Ultracapacitor Breakthrough – Reticle Carbon
| October 15, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Advocates of electric vehicles understand that there are many interesting variations in potential drivetrains, and that ideally, we would combine ultracapacitors with batteries to deliver stored energy as needed to provide power intelligently, based on the needs of the driver. Where batteries separate positive and negative charges chemically, capacitors do so physically, much like the static electricity that builds up on the surface of a balloon. And where a battery relies on a chemical reaction to release energy, which is relatively slow, the discharge rate of capacitors is typically much faster, which is handy for creating rapid acceleration.
Though batteries tend to gather more attention in the news, I’m always interested in breakthroughs in either device, as both are important in moving the migration to EVs along. Augmenting a battery back with ultracapacitors increases the range of an EV by as much as 400% over that which would have been achieved with batteries alone – so this is a very big deal, as one can readily understand.
I spoke just now with Jack Mastbrook, the chief marketing officer of Northern California-based Reticle Carbon, whose technology seems to represent a quantum leap in the appeal of capacitors in EVs.
Briefly, capacitors are typically granulated, porous, highly conductive carbon. The problem that most manufacturers face (e.g., Maxwell and Nesscap) , is that the process of consolidating this material greatly compromises its utility; the glues and resins reduce the carbon’s porosity and conductivity. Reticle’s patented breakthrough is a consolidation technology that does not use these binders, resulting in much higher surface area and conductivity of the carbon, thus a thicker electrode. The result: 10 – 20 times the power density. Jack is understandably both proud and excited. “To augment a 350V lithium-ion battery pack, Maxwell’s capacitive array weighed 150 pounds. Ours would have weighted 20 pounds,” he told me.
The company’s trying to raise investment capital. Given the interest in EVs in today’s market, that doesn’t sound like too difficult a task.
