Get complete FLORIDA TODAY coverage delivered to you every day. Subscribe now.
Beating like a heart at the center of the technology revolution, in the tiny chest of every electronic gizmo you own, is the thing that keeps it all going: the battery. While computers, portable stereos and other devices get smaller and faster, batteries are heading in a similar direction, as companies and engineers seek better ways to power everything from MP3 players to electric cars. "We indeed want to make the battery more compact and less costly, and this has been a major overriding objective for our research," said Chao-Yang Wang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State University. He's also director of the school's Multiphase Transport and Electrochemical Engine Laboratory. This summer, Energizer began selling its e2, or e-squared, battery for consumer electronics. It uses a new cell construction and contains a modified form of titanium that increases the flow of electrons, the company says. Included in the line are Energizer e2 Photo Lithium batteries; the AA size lasts up to five times longer in digital cameras than other AAs, Energizer claims. Who wouldn't want a battery that lasts longer? Anyone who has a Gameboy, cell phone or digital camera knows these gadgets are ravenous little beasts. "Every time I go to Wal-Mart, I have to spend a hundred bucks on batteries for all the stuff we have, for the wife and for the kids," said Jim Dunlop, a senior engineer at the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa. There, he works with photovoltaic batteries, which store solar energy. When you buy consumer batteries, he said, you pay about 200 times as much for energy as you pay the utility company. Much of battery research is on a larger scale than the typical consumer AAA- to D-size. A lot of research is focusing on batteries that help power cars, from the little Bombardier Neighborhood Vehicles used by the Melbourne Police Department to the hybrid Honda Insight and Toyota Prius. The Bombardier cars use classic lead-acid batteries, which have been around for more than a century; the latter use nickel metal hydride batteries, charged by "regenerative braking" and supplemented by a gas tank. Lead-acid batteries are used in most vehicles. "It's very robust; it's very low-cost," Wang said. The most advanced among common battery types today is lithium-ion, but its cost for cars is "prohibitively high," Wang said. Researchers are probably 10 years away from integrating them into electric vehicles on a large scale, he added. Though nickel metal hydride batteries are more expensive than lead-acid, for electric cars, "they have the advantage of higher energy storage or energy density than the lead-acid," Wang said. There are several kinds of lithium batteries. If you buy a camcorder or other power-inhaling personal electronic device, you're likely to get the lithium-ion type. "This is a battery that has been widely used in consumer market electronics," Wang said. Sony, for example, uses lithium-ion batteries in its digital cameras and video cameras. They may last for a thousand recharge cycles and have no memory effect - that is, they don't become less effective if they are recharged in small doses. Sony uses "Infolithium" batteries, which are equipped with an integrated circuit that measures battery voltage and current drain and calculates how long the battery will have power. The battery conveys the information to the camera, which displays the remaining battery life. It's accurate to the minute. "That's one of the key features of our cameras and camcorders," said Mark Weir, Sony product manager for digital cameras. Although Weir was reluctant to talk about Sony's battery research, a company representative said Sony was working on applications of a polymer gel lithium battery. Because of its flexibility, such a battery might fit in a bracelet or the neck cord of a portable stereo. Another example of high-end portable power is the PowerPad from Electrofuel. The Toronto company has created a lithium-ion "SuperPolymer" battery with embedded electronics. The PowerPad 160 weighs about 2.5 pounds, has about the same footprint as a laptop computer and can power one for an amazing 12 to 16 hours. It sells for about $500. The PowerPad 210, which is still in development, is expected to last 18 to 21 hours at a time, the company says. With a solar array and enough photovoltaic batteries, you can power a few essential devices in a home without the help of a utility company. Photovoltaic batteries also can power lighting systems, such as those installed by the Florida Solar Energy Center at Brevard Community College's campus in Cocoa. Such systems are popular in undeveloped countries, the center's Dunlop said, because they don't rely on a power grid. A stand-alone photovoltaic system also can keep a home functioning after a catastrophic loss of power, as might happen in a hurricane. A typical home uses 30 to 40 kilowatt hours a day, Dunlop said. With an average solar array, a home can produce 10 kilowatt hours a day - enough so that the batteries, which store the energy, can power such essentials as the refrigerator, water pump and lights. "The size of that array, in terms of somebody's rooftop, might be something like 20 square meters, which is like 200 square feet, roughly," Dunlop said. Eight or 10 lead-acid batteries would be needed to store that much power per day. The array could cost $10,000 to $20,000; the batteries, $50 to $100 apiece. A home system connected to the power grid has other advantages. Because it's so expensive for utility companies to buy power on the national market during peak demand, they are testing systems that suck extra power out of consumers' homes. "The excess goes right to the utility grid, and your meter will spin backwards," Dunlop said. "There's a bidirectional flow of energy." The key to using batteries is maintaining them, he said. For batteries to run at top efficiency, the charge can't be too low or too high. "If people can get a grasp of how their bank account works, which hopefully most people do, they can understand how a battery works on a macro level," Dunlop said. He compares small power losses during energy transfers to bank fees.
About 96 percent of the lead in lead-acid batteries is recycled, the industry reports. It's "not a major problem," Wang said. A 1994 Greenpeace report, however, pointed to terrible environmental problems in countries where few precautions are taken in the recycling of batteries exported from industrialized nations, including the United States.
Efforts are under way to recycle other kinds of batteries. The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation is a nonprofit group created to promote the recycling of nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries, which are used in devices from cell phones to power tools. "The program is going excellent," said Norm England, the group's president. "We have 30,000 retail organizations in the U.S. and Canada" involved in the program. About 3.7 million pounds of the batteries were recycled last year, he said. Next year, the plans to begin recycling other types of rechargeable batteries. For recycling locations, call (800) 822-8837.
"The storage battery is one of those peculiar things which appeal to the imagination," Thomas Edison once said. He would be impressed by the power we're able to store these days. As research continues, "battery storage is going to compete with fuel cells, flywheels, other advanced battery technologies," Dunlop said. Safety is a continuing concern. "If you go to more advanced batteries, those batteries inherently have more energy. ... There's inherently a safety issue," said Penn State's Wang. "Like a lithium-ion battery can explode if you don't handle it well." The same goes for nickel metal hydride batteries. A "thermal management system" is necessary, he said, so the process of cooling batteries has become an important part of battery engineering. In the past, batteries were made almost by trial and error, he said, but computers have helped make research more efficient. "We have been extensively involved in computer-aided applications and design of batteries," Wang said, "and I think that will lead us to the next level, hopefully."
 Home | Space Online | News | Technology | Entertainment | Real Estate | Cars.com | Job Search | Classifieds
Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Service. |
