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A company in Estonia is looking at supercapacitors to replace lead-acid batteries

Time: 2021-02-05 21:32
Column: Industry News
Author: Pembo

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An Estonian company, skeleton technologies, is developing a supercapacitor, which has the advantages of light weight, long life and high energy density, and is expected to replace the lead-acid batteries still used in electric vehicles. However, supercapacitors have a long way to go before they are widely adopted. Taavi madiberk, skeleton's chief executive, admits there is still a gap in energy storage compared to the current popular lithium-ion batteries. Even so, the technology is expected to provide higher peak power output and reliability at extreme temperatures, and skeleton has sold it to customers in the transportation industry. It is reported that lead-acid battery is a technology invented in 1859. In fact, in addition to lithium-ion battery as the main power source, electric vehicles are still using lead-acid battery, even electric vehicles of Tesla and BMW.

"Sometimes people think lead is a problem of the past because it's related to internal combustion engines, but in fact all electric cars have 12 volt lead-acid batteries." "We are looking at a viable alternative to all lead-acid batteries," madyback said.

In 2006, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, an American electric vehicle manufacturer, wrote in a blog post that he actually came to Silicon Valley to study supercapacitors during his doctoral degree at Stanford University. Although musk eventually dropped out of Stanford University and started his new career, he did not give up his bet on supercapacitors.

Tesla, which is also looking for breakthroughs in the field of electric vehicle batteries, acquired 79% of Maxwell Technologies Inc., a competitor of skeleton, in February last year. Like other manufacturers, Musk's company uses relatively cheap, recyclable lead-acid batteries in addition to lithium-ion batteries. Tesla said the acquisition would "enhance expertise in energy storage and power transmission.". Maxwell's dry electrode technology can increase the energy density of the cell to more than 300wh / kg, and it is expected to further increase to 500wh / kg in the future, or break through the bottleneck of 300wh / kg for ternary lithium batteries

Recently, Tesla's own battery plan has been further exposed. On February 18, Tesla announced that it would independently develop new batteries. It is reported that the new battery developed by Tesla itself may contain zero cobalt.

Affected by this news, A-share super capacitor concept stocks strengthened. As of February 24, Tongfeng electronic obtained trading board for four consecutive days, and Siyuan electric completed two trading boards within three days. Xinzhu shares, Taier shares, Jianghai shares, Cairn shares and other stocks were trading. Wind data showed that the super capacitor index rose 5.61%. James Frith, an energy storage analyst at Bloomberg, believes the technology could be useful for tasks such as regenerating energy from brakes and perhaps working with lithium-ion batteries. However, this is only one of the few viable approaches in the industry.
"Over the years, there has been a strong interest in supercapacitors. The problem is that the price of lithium-ion batteries is falling very fast. " Frith said. To replace lead-acid batteries, skeleton is working with some of Europe's major automakers, Mr. madyback said. Its products have an energy density of 60 watt hours per kilogram, exceeding that of ordinary lead-acid batteries. He said that their raw material is a patented graphene composite material, which has a cost advantage not only compared with lead acid, but also compared with lithium-ion batteries in the long run.
"If you look at the supply of cobalt, lithium, nickel and manganese, sooner or later there will be a major bottleneck in electrification. Of course, there's a problem with lead. It's toxic and the manufacturing process is harmful to the environment. " Maddy Burke said.
In terms of heavy transport, skeleton has provided braking energy recovery system for trams produced by Skoda transport, a Czech manufacturer, to reduce fuel consumption for hybrid buses produced by Wright group. The company signed more than 150 million euros (about 1.14 billion yuan) of orders last year, and its goal is to achieve 1 billion euros of revenue by 2025, when its service market will reach about 60 billion euros. The company expects to be profitable by the end of next year.
In addition to Tesla, madibock also listed AVX Corp, which is headquartered in the United States. And China State Railway Group are the main competitors. He said the raw materials used by the company give it an advantage in competing with larger competitors.
If the cost becomes competitive, super capacitors may find their niche market, "heavy transport applications may be the best use cases of super capacitors, and they can certainly find applications in many areas of the automotive market," said Frith, an analyst at Bloomberg.

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