New Battery type for RC flyer?

New Battery type for RC flyer?

New battery types on the horizon? As we all know any new battery breakthrough will most likely makes its way down to the RC community and give us improved flying time, at least that is what we hope. Because of the giant push in battery power cars, there are many companies and universities out there trying to improve on battery performance and safety.  One such consortium is the PolyZion research projects who are trying to develop a zinc-plastic battery that will be used in hybrid and electric vehicles. Perhaps they may one day be in RC aircraft. Here is a good article about it posted on Gizmag.com, enjoy.

While today’s lithium-ion, lead acid, and nickel metal hydride batteries may offer far better performance than their predecessors, they are still not perfect – they’re heavy, expensive, and have been known to short circuit and catch fire. Now, however, scientists involved in the PolyZion research project are developing zinc-plastic batteries for use in hybrid and electric vehicles. Their aim is to produce a rechargeable battery that is lighter, cheaper, safer, greener and better-performing than anything currently available.

According to the PolyZion website, “The research programmer combines fundamental material and process advances in ionic liquids, rechargeable zinc electrodes, ultra-fast pulse charge injection techniques and conducting polymers, as well as constructing prototype battery units for industry standard testing. The resulting battery device will be low cost, have low environmental impact and have the energy and power density necessary to compete with alternative battery technologies in the HEV and EV markets.”

Because the zinc-plastic battery would incorporate environmentally sustainable electrolytes, it would be easier on the planet to produce. Unlike lithium-ions, it also wouldn’t be prone to catching fire on impact. Its charge-discharge efficiency would be greater than 90 percent and 1,000 cycles … or at least, that’s the plan.

Partners in the mostly-European EUR 3.5 million (US$4.7 million) PolyZion project include the University of Leicester, C-Tech Innovation, Fundacion CIDETEC, Celaya Emparanza y Galdos SA (Cegasa), the University of Porto, KEMA Nederland BV, AE Favorsky Irkutsk Institute of Chemistry, Institute de Recherche d’Hydro-Québec, and Rescoll.

Updated: August 8, 2013 — 4:32 PM

7 Comments

  1. I really like the environmentally sustainable and easier on the planet part. Sounds very promising

  2. I agree with that

  3. What about the paper and ink battery by Stanford University. Maybe the lightest battery and has many other great qualities.

  4. I’ll get the cheapest one… But I wouldn’t mind a battery that won’t explode. And I have seen the paper batteries video before… I’d like to see that.

  5. I have always thought of some real smart engineer making a battery that is not so explosive with danger of loosing an eye, a hand or just being plane so dangerous while charging. I really don’t like using Li-Polymer batteries but what are you going to do not fly air planes. I am aware of all the other types of batteries out there. But something that is not quite so explosive would be a very good choice. As a young man growing up building,designing, making my own fuel for rockets. I perfectly understand how trying to make something like that would be a very trying job. One of the main complaints about RC pilots is the amount of flying time we don’t have in the air flying. Ten to 15 minutes time is not long enough at all. Just when you have gotten into flying it is time to land that bird for a recharge or put a fresh battery in for more flying time. My complaint is more flying time & a less explosive type of a battery. Thanks for letting me be apart of your talks about batteries.
    A New Friend,
    Berry

  6. Be nice to have a high capacity battery, that’s light in weight, long life, and not be likely to catch on fire when damaged in a crash.
    Saw that happen today at our field. Good thing the dry weeds where he crashed had been cut, so the fire didn’t spread. Just burned up the plane and equipment!
    Wonder how often this happens with LiPo use?

  7. Graphene a new material, is the current cutting edge development of future batteries . Wonder-material graphene, a honeycomb lattice of carbon just one atom thick, is finally set to appear in a commercial product thanks to an agreement between California Lithium Battery and the Argonne National Laboratory.
    When handled properly, Lipo batteries are very very safe as proven in cell phones and computers.

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