Chapter 214 Unexpected Discovery
As the Chinese New Year approaches, the company's arrangements are completed, and Jiang Miao doesn't have much to do, so he has been doing research in the laboratory.
January 20th is the Great Cold of the Lunar Calendar.
Shuya called and asked him to come over.
Entered Shuya's microbiology laboratory.
He saw Shuya next to a dozen experimental battery boxes.
"Aya, what's the matter?"
Shuya saw him coming and handed over a copy of the data that had just been tested: "You will know after just looking at it."
Jiang Miao took the folder, looked through it carefully, and raised his eyebrows: "You actually researched such a thing."
Shuya smiled and explained: "It's not because you have been worried about the future overcapacity of soybeans in the past few months. I also want to help you solve this problem, just to see if soybeans can be used as food for power-generating bacteria. I didn’t expect an unexpected surprise.”
Putting down the folder, Jiang Miao carefully observed the experimental battery boxes in front of him.
At the same time, I was listening to Shuya explain some specific situations.
"I used straw powder, soybean powder, and agar powder to adjust it into a special gel. I added power-generating bacteria and other auxiliary trace chemicals to allow the power-generating bacteria to maintain a relative growth..."
"The best version currently has a power generation of 334 watts per cubic meter, a stable maintenance time of 160 hours, a theoretical power generation of 53.44 kWh, and an actual power generation of about 48 kWh..."
Judging from these data, this technology seems to have only one-third more power generation than the previous version studied by Jiang Miao.
But what really surprised Jiang Miao was that a special nanostructure formed inside the gel as the power-generating bacteria grew and multiplied.
This nanostructure is similar to a large mushroom-like fungus, but its interior is densely packed with honeycombs.
Shuya originally planned to study whether this honeycomb gel could be reused by adding nutritional powder again.
However, the experimental results were unexpected. The honeycomb gel with nutrient powder added twice produced abnormally low power generation.
However, those power-generating bacteria consumed the nutrients of the nutritional powder normally.
This result aroused Shuya's interest. She re-study the honeycomb gel and found that its structure can actually store electrical energy.
For each cubic meter of honeycomb gel, the upper limit of electricity storage initially studied was about 150 kilowatt hours.
Subsequently, Shuya took more than a dozen experimental assistants to conduct in-depth research on various physical and chemical properties of honeycomb gel.
It was found that honeycomb gels that have been dried and inactivated can be stacked twice by adding new gels.
The current stacking limit is three times. After each stacking, the power storage nanostructure of the honeycomb gel will approximately double, that is, the upper limit of power storage per cubic meter is increased to 450 kilowatt hours.
However, the discharge power of this thing is not high. It is currently only about 1,600 watts. Once fully charged, it can continue to discharge for 281 hours.
Shuya has been thinking of ways to improve its ability to discharge quickly, but after more than a month, she still had no clue, so she finally asked him to come over and take a look.
"You have experimented with things like temperature, light, and pH. Although they can be changed, the changes are not significant." Jiang Miao began to think.
To be precise, he opened the identification panel and carefully observed the honeycomb gel.
These nanostructures are structures formed after the apoptosis of the electricity-generating bacteria. Even after apoptosis, these structures still retain some characteristics of the electricity-generating bacteria.
Suddenly he thought of a possibility: "Aya, you can try to increase the oxygen concentration."
"Oxygen concentration? Is it to increase its redox reaction? Let me try it." Shuya thought thoughtfully, and then arranged for experimental assistants to start the experiment.
As more and more oxygen is introduced into the honeycomb gel, the power generated by the gel also soars.
However, soon the entire gel suddenly burst into flames.
The experimental assistants who were well prepared quickly started putting out the fire according to the operation manual.
Shuya was not too surprised. After all, if oxygen was introduced into the battery, if the discharge amount really increased, it would most likely cause a fire.
She looked at the experimental data just now attentively.
When the oxygen concentration reaches 45%, the discharge power reaches the maximum, which is 4725 watts; when the oxygen concentration reaches 53%, the discharge power drops to 3529 watts, and the gel begins to spontaneously ignite.
Jiang Miao, who was on the side, saw various details of the entire discharge process through the identification panel. The oxygen concentration can indeed increase the discharge power of the honeycomb gel, but it will cause huge damage to the electricity storage nanostructure of the gel. .
This is also an expected result.
After all, increasing the oxygen concentration is to increase the efficiency of the redox reaction. When something is oxidized, its structure will definitely change. Jiang Miao didn't pay too much attention to this. His real purpose was to see the discharge characteristics of these nanostructures and how they achieved discharge.
During the violent reaction just now, he saw the answer he wanted.
This structure uses phosphorus atoms and nitrogen atoms to allow electrons to move quickly in a special nanostructure, thereby achieving a discharge effect. Its structure is somewhat similar to the electric muscle cells of electric eels.
