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Officials from Argonne National Lab, GM Ventures and LG Chem announced today that they had reached a licensing agreement that will allow the two businesses to use a special cathode technology for lithium batteries, and, especially, that will allow the introduction of a safer, more energy-dense product in the second generation of GM’s Volt.

As far as I can tell, though dressed up as somewhat of a thing a technology announcement, today’s news was more about the completion of some complex business deal that most of us writers struggled to comprehend.

I am pretty sure the material that is key to the cathode is a manganese-rich layered-layered composite announced by ANL back in 2007. Here’s how it was described back then:

Argonne’s strategy uses a two-component “composite” structure - an active component that provides for charge storage is embedded in an inactive component that stabilizes the structure.

In recent tests, the new materials yielded exceptionally high charge-storage capacities, greater than 250 mAh/g, or more than twice the capacity of materials in conventional rechargeable lithium batteries.

That’s virtually the same description used today.

From what I recall, the concept behind a layered-layered approach is that worst case scenario for typical lithium-ion batteries is that the single active layer loses lithium, collapses, releases oxygen and a thermal runaway can occur. Thus, the layered-layered approach is safer.

Another plus is that at the cell operating voltage level (don’t get this confused with charging voltages), batteries made of this stuff can operate at higher levels.

In addition, this composites deliver a greater energy density. As mentioned back in 2007, it is going to have roughly twice the energy density as current Li-ion battery packs, such as those GM is putting in the first generation of Volts.

That’s a better energy density number, but, as GM Ventures President Jon Lauckner noted in today’s news conference, these batteries “will still be well short of energy density of gasoline, but it moves [batteries] a step closer.”

What to do with all this added energy capacity? Lauckner seemed to indicate that it could either provide greater range for electric vehicles or smaller, cheaper batteries. He seemed to indicate that GM was leaning in the latter direction.

Back to issue of licensing ANL technology (a great example, by the way, of how DOE-funded basic and applied science research can provide broad payoffs for business and consumers) GM and LG Chem kept emphasizing that the license involves a very broad suite of patents covering both old and future technical developments. When asked, none of us seemed to get a clear answer about how it could cover future unspecified technologies, and the parties repeatedly made it clear that they were not prepared to discuss any details related to the licensing agreements and payments.

My reading of the situation is that GM and LG Chem have already been testing batteries using the special cathodes. Each company may be working on different approaches to the anodes and electrolytes they would use, but LG Chem is opening a new battery facility in Holland, Michigan employing 400 that will build batteries for the Volt, and both companies indicated that they thought they could be putting the next-gen batteries in Volts in 2012.

Although LG Chem is playing around with similar materials in project in South Korea, the licensing deal only covers their work in the U.S.

ANL and the DOE go to great pains to point out that these are not exclusive licenses and that deals with other manufactures are at least in discussion stage.

As a side note, U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, (R-Ill.), a senior member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, announced at the news conference that she would be reintroducing legislation to support electric vehicle superstructure development in six yet-to-be-announced cities with the idea of developing parking meter-type street level charging stations.

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The DOE announced that 24 million hours of supercomputing time out of a total of 1.6 billion available at Argonne and Oak Ridge National Labs have been awarded to investigate materials for developing lithium-air batteries that would be capable of powering a car for 500 miles on a single charge.

Through the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment program, a research team including scientists from ANL, ORNL and IBM will use two of the world’s most powerful supercomputers to design new materials required for a lithium–air battery. Lithium-ion batteries, used in today’s emerging plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, currently have a maximum range of 40 to 100 miles before a recharge is necessary.

The calculations will be performed at both labs, which have two of the world’s top-ten fastest computers.

“Computation and supercomputing are critical to solving some of our greatest scientific challenges,” said DOE Secretary Chu. “This year’s INCITE awards reflect the enormous growth in demand for complex modeling and simulation capabilities, which are essential to improving our economic prosperity and global competitiveness.”

