The Atraverda Bipolar VRLA (yes, lead-acid) Battery

[teddillard]

I've been hearing stuff lately about lead developments, and had a tough time finding any information that was at all up to date, until this morning. Sorry to post a shameless link to my blog, but what I found, with some links and details, is here: http://evmc2.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/the-atraverda-bipolar-vrla-yes-lead-acid-battery/ , that Altaverda has a ceramic powder material being used for anodes for various applications, and that it allows a more efficient, lighter battery, and with a manufacturing process that's easy to adapt from current lead-acid processes.

Here's a link to their technical explanation page: http://www.atraverda.com/index.php?q=technology/bipolar-vrla-technology

I figure if there's anywhere on the internets where people know anything about this company, it'd be here. Anybody got an inside scoop?

I think... think there's going to be some announcement coming out real soon about lead-acid breakthroughs - hopefully it's not just rumors. If so, I'll update.

 

[olaf-lampe]

Isn't the ceramic powder for building a separator between the lead-blocks?
I know from guys here in netherlands who developed a lead battery with halve the amount of lead for the same capacity. They also call it bipolar... BILAPS iirc
-Olaf

 

[teddillard]

Yes, I'm pretty sure it is. (My comment above re/the anode was a different product). I'm really pretty much in the dark about the details of the construction, it's way above my payscale.

The company in the Netherlands you mention, it looks like they're pretty much R/D, and don't have a product line out there... do you think that's the case? I couldn't find much on them. Got this .pdf, I'm going to have a nice cuppa and read it. (edit: Seems the project is a little long in the tooth- 2003, without any conclusive results.)
http://tinyurl.com/4gj4wxd

Funny, Microsoft also has a battery they call "bi-polar"- didn't really look into it much, but apparently it's to keep from smoking stuff when you put batteries into a device backwards.

 

[jumpjack]

Are now Atraverda “SuperLead” batteries commercialized? At which price?
They quite have same Wh/kg of a thundersky LiFePO4 battery (up to 80 Wh/kg according to a chart I've seen somewhere), which cost around 0,40$/Wh. Traditional VRLA cost around 0,15 Wh/Kg.