A 3D Printer That Uses Bioplastic

Inhabitat has a post on the rapidly evolving field of 3D printers (with this one using bioplastic feedstock) - The KamerMaker 3D Printer Can Print Entire Rooms From Bio Plastic!.

Dutch architecture firm DUS has developed The KamerMaker (RoomBuilder) – a 3D printer so large that it can create entire rooms! Dubbed by its creators the “world’s first movable pavilion,” the KamerMaker features an enlarged ‘Ultimaker’ 3D printing machine that is so big it’s actually capable of printing smaller pavilions. In fact, it is capable of printing objects as large as 7.2 feet by 7.2 feet by 11.4 feet. Not only that, but the large-scale 3D printer can produce objects made from corn bio-plastic.

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The battery storage system that could close down coal power

ReNew Economy has an article on a German energy storage technology company - The battery storage system that could close down coal power.

You don’t have to go far inside the headquarters of German battery storage company Younicos, or even their website for that matter, to find out what they are about. “Let the fossils rest in peace,” the logo suggests. Another sign at their technology centre east of Berlin proclaims: “You are now leaving the CO2 producing sector of the world.”

This sign is designed to mimic those which adorned the checkpoints that separated the various sectors of east and west Berlin before the wall was torn down. Younicos believe they have a technology that is equally disruptive, and can break down one of the last barriers to 100 per cent renewable energy: the need to run fossil fuel generation to control the “frequency” of the grid, and the other system services such as voltage control.

The company, based in Berlin Adlershof, on the eastern outskirts of the capital, is developing 10MW-sized battery parks, using battery systems that it says can stabilise the grid faster, cheaper and with greater precision that conventional generation.

It says that these systems can substitute 10 times the capacity from conventional generation – coal, nuclear and gas – and at a fraction of the cost. According to Younicos spokesman Philip Hiersemenzel, each battery park can be installed at around € 15 million, which means that for an investment of €3 billion, conventional generation in Germany’s 80GW would no longer be needed – at least for frequency and stability purposes.

This is critical is Germany. The sheer scale of their solar PV installations – it has more than 35GW – means that on some days it already produces more than half the country’s electricity needs. But baseload generators have to keep running for the sake of frequency control and system stability, this has caused spot prices to plunge well below zero.

For an 80GW grid, it needs about 20GW and 25GW of “must run” balancing to maintain frequency and keep the grid stable. Younicos says 2GW of its battery parks would render this need redundant. Around 200 of it battery parks could be installed around the country at a total cost of around €3 billion.

(Of course, that is not the only impediment to 100 per cent renewables – enough solar and wind power needs to be built, and other storage is needed, battery storage to respond to variations in load on a minute by minute and hour by hour basis, and longer-term or “seasonal” storage, which can take excess production and store it – synthetic diesel, hydrogen etc.).

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Batteries that Recharge in Seconds

Technology Review has an article on research into improving the performance of battery cathodes and thus reducing recharge times - Batteries that Recharge in Seconds.

A new way of making battery electrodes based on nanostructured metal foams has been used to make a lithium-ion battery that can be 90 percent charged in two minutes. If the method can be commercialized, it could lead to laptops that charge in a few minutes or cell phones that charge in 30 seconds.

The methods used to make the ultrafast-charging electrodes are compatible with a range of battery chemistries; the researchers have also used them to make nickel-metal-hydride batteries, the kind commonly used in hybrid and electric vehicles.

How fast a battery can charge up and then release that power is primarily limited by the movement of electrons and ions into and out of the cathode, the electrode that is negative during recharging. Researchers have been trying to use nanostructured materials to improve the process, but theres usually a trade-off between total energy storage capacity (which determines how long a battery can run before needing a recharge) and charge rates. "People solved half the problem," says Paul Braun, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Brauns group has made highly porous metal foams coated with a large amount of active battery materials. The metal provides high electrical conductivity, and even though its porous, the structure holds enough active material to store a sufficient amount of energy. The pores allow for ions to move about unimpeded. ...

Jeff Dahn, professor of physics at Dalhousie University, is skeptical that these electrodes will ever end up in products. "When you look at the flow chart for making this structure, its pretty complicated, and that is going to be expensive," he says.

Braun acknowledges: "There are lots of people coming up with elegant [electrode] structures, but manufacturing them is tricky." He says, however, that his fabrication process combines existing methods that are currently widely used to make other products, if not to make batteries, and that it shouldnt be too difficult to adapt them. The process would add extra steps to making a battery, but these steps arent particularly expensive or complex, Braun says.

Brauns group will next test the electrode structure with a wider range of battery chemistries and work on improving batteries other half, the anode—a trickier project.

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