Battery/Supercapacitor Hybrids for Transport Energy Storage

该提案寻求在我们目前的知识中迈出一步，因为它与运输部门的能源储存有关。众所周知，交通运输部门的二氧化碳排放量占英国总排放量的四分之一。减轻这种负担意味着改进我们制造和驱动汽车的方式，也迫使我们转向电气化系统。理想的电动汽车的最终形式是无法预测的，但它很可能是混合动力车，插电式混合动力车，或某种形式的氢动力系统。无论最终的工程设计如何，科学家们越来越相信，长期能源安全的最佳前景将出现在与能量存储和利用相关的各种可能性中。事实上，每当石油价格上涨时，创造人工系统来利用电化学潜力的想法就会出现。我们认为，除了以前所未有的规模采用核能，这是结束目前这个浪费化石燃料时代的唯一可能方法。这是一个日益重要的全球性问题，它将很快成为世界上主要的科学问题。储存和/或产生电化学势能的人工方法包括电池、燃料电池、超级电容器和电解电池。利用电化学电位的自然方法包括生物质反应器和光系统II（即植物和蓝藻中的光合作用）。然而，几乎令人难以置信的是，在所有这些系统中，缺乏支撑电荷传输和存储的一般理论，也没有已知的方法来优化这些系统在局部或全球范围内的使用。因此，在目前的建议中，我们寻求发展这样的理论独立于材料和设备的微观选择。我们还打算探索和开发适合电动汽车使用的混合电池/超级电容器技术。最终，我们设想一种混合电池/超级电容器设计，具有成本效益，安全性和可扩展性。与此同时，科学和工程方面的必要技能将传给新一代的研究人员。拟议的项目涉及化学和汽车工程学科的合作。在化学方面，活动将涉及开发室温离子液体作为电池超级电容器混合设备（BSHDs）的电解质，以及试验先进材料（例如pvdf基聚合物，多孔碳）和开发相关制造方法（例如丝网印刷）。此外，电化学人员对BSHD的实验规模测试将被用作材料因子设计的一部分，以在大规模生产之前优化各种电池/超级电容器的设计。来自化学的BSHD技术将成为工程实验室研究的基础。从汽车工程的角度来看，bshd的使用既具有电池的优势（能量密度相对较高），又具有超级电容器的优势（功率密度相对较高）。我们设想，这些共同的优势将在不增加车辆控制系统复杂性的情况下实现，目前伴随电池组和超级电容器组的双重使用。最后，车辆和BSHD建模的结合将能够对BSHD技术的车辆效益进行定量评估。结果将验证模型，并增加由此得出的结果的可信度。

This proposal seeks a step change in our current knowledge as it pertains to energy storage for the transport sector. As is well known, the transport sector accounts for a quarter of all UK CO2 emissions. Diminishing that burden means improving the way that we build and power vehicles, and also compels us to convert to electrified systems. The final form of an ideal electric vehicle is impossible to predict, but it could well be a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, or some form of hydrogen powered system.Regardless of the final engineering design, there is a growing conviction among scientists that the best prospect for long-term energy security will emerge from the matrix of possibilities connected with the storage and utlization of energy as electrochemical potential. Indeed, the idea of creating artificial systems to exploit electrochemical potential crops up every time there is an escalation in the price of oil. In our view this is the only possible method of ending the present era of profligate fossil fuel consumption, other than adopting nuclear power on an unprecedented scale. This is a global problem that grows more important on a daily basis, and it will soon become the dominant scientific issue in the world.Artificial methods of storing and/or generating electrochemical potential energy include batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors, and electrolysis cells. Natural methods of exploiting electrochemical potential include biomass reactors and photosystem II (i.e. photosynthesis in plants and cyanobacteria). Almost incredibly, however, there is a dearth of general theory underpinning the transport and storage of electrical charge in all of these stystems, and there is no known method of optimizing the use of such systems on a local or global scale. Accordingly, in the current proposal, we seek to develop such theory independent of microscopic choices of materials and devices. We also intend to explore and develop hybrid battery/supercapacitor technologies suitable for electric vehicle use. Ultimately, we envision a hybrid battery/supercapacitor design that is cost-effective, safe, and scalable. At the same time, the requisite skills in both science and engineering will be passed along to a new generation of researchers.The proposed project involves the co-operation of the disciplines of Chemistry and Automotive Engineering. Under Chemistry, the activities will involve the development of room temperature ionic liquids as electrolytes for battery supercapacitor hybrid devices (BSHDs), and the trialling of advanced materials (e.g. PVDF-based polymers, porous carbons) and the development of relevant manufacturing methodologies (e.g. screen printing). In addition, the bench-scale testing of BSHD's by electrochemists will be used as part of a factorial design of materials to optimize various battery/supercapacitor designs ahead of scale-up. The BSHD technology coming from Chemistry will then form the basis of research in the Engineering laboratory. From the automotive engineering point of view, the use of BSHDs offers the advantages of batteries, which are relatively high energy density, with the advantages of supercapacitors, which are relatively high power density. We envision that these mutual advantages will be obtainable without any increase in the complexity of the vehicle control system that today accompanies the dual use of battery packs and supercapacitor packs. Finally, a combination of vehicle and BSHD modelling will enable a quantitative evaluation of the vehicle benefits of the BSHD technology. The results will validate the models and increase confidence in the results obtained therefrom.