery-powered device can function. A capacitor, on the other hand, consists of two charged metal plates: one negative and one positive. The electrons want to jump from the negative plate to the positive plate, but they are separated by an insulator. Build a circuit between the two and – zap – you get a burst of electricity.

The Ultrabattery is a hybrid lead-acid battery and capacitor. It runs off of the lead-acid battery most of the time, but keeps an auxiliary capacitor charged in case the motor needs that extra boost of energy. The battery lasts several times longer than the standard lead-acid battery, and is 70% cheaper than the nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries being designed for most other EVs.

I assume that the aforementioned price is the reason that Furukawa chose lead-acid over NiMH. However, as we all know, lead is heavy. One would intuitively think that a lighter, albeit more expensive NiMH-capacitor hybrid would be a more appealing product, especially if NiMH costs decline over time. Perhaps that is something we will see if the Ultrabattery proves to be a hit.

Via Green Car Congress

Comments (7)

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written by Matthew, September 24, 2008

Is there a difference in this from putting an ultracapacitor in parallel with the battery? I mean that is essentially what they are doing, only doing it within the battery, right?

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why not lithium ion
written by anonymous, September 24, 2008

Just wondering why lithium ion batteries aren't mentioned. Would they be too expensive? Or would the system not work then?

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from the diagram...
written by Doug, September 24, 2008

... it seems like they might be using the battery electrodes directly as the capacitor as well, which would certainly save on weight.

Other than that, the lack of important information is rather fishy -- e.g. they compare the cost vs. NiMH, but not the energy density. Assuming the energy density is much less, this is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Which suggests a certain level of reader-manipulation is sought.

Such a setup might bet useful for Li-ion -- if you use a li-ion chemistry optimized for energy density and shelf life, but sacrificing power density, then this integrated ultracap approach might let you maximize all three aspects for lower cost than, say Tesla's battery setup.

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Is this the same as the CSIRO's UltraBat
written by Garth Coghlan, September 25, 2008

Australia's CSIRO have also developed an UltraBattery which uses an super-capacitor and a lead-acid battery:
http://www.csiro.au/science/UltraBattery.html
Any difference?

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RE:from the diagram...
written by Loosely_coupled, September 25, 2008

Do you know of anyone that has worked on an electric car setup using both conventional batteries (Li-Ion or other) and ultra-capacitors, with the ultra-capacitors used as a short-use acceleration boost?

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written by dbell, September 25, 2008

There is already a company using capacitors in hybrids, Joe Romm posted a video of him testing it out. I'd be interesting to know about intellectual property issues around this

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written by JohnK, December 13, 2008

to Garth,
if you read the article you linked to, they actually state that Furukawa & East Penn have licensed the technology.

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