Material Empire

Qin Hai noticed Zhang Daiwei's expression, but he just smiled and didn't explain anything for Ka'an. Qin Hai's favorite thing to do is to play tricks. He believed that after watching the whole experiment, Zhang Daiwei would know how wrong he was.

In a blink of an eye, the experiment had been going on for 5 minutes, and it was time for Zhang Daiwei to think that the battery was about to run out. However, the speed of the electric fan did not slow down at all, and it was still roaring strongly. Zhang Daiwei nodded. With such a power output capability, coupled with the power not inferior to ordinary nickel-cadmium batteries, it is suitable for the use of electric vehicles. No wonder Qin Hai specially asked him to come and visit.

6 minutes passed, and the fan was still running at high speed...

7 minutes...

8 minutes……

Zhang Daiwei's eyes were a little straight, no way, the power stored in this small box is so huge. According to this calculation, the volume of the battery box of the electric vehicle can be reduced by half, and the weight will be reduced in the same proportion, which means that the electric vehicle can have more space for riding, which is the key competitiveness of electric vehicles.

One of the disadvantages of electric vehicles is that the batteries take up too much weight. If the number of batteries is reduced, the cruising range of electric vehicles will be greatly reduced. Common battery vehicles in later generations generally have a cruising range of more than 300 kilometers, for which a battery of more than 500 kilograms needs to be installed. Although the engine and gearbox of electric vehicles are lighter than those of fuel vehicles, they cannot offset the weight of batteries at all. What engineers are striving for is to increase the specific energy of the battery, that is, the amount of electricity stored per kilogram of weight, thereby reducing the overall weight of the battery in the car. Judging from this experiment, the specific energy of the battery in front of me is also surprising.

10 minutes……

11 minutes...

12 minutes and 17 seconds!

The red indicator light on the battery box suddenly went out, the inverter made a "click", cut off the power supply, the electric fan was cut off, the fan blade continued to rotate with inertia, gradually slowed down, and finally stopped down.

Without waiting for the blades of the fan to stop, Zhang Daiwei clapped his hands, and with a joyful smile on his face, he said to Ka'an: "Mr. Ka'an, this battery is very good. The best battery ever! With such a battery, our new energy vehicles will have real practicality."

"Mr. Zhang, don't worry, the experiment is not over yet." Qin Hai interrupted Zhang Daiwei with a smile.

"It's not over yet?" Zhang Daiwei asked in surprise, isn't this perfect enough?

An assistant disconnected the cable from the battery box to the inverter, then pulled another power cord, plugged one end into the battery box and the other end into a wall outlet. Zhang Daiwei could tell that the other party was charging the battery, and it was estimated that they were going to do the next set of experiments after it was fully charged.

"While charging, Mr. Ka'an, please introduce this new type of battery to me." Zhang Daiwei looked at Ka'an and said. According to his experience, the charging time of the battery is very long, even with the so-called "fast charging", it takes at least half an hour, which is still for this small battery. If it is the 500 kg battery used in the car, it would be a miracle to fill it up in six or seven hours.

This time it was Kaan's turn to shrug his shoulders. He shook his head and said, "Let's talk about it after watching the experiment. I'm afraid I won't be able to explain things clearly within two minutes."

"What, two minutes?" Zhang Daiwei was taken aback.

Before he could react, Kaan's assistant had already unplugged the battery's power cord, and the total charging time was less than a minute. The two assistants reconnected the battery box to the inverter as before, and when they pressed the switch, the electric fan started whirring again.

"This, this, this..." Zhang Daiwei only felt that the blood all over his body was rushing to his head, which made him feel dizzy. He managed to control his excitement, pointed to the battery box and asked Qin Hai: "Is this what you said, the super capacitor!"

"Exactly." Qin Hai had expected Zhang Daiwei's performance a long time ago. It can be said that no one knows the value of supercapacitors better than Zhang Daiwei. ecstatic.

I just said that one of the disadvantages of electric vehicles is that the battery is too heavy, and its biggest disadvantage, which is the so-called "no one", is that the battery charging time of electric vehicles is too long, making it impossible to charge the batteries like fuel vehicles. Replenish energy at any time.

A fuel car can drive 500 to 700 kilometers on a full tank of fuel, and then just find a gas station, fill up the fuel tank in a few minutes, and move on. An electric car can only drive 300 kilometers after a full charge, and then it takes five or six hours to fully charge. As a result, the electric car can only be used for short-distance driving, driving 300 kilometers in a day, and then spending an evening charging. This limitation is fatal for electric vehicles, which greatly limits the market for electric vehicles. For ordinary families, who would buy a car that can't run long distances?

