EEStor update: Is there a materials engineer in the house?
EEStor put out a press release just minutes ago talking about “Certification of Additional Key Production Milestones” and “Enhancement of Chemical Purity.” According to the release, “These key certified production milestones of particle crystallization, size, purity and polarization are expected to assist EEStor in providing not only present and future energy storage requirements, but also production consistency.” There’s talk of certification data from “outside sources” that the purified aluminum oxide — used as a coating material on what I assume is the barium titanate — can have a voltage breakdown of 1,100 volts per micron. “The target working voltage of EEStor’s chemical processes is at 350 volts per micron. This provides the potential for excellent protection from voltage breakdown.”
So what does all this mean? Hmmm… I honestly haven’t a clue. Couldn’t tell you if this is important or not, so I issue a call: Is there an engineer in the house who can decrypt this technospeak?
As for EEStor, I suggest Mr. Weir hire someone with skills in the art of “plain language” to write his future press releases. Ugh…
Tyler Hamilton is associate publisher and editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and former business columnist for the Toronto Star. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
In plain language: “There isn’t a prototype.”
July 29th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I can say this: while we’re all disappointed about the lack of an announcement about permittivity… those dielectric breakdown numbers are freaking huge. Typical plastics are about 30V/um. When I build a Wimshurst machine, I used HDPE because it got around 50V/um. The thinner your layers, the better the dielectric breakdown strength; the best I’ve heard of was around 120V/um for 2 mil LDPE. But 1,100? Yow! Shows the importance of tiny layers and high purity powders, ne?
What I’d like to know is whether dielectric strength is related to the ability of layering to enable high-K materials to outperform their typical linear scaling of capacitance with voltage. I’ve run into papers before that talked about how layering high-K materials with dielectrics can lead to improved capacitance. If that is the case, and it’s the dielectric strength that matters in this regard, then this is a significant milestone.
Of course, like everyone else, I’m wanting most of all to hear back on permittivity testing.
July 29th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
forget prototypes, sounds like they’ve got a product, see the pr where it says “present products” followed by “future products”.
what the hell is that all about?
July 29th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
As much as I would like to believe they have a product, don’t read too much just yet- the first half of that sentence contains the “provides the path for the possibility of …” qualifier- which leaves all us EESTOR speculators as just that- speculators! But here’s hoping…;-)
July 29th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
What it means is that one of their key pre-production benchmarks has been met. The 3rd-party company examined the material and processes for making that material they need for building EESUs and agreed it looks OK.
To make a cake you have to have flour, eggs, milk, baking powder, etc. EEStor is a bakery that can’t go out and buy these ingredients at a store, they have to make their own because no one sells them. The 3rd party has said, “Yes, this is cake flour, milled to the specified conistancy and made of the type of wheat specified for this job: These eggs are of a size and quality specified for making the cake according to the recipe, This milk is of the required purity, fat content, and lipid density, etc. They have all the ingredients and equipment for baking the cake according to the recipe. What the 3rd party review can’t tell us is if the cake recipe is any good or not. For that we’ll have to wait until they actually start making cakes – EESUs.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Orion thanks for explaining this in layman term…
July 30th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Hehe
Nicely put.
Green Car Congress have some detail:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/07/eestor-certifie.html
July 30th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Zenn issued a press release announcing that EESTOR had issued a press release.
There is an interview with Weir posted on Cleantech where he fails to state a concrete timeline for permittivity results or an actual product. But assures that it’s all real and certified (though what he is referring to as certified in unclear) and there is “no bullshit.”
I hope I am wrong but this seems like tapdancing.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Over at BariumTitanate the mystery blogger has a short alleged interview with Richard Weir in which he says the purity announced is necessary to get the permittivity and therefore the claimed high energy density. Also that they are setting up a “production line”; whether that’s for powder production or device production is not clear.
None the less, a curiosity provoking discussion
http://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/2008/07/richard-weir-says-permittivity-is.html
July 30th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
In today’s interview Richard Weir said very clearly that prototypes do exist and were tested, and the money raised recently is for a PRODUCTION line.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Seriously, are there any materials science engineers in the group — from academia or the private sector — who can chat with me the details in the release? E-mail me at tyler@cleanbreak.ca… cheers.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:26 pm
The results discuss the issue of purity but two remain. The focus on purity why? Is there a failure mechanism of their product that high purity is hoped to resolve? Do they have problems with cracking and delamination the same as other ceramic capacitors? Does their part short circuit the same as other ceramic capacitors? What is the highest repeatable energy density they have achieved? Proto-type cars use to be made from clay, looked pretty good for pictures but just for show…. So without some numbers about the storage and reliability… just a pretty car made from clay.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Is there not a contradiction here?
In the WIPO patent that the hype-believers are quoting, they already reached the target permittivity and voltage coefficient…what did they do with that powder?
It took them two years to remake only the BT portion?
August 4th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Well, the problem is, they could buy the ingredients.
Their first milestone, making barium nitrate at 99.9995 purity took them a year. You can buy it, and have it overnight from Aldrich Chemical, or any number of chemical houses, its very popular.
Then, they took another year to make Barium Titanate. There is a multi-billion dollar industry that uses ultra-pure BT. There are a dozen MLC manufacturers in the US alone that buy the stuff from 3 major manufacturers. Google the chemical yourself, and see.
So, why?
I am a Zenn stockholder, who is frustrated by their lack of attention to the details so many people know. Why cant they come out and address the apparent problem?
Why dont they respond to my and another person intimate with the details of BT dielectrics? We wrote letters with references, and evidence, but not even the courtesy of a reply.