After a long time without any news, Firefly Energy (previous post) has received a Frost and Sullivan award in the field of advanced lead acid battery technologies for developing an innovative graphite foam lead acid battery that could cause disruptive changes in the market. The following is directly from Frost & Sullivan's press release:
"While somewhat newer battery technologies like Lithium Ion and Nickel Metal Hydride offer alternatives to traditional lead acid cells, they have their own set of issues including higher costs," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Sivam Sabesan. "Even though these advanced batteries have certain features that improve upon the traditional lead acid cell, they cannot match all its features and consequently, innovators such as Firefly Energy believe they can improve the lead acid cell to match lithium ion and the nickel metal hydrides."
The approach used by Firefly Energy, a spin-out of Caterpillar, is radical but simple. The company’s new battery removes past obstacles such as heavy weight, extensive corrosion and sulfating positive and negative lead metal grids by substituting them with carbon-graphite foam, increasing the surface area, to enhance the chemistry taking place. The result is a battery that can rival the advanced chemistries in performance, take advantage of an existing manufacturing base and address environmental concerns through the removal of one-half to two-thirds of the lead content.
By "taking the lead out" and replacing the plates with carbon foam, it is possible to obtain longer battery life while enhancing the battery’s desirable characteristics, particularly in terms of fast discharge and recharge conditions. Additionally, by replacing most of the lead with a much lighter material, Firefly has drastically lowered the specific weight of the battery, which can help by either increasing output from the same weight or in creating a smaller package but with normal power output.
Firefly’s battery runs cooler than normal lead acid cells, giving it longer life and a significant stealth advantage in military applications, particularly in desert environments. On the commercial side too, there is significant potential. With a large number of automobiles and trucks in America running on short-lived batteries, manufacturers that can deliver a cost-effective yet better battery technology stand to gain the most.
"Apart from these, there are markets for hybrid and electric vehicles that also require high performance batteries," notes Sabesan. "And while Firefly is initially looking to focus on select commercial and military markets, it is reasonable to expect that this novel technology will find equally viable markets elsewhere if the company should choose to enter them, given that the overall size of the worldwide lead acid market is over $16 billion per year in sales."
Firefly Energy (www.fireflyenergy.com) is a Peoria, Illinois-based company which has developed a next generation lead acid battery technology that has the opportunity to address major portions of the $30 billion worldwide battery marketplace. Firefly’s graphite foam-based battery technology can deliver a unique combination of high performance, extremely low weight, low cost and, all in a battery which utilizes the best aspects of lead acid chemistry while overcoming the corrosive drawbacks of this same chemistry. This product technology delivers to battery markets a performance associated with advanced battery chemistries (Nickel Metal Hydride and Lithium), but for one-fifth the cost, and can be both manufactured as well as recycled within the existing lead acid battery industry’s vast infrastructure. The company was formed after its technology, technical founder, and initial seed funds were spun out of Caterpillar, Inc. (www.cat.com), a Fortune 90 company, in May 2003, and is headed by co-founders Edward Williams (CEO), Mil Ovan (Senior VP), and Kurtis Kelley (Chief Scientist). Investors include Caterpillar (www.cat.com) (NYSE: CAT), BAE Systems (www.baesystems.com) (London Stock Exchange over the counter symbol: BAESY), Chicago-area Venture Capital firm KB Partners (www.kbpartners.com), the State of Illinois’ Illinois Finance Authority, and Electrolux (www.electrolux.com) (SSE: ELUX-B).
A visit to the Firefly website found significant changes from a few weeks ago, but not much new information. The following is a short excerpt from the advanced battery page:
Firefly's Advanced Composite Battery technology will deliver a performance level associated with advanced materials (Nickel Metal Hydride and Lithium) but for 1/10 the cost and can be manufactured within the existing lead acid battery industry's"s infrastructure.
Source : The Energy Blog
Commentaires