There are two types of energy storage devices for electric vehicles, one is a rechargeable battery, and the other is a supercapacitor with a capacity far exceeding that of an ordinary capacitor. The advantage of capacitors is that the charging and discharging speeds are very fast. In theory, it can even reach the level of instant charging and instant release. At present, the premise is that the external circuit will not be burned out. The feature of fast charging can solve the problem of charging speed, while the feature of fast discharging meets the requirements of power output.

Only now did Zhang Daiwei understand why Kaan dared to say with confidence that the power output can be increased by 10 times. If the load capacity of the inverter and the heating of the wires are not considered, it is easy to increase the output power of the supercapacitor by 100 times. things.

A few years ago, Qin Hai once mentioned the idea of ​​supercapacitors to Zhang Daiwei, but Zhang Daiwei only took a dubious attitude towards it, and quickly put it to the back of his mind. There is no other reason, that is, the rechargeable battery already has sufficient technical reserves, but the supercapacitor is still in the stage of laboratory verification. Manufacturers of new energy vehicles around the world are working on improving the existing rechargeable batteries. Even if some manufacturers propose the concept of supercapacitor vehicles, it is limited to a long-term expectation.

Who would have thought that Qin Hai would solve the problem of the supercapacitor without making a sound, and the specific energy, power output capability, and charging speed of the capacitor had all reached an almost perfect level. How could this not drive Zhang Daiwei crazy.

"Mr. Ka'an is an expert of the Brazilian Aeronautical Technology Institute. He has made outstanding achievements in superconductivity and supercapacitors. This time, our School of Materials specially hired Mr. Kaan as the chief expert of the supercapacitor laboratory. In the battery box in front of us, there is The graphene supercapacitor newly developed by Mr. Ka'an." Qin Hai introduced to Zhang Daiwei.

The conceptual design of supercapacitors has a long history, but the research progress is very slow. One of the key factors is the restriction of electrode materials. The principle of capacitance, simply put, is to use some medium to separate two electrodes, and the two electrodes store positive and negative charges respectively, so as to achieve the effect of electricity storage. To expand the capacity of the capacitor, one is to increase the power storage capacity per unit area of ​​the electrode, and the other is to put a larger electrode in a limited space. For this reason, it is necessary to find better electrode materials.

The discovery of graphene opened a door to the research of supercapacitors. Graphene has a single-layer atomic structure and is the thinnest material in the world, so in a capacitor with a certain volume, it can accommodate the graphene electrode with the largest area. At the same time, the planar lamellar structure of graphene is conducive to the infiltration of electrolyte and the adsorption and desorption of ions, thereby improving the energy storage density of capacitors. In Sao Paulo, as soon as Kaan heard Qin Hai's introduction of graphene, he knew that it was the most ideal capacitor electrode material, so he went to Qin Hai without hesitation.

Qin Hai didn't need to explain these situations to Zhang Daiwei in detail, as he specialized in technology, Zhang Daiwei might not be able to understand professional knowledge like graphene. However, supercapacitors are right in front of Zhang Daiwei. Zhang Daiwei is clear about the significant impact this technology will have on the development of new energy vehicles.

"Can this kind of capacitor be mass-produced now?" Zhang Daiwei brought over the battery box containing the super capacitor, flipped through it fondly, and asked Qin Hai and Ka'an at the same time.

Ka'an said with some regret: "I feel that this kind of capacitor has not yet reached the ideal level I hoped for, so I don't agree to put it into mass production. However, Mr. Qin believes that now is the time for mass production."

Qin Hai smiled and said: "Mr. Ka'an, I did not stop you from optimizing the supercapacitor at all. We all look forward to your coming up with a better supercapacitor. However, Mr. Zhang can't wait now. If we don't We will not be able to see the prototypes of new energy vehicles in July next year without the mass production of supercapacitors."

"The two things don't conflict." Zhang Daiwei said quickly, "We can launch the first generation of super capacitors first, and after Mr. Ka'an comes up with better technology, we will launch the second and third generations. There has never been a direct one-step process in building a car. , Foreign experience is that new and improved models are launched every three months, and the renewal of capacitors can be regarded as a major change, and it is not too much to change a generation every year.”

"We are conducting a comprehensive test of supercapacitors, and Mr. Zhang also needs to cooperate with us to carry out some tests. Our Daqin Group's supercapacitor production line has already started construction half a year ago, and mass production can be achieved in two months at the latest. The first The batch production capacity is 4 million pieces per month." Qin Hai introduced to Zhang Daiwei.

"A car needs 4,000 capacitors, and 4 million capacitors can meet the needs of 1,000 cars, so our annual output is 12,000... At present, it is enough." Zhang Daiwei said.

"Annual production of 12,000 vehicles? Too little." Qin Hai said dissatisfied, "Don't worry, I will start the construction of the second production line immediately, and expand the production capacity by more than 10 times within half a year."