Under the guidance of Jiang Miao, Shuya and more than a dozen experimental assistants finally completed the discharge power adjustment technology of honeycomb gel before the Chinese New Year.
This technology uses soybean oil as a buffer (other vegetable oils with high freezing points can also be used), and adds potassium chloride. By adjusting the band of the LED light, the discharge power of the honeycomb gel can be varied from 0 to 96 kilowatts. Switch freely.
As for its service life, according to Jiang Miao's estimation through panel identification, it can achieve about 600 efficient discharges. After more than 600 discharges, its nanostructure will begin to fail, and its electricity storage and discharge capabilities will plummet.
The charging power of the cellular gel can also be switched between 0∽96 kW.
However, its charging loss rate is a little lower than that of lithium batteries, about 3∽7%.
Its discharge loss rate is also 3∽7%.
The monthly self-discharge loss is about 0.2∽0.8%.
As for its low-temperature operation, it is actually affected by the soybean oil inside the gel. Once the soybean oil solidifies, its discharge power will plummet to only about one-tenth; if it is in a sub-solidified state, that is, between zero and Between minus 16 degrees Celsius, its discharge power is about half.
There is no mistake in every song, one post, one content, one 6 one, one book, one book, take a look!
Fortunately, once the gel starts to discharge, most of the electricity lost during the power generation process will be released as heat energy, causing the inside of the gel to heat up quickly.
Therefore, if you want to use gel as a battery in the northern region, you must install an insulation layer and a rapid heater in winter. Through rapid heating, and then using the self-heating effect of the gel, you can maintain efficient operation at all times.
However, there is a trouble with this design, that is, in the summer, the insulation layer outside the gel must be removed in time, otherwise once it is in operation, its core temperature will reach about 46 degrees Celsius, and it must be left exposed to pass through the wind. Using cold or water cooling, the core temperature is reduced to between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius.
These shortcomings do not reduce the value of gel batteries.
After all, its power storage per cubic meter can reach 450 kilowatt hours, and its weight is 1.5 tons, which is equivalent to an energy density of 0.3 kilowatt hours per kilogram.
What is this energy density level?
Lithium iron phosphate is about 0.16∽0.2 kilowatt-hour per kilogram.
Semi-solid-state batteries are around 0.28∽0.4 kWh per kilogram.
All-solid-state batteries are around 0.5∽0.7 kWh per kilogram.
In other words, the energy density of gel batteries is similar to that of semi-solid batteries.
However, one characteristic of gel batteries is that their production costs are very low. Its core raw materials are discharge bacteria cells, soybean oil, potassium chloride and other auxiliary trace elements, plus electrodes and casings. In the current market According to price calculation, the cost per cubic meter is about 3,500 yuan.
This cost can instantly beat the 30,000 per ton of lithium iron phosphate, let alone those solid-state pits that average more than 200,000 per ton.
And gel batteries are environmentally friendly!
When the gel battery is scrapped, the soybean oil can be recycled to refine biodiesel, and the honeycomb cells can be crushed and used as organic fertilizer. This not only eliminates the need to worry about environmental pollution, but also eliminates the need to spend a lot of money on waste treatment, and you can also earn back some of it. cost.
Although it can only be charged and discharged 600 times, which is weaker than the 2,000 times of lithium iron phosphate, this thing is extremely cheap.
The cost of producing one ton of lithium iron phosphate can be used to produce 8.5 cubic meters, or 12.75 tons of gel batteries.
Once it's worn out, it doesn't hurt to replace it.
Other batteries require various rare elements, which not only increases production costs, but also increases risks in the industrial chain. After all, domestic reserves of many rare elements are insufficient. Once there is trouble abroad, production costs will soar.
The core raw materials of gel batteries are soybeans, straw and potassium chloride, which are not lacking in China.
Of course, the benefits of gel batteries are still good for the power storage industry.
After all, the combined loss rate of charging and discharging is only 6∽14%, which means that after charging for 10 degrees, the discharge rate is almost 8.6∽9.4 degrees, which is more advantageous than the current pumped storage reservoirs. The upper limit of pumped storage reservoirs is also It can only charge at 10 degrees and discharge at 7.5 degrees.
As for application in mobile power supply for transportation, it is definitely possible.
However, considering that the charging limit of the gel battery can only reach 96 kilowatts, there is no way to achieve fast charging in a few minutes.
Therefore, it is more suitable for battery replacement mode rather than charging mode.
When the battery of the vehicle is almost exhausted, just replace the battery directly to avoid the trouble of charging.
According to the current situation, the energy density of gel batteries is 450 kWh per cubic meter. If it is an ordinary family car, 150 kWh of power is enough. There is no need to design the battery to be so large.
On the other hand, large trucks, engineering vehicles, inland water transport ships, etc. require relatively large amounts of electricity.
(End of chapter)