The INCITE program provides a collection of unique computational resources that enable scientists and engineers to conduct cutting-edge research in weeks or months rather than the years needed previously. The use of scientific modeling can accelerate scientific breakthroughs in areas such as climate change, alternative energy, life sciences, and materials science.

“Argonne is committed to developing lithium air technologies,” says Eric Isaacs, the lab’s director. “The obstacles to Li-air batteries becoming a viable technology are formidable, but the modeling and simulation capabilities of DOE’s supercomputers will help us accelerate the innovations required in materials science, chemistry and engineering.”

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This video, produced by the Science Channel with the assistance of Argonne National Lab, discusses some of the work being done to perfect closed-cycle “fast” nuclear reactors. Nearly all reactors used for energy production are based on a light-water reactor model that are inefficient (fuel rods must be replaced after only 5% of the uranium-235 has been used) and create wastes with very long half lives.

Instead of using water, fast reactors employ a coolant – typically liquid sodium – that doesn’t slow down neutrons. The resulting “fast” neutrons have less tendency to be captured by uranium atoms and be converted to plutonium or higher actinides.

ANL’s fast reactors treat spent reactor fuel not as waste but as a rich source of recycled energy. Because they permit the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, fast reactors can operate through what is known as the “closed fuel cycle,” which dramatically increases the efficiency of uranium use and minimizes the discharge of plutonium and minor actinides as waste. A closed fuel cycle could - at least theoretically - use 90 percent of the energy available in uranium.

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A chemist has created an ‘upcycling’ method of turning the disposable plastic bags into carbon nanotubes. The research is published in The Journal of Environmental Monitoring.

Vilas Ganpat Pol at Argonne National Lab developed the bag-to-nanotube technique and converts high or low-density polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE) into valuable multiwalled carbon nanotubes.

The nanotubes have even been used to make lithium-ion batteries.

Pol made the nanotubes by cooking 1-gram pieces of HDPE or LDPE at 700 C for 2 hours in the presence of a cobalt acetate catalyst and then letting the mixture cool gradually.

Above 600 C, the chemical bonds within the plastic completely break down and multiwalled carbon nanotubes grow on the surface of the catalytic particles.

A lot of catalyst is needed to get good results - about one-fifth of the weight of the plastic being converted - and it cannot easily be recovered afterward.

However, Pol said that this is still one of the cheapest and environmentally friendly ways yet found to grow nanotubes.

“Other methods generally require a vacuum to avoid oxygen interaction with the catalyst as well as with the system. In my new reaction there is no vacuum - the formation of oxide is inhibited due to the presence of a continuous reducing hydrocarbon atmosphere at 700 C,” he said.

Individual pieces of the catalyst become trapped inside forests of newly grown nanotubes. However, Pol has shown the nanotubes can be used as is without further processing to cut them free.

“I have used the as-prepared cobalt-encapsulated nanotubes as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries and they work fantastically. The specific capacity of my carbon nanotubes is higher than commercial nanotubes,” he said.

He thinks that might be down to slight imperfections in the usually-regular structure of the nanotubes, created by the reducing atmosphere during fabrication.

Pol said that the cobalt impurities also make the nanotubes suitable for use in lithium-air batteries, because the cobalt is converted to cobalt oxides that perform as catalysts to help the reactions of ions in the battery that let current flow.

He has patented the use of the cobalt-containing nanotubes in both lithium-ion and lithium-air batteries.

“The cobalt is not an impurity, it is an asset,” he said.

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In its final round of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-based awards, the DOE says it is going to provide money for science research projects at 10 federal labs and schools. For the record, this latest announcement brings the total amount of ARRA funding coming out of the DOE to $1.6 billion, all that Congress set aside for the agency under this bill. Of the $327 million, DOE is going to earmark about one-third to universities, nonprofit organizations and private firms, and the rest to DOE’s national labs. In particular, $164.7 million has already been set aside for the following projects:

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