Development of Batteries

To hasten development of batteries for electric vehicles, Chiysler, Ford, and General Motors formed the U.S. Advanced Batteiy Consortium (USABC). In 1991 USABC, battery manufacturers, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched a joint research effort to identify, develop and license promising batteiy technology for electric vehicles—vehicles with the range, performance and similar costs of gasoline-powered vehicles. 

J. McBreen in Proc. Symp. on Exploratory Research and Development of Batteries for Electric and Hybrid Vehicles (Eds. W. A. Adams, A. R. Landgrebe, R. Scrosati), The Electrochemical Society, Pennington, NJ, 1996, 96-14, p. 162. 

Of those types mentioned in Table 1, main attention has been paid to the development of batteries with Zn, Mg and A1 anodes [1-7]. Recently battery air-metal hydride was proposed and investigated [3,8],... 

Batteries have been developed from many pairs of chemicals capable of being oxidized and reduced. Some systems are rechargeable after the chemicals in the battery have been exhausted, the reactions can be reversed by the application of an external source of electricity. The lead-acid automobile battery is a familiar example. In many applications, such as cell phones and laptop computers, the weight of a portable electricity supply is critical. This has led to the development of batteries based on lightweight lithium chemistry, for which challenges still remain. 

Z.S. Wronski, G.J.C. Carpenter, RJ. Kalal, An integrated characterization approach for ranking nickel hydroxides designed for high-performance positive electrodes in batteries for electric vehicles. In W.A. Ladgrabe, B. Serosati, Editor, Exploratory Research Development of Batteries for Electric Hybrid Vehicles, (1996), The Electrochemical Society, Pennington, N.J. pp. 177-188. 

E. J. Casey (Defense Research Establishment, Ottawa) reviewed the selection of anodes and electrolytes for high-energy density storage batteries. The present state of development of batteries by using light metal anodes in nonaqueous, molten salt and solid electrolytes was reviewed, and suggestions were made on the feasibility of novel systems. 

There is significant interest in the development of batteries, which have zinc as one of the electrodes. General information about such devices is given in the book of Vincent and Scrosati [319]. In recent years, several types of batteries, which use zinc, were developed and/or improved. 

The subcommittee recommends that the Navy give high priority to the development of battery-operated instruments that are more accurate than Draeger tubes for measuring concentrations of the gaseous contaminants. 

Although lead-acid batteries are reliable and suitable for many applications, the recent trend has been, and continues to be, the development of batteries with less mass and higher capacity to power devices from wristwatches to electric cars. For applications where a battery is the key component and must provide a significant amount of power, such as for the operation of electric cars, lead-acid batteries are too heavy to be feasible. 

The last four decades have witnessed remarkable progress in tire development of battery-driven implantable and external devices for medical detection and treatment. For instance, the medical condition known as bradycardia (where the heart beats too slow)... 

As with Pb-acid and NiMH batteries, lithium-ion batteries must be controlled during their operation to prevent that overcharging conditions might occur damaging the battery. For this reason the development of battery management systems to guarantee the correct behavior in each working condition is a key issue for this type of batteries. 

Electrochemistry is a branch of chemistry that deals with electrons transferring between an interface and a molecule in an electrolyte solution. The interface is typically a conducting metallic material. Electrochemistry is a rich field that has led to the development of batteries, a widely used chemical separation technique called electrophoresis, a process for plating metals known as electroplating, emd em immense body of knowledge surrounding oxidation-reduction chemistry, among other achievements. 

Currently, major scientific and engineering work is focused on the development of batteries for hybrid or full electric vehicles. 

Development of lithium ion batteries proved to be a power factor of technical advance. While at present such batteries form the base for portable electronics, in the near future, one could look forward to wide application of larger devices based on lithium ion batteries, including their application in electric transport and smart grids. However, many researchers at present have already started attempting to predict the further development of batteries that fundamentally differ from lithium ion batteries. One can identify three electrochemical systems against various possible new battery variants (i) lithium-air batteries, (ii) lithium-sulfur batteries, and (iii) sodium ion batteries. 

The prospects of development of sodium ion batteries are very uncertain. The developers of such batteries remember the numerous efforts directed at the commercialization of batteries with a sodium negative electrode and ceramic electrolyte of P-alumina. Intensive development of batteries with the system of sodium-sulfur has been carried out since 1966 (for almost half a century ) and development of batteries with the system of sodium-nickel chloride (ZEBRA batteries) has been performed since 1978. It was assumed that these high-temperature batteries would form a basis for electric transport, but these systems are still referred to in the future tense. 

When high-conductivity electrolytes, in particular RbAg4l5, were discovered they opened the way for the development of batteries for higher discharge current. A battery with such an electrolyte can have a silver anode and an iodine cathode. In the course of the operation of batteries, silver is dissolved and the silver ions migrate through the solid electrolyte and react with the iodine ions produced in the cathodic reaction the final reaction product is silver iodide, Agl. 

Dhameja has presented an approach for simulating and validating the development of batteries for hybrid and electric vehicle applications. A performance analysis integrated with a computer-based simulation provides a baseline for the battery pack in real-world conditions. Among others, data related to power draw, engine torque, speed and acceleration of the vehicle are analyzed [31]. 

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