Ultrabattery: First In A Long Line of Advanced Non-Combusting Powerplants?

Australia's CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization}, has developed a promising "ultrabattery" concept that combines a supercapacitor and a lead acid battery in a single unit. The ultrabattery is being developed for commercialisation by a Japanese battery maker and a US manufacturing company.

The exclusive sub-license agreement will see the UltraBattery distributed by East Penn to the automotive and motive power sector throughout North America, Mexico and Canada while Furukawa Battery Company will release the technology in Japan and Thailand.

Previous tests show the UltraBattery has a life cycle that is at least four times longer and produces 50% more power than conventional lead-acid energy storage systems. The technology is approximately 70% less expensive than the NiMH batteries currently used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs).

The UltraBattery’s PSOC (partial state of charge) and rapid charge/discharge cycle life is four times that of a conventional lead-acid battery. The ability to deal with PSOC pulse charge/discharge cycles overcomes a major difficulty for application in hybrid electric vehicles.

The technology is scheduled to be commercially available in the automotive market and for motive power applications throughout Japan, Thailand, North America, Mexico and Canada within two years. _GCC

The combination of lead-acid battery with a supercapacitor provides much better power density for acceleration, along with longer charge/discharge cycle life. The future addition of a fuel cell stack to the combo, would provide the high energy density for combustion free, long-range transport applications.

It is the ability to combine the special strengths of these different storage and non-combustion generation devices that will allow for a much smoother transition from the internal combustion engine vehicular fleet to an "all electric" vehicular fleet.