Potential of Nanoparticle Flow Batteries

[snstevens]

I thought some of you would find this IEEE Spectrum article interesting. It sounds like a lot of development is still needed, and God knows there would be a big infrastructure requirement, but it sure feels smarter and better in the long run than the Porsche e-Fuels.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/flow-battery-2666672335

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[Jhenson29]

They talk about exchanging 400 liters in 5 min. That’s almost twice the flow as standard gas pumps, assuming one way, but the old liquid needs to be evacuated also, so potentially 4x the flow.

Gas stations refill somewhere around an EV equivalent of 4 to 5 megawatts (assuming 25 mpg, 8-10 gpm, and 3 mi/kwh).

400 miles in 5 min would be close to 1.6MW. But that’s almost 20gpm if evac and fill are parallel or almost 40gpm if serial.

Liquid fueling addresses issues with the charge curve though.

I skimmed and didn’t read end to end, so maybe some of that was covered.

I don’t have any other specific comments. Just thinking out loud.

 

[snstevens]

I think one aspect of the proposed system is not well stated. You need to simultaneously fill and withdraw nanoparticle fluids as you are using the "service station" model of recharging the battery.

In medical ECMO and dialysis situations, physicians sometimes insert a "dual lumen" catheter directly into the heart and patient blood is both withdrawn for filtering, and returned through his separate tube in the same catheter.

It seems as if the hose connected to your car will need to both withdraw spent nanoparticle fuel in one tube, while simultaneously providing fully charged nanoparticle fuel in the other - a sort of "dual lumen" hose.

 

[snstevens]

They talk about exchanging 400 liters in 5 min. That’s almost twice the flow as standard gas pumps, assuming one way, but the old liquid needs to be evacuated also, so potentially 4x the flow.

Gas stations refill somewhere around an EV equivalent of 4 to 5 megawatts (assuming 25 mpg, 8-10 gpm, and 3 mi/kwh).

400 miles in 5 min would be close to 1.6MW. But that’s almost 20gpm if evac and fill are parallel or almost 40gpm if serial.

Liquid fueling addresses issues with the charge curve though.

I skimmed and didn’t read end to end, so maybe some of that was covered.

I don’t have any other specific comments. Just thinking out loud.

The 400 L/105 gallons in five minutes sounds very aggressive to me. Today we get about 5-6 gallons per minute when filling a gas tank. They’re going to have to do something radically different to get to 100 gallons in five minutes.

 

[Jhenson29]

Today we get about 5-6 gallons per minute when filling a gas tank.

I typically see 8gpm when I fill. Anything less I generally consider slow (feels slow when I’m pumping). I think 10 is supposed to be the max in the US, but I have one pump near my house that does 12. Larger pumps for large trucks are supposed to do up to 40, but I have no experience with those.

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