Electric vehicle batteries sodium nickel chloride

Also in Germany, Mercedes-Benz has been developing electric vehicles for over 30 years. Many of the later vehicles utilized advanced sodium—nickel chloride (ZEBRA) batteries. By 1997, over 1 million km of road testing of these batteries had been accumulated, much of it in the electric version of the Mercedes-Benz A-Class car. In 1994, the company commenced its research on fuel cell vehicles - the New Electric Car (NECAR) programme. Following the evaluation of a series of prototypes, the NECAR 5 was launched in November 2000. This, too, was based on the A-Class car. Power was supplied by a 75 kW fuel-cell system that was fed by an on-board methanol reformer. The car featured a cold-start facility to remove the need for the reformer to... 

Other types of batteries have been introduced to serve specific needs (electric vehicles, electricity storage for grid support, etc.). For this discussion, we have chosen to focus on sodium-sulfur (Na-S) batteries and nickel-chloride-based batteries, which are both so-called high temperature battery systems, and lastly redox flow systems. 

To transport people and material growing transportation systems are needed. More and more of the energy for these systems is drawn from secondary batteries. The reason for this trend is economic, but there is also an environmental need for a future chance for electric traction. The actual development of electrochemical storage systems with components like sodium-sulfur, sodium-nickel chloride, nickel-metal hydride, zinc-bromine, zinc-air, and others, mainly intended for electric road vehicles, make the classical lead-acid traction batteries look old-fashioned and outdated. Lead-acid, this more than 150-year-old system, is currently the reliable and economic power source for electric traction. 

Sodium/nickel chloride is a relatively new variation of the sodium/beta technology and was being developed mainly for electric-vehicle applications. There has not been nearly the effort on this chemistry as on the sodium/sulfur battery. 

FIGURE 40.17 Electric-vehicle batteries (a) ABB sodium sulfur - B16 (Isft) and B17 (right) and (b) Zebra Z5 sodium/nickel-chloride (Courtesy of Asea Brown Boveri (a) and MES-DEA SA (b)). 

J. Prakash, L. Redy, P. Nelson, and D. Vissers, High Temperature Sodium Nickel Chloride Battery for Electric Vehicles, Electrochemical Society Proceedings, 96 14, (1996). 

E. Kluiters et al., Testing of a Sodium/Nickel Chloride (Zebra) Battery for Electric Propulsion of Ships and Vehicles, J. Power Sources, 80 261-264, 1999. 

The main interest in high temperature batteries such as lithium/iron sulfide, sodium/ sulfur, and sodium/nickel chloride is for electric vehicle applications due to their high specific power and energy possibilities. The replacement of the liquid lithium electrode with a solid LiAl alloy alleviated many of the safety concerns that plagued the other two systems, which are based on a liquid sodium electrode. In 1991, the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) selected the bipolar molten-salt LiAl/FeS2 battery to be developed as... 

The 2.6 V sodium-nickel chloride battery is at the pilot plant production stage as a possible battery for electric passenger vehicles and buses. Eagle Richer are leading workers in this field. Over 1000 charge-discharge cycles have already been achieved. 

The poor efficiencies of coal-fired power plants in 1896 (2.6 percent on average compared with over forty percent one hundred years later) prompted W. W. Jacques to invent the high temperature (500°C to 600°C [900°F to 1100°F]) fuel cell, and then build a lOO-cell battery to produce electricity from coal combustion. The battery operated intermittently for six months, but with diminishing performance, the carbon dioxide generated and present in the air reacted with and consumed its molten potassium hydroxide electrolyte. In 1910, E. Bauer substituted molten salts (e.g., carbonates, silicates, and borates) and used molten silver as the oxygen electrode. Numerous molten salt batteiy systems have since evolved to handle peak loads in electric power plants, and for electric vehicle propulsion. Of particular note is the sodium and nickel chloride couple in a molten chloroalumi-nate salt electrolyte for electric vehicle propulsion. One special feature is the use of a semi-permeable aluminum oxide ceramic separator to prevent lithium ions from diffusing to the sodium electrode, but still allow the opposing flow of sodium ions. 

Africa)io is a variant of sodium-sulfur technology where sulfur is replaced with a metal chloride such as NiCl2 (nickel chloride) or FeCU. It was specifically developed for applications in electric vehicles, freight transport and public transport the ZEBRA battery is more particularly intended to serve buses and utility vehicles. As with the Na-S battery, the vibrations felt in a vehicle may cause premature aging of the ceramic/metal interface. Today, such batteries are also being considered for stationary applications. 

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