Reducing Urban Air Pollution
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"Will that be a nickel metal hydride or nickel-zinc battery with your scooter, Sir?"
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Rechargeable battery manufacturers compete to replace the gas-powered scooter
Nickel magazine, Sep. 00 -- Battery-manufacturers are going head-to-head in a race to
produce environmentally friendly alternatives to gasoline-powered scooter engines, which are a major source
of air pollution in urban centres such as Rome, Delhi and Shanghai.
Both nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and nickel-zinc (Ni-Zn) rechargeable batteries have the potential to replace
the conventional two-stroke engine with a cleaner power supply.
For example, Michigan, U.S.A.-based Ovonic Battery Company has developed a NiMH battery pack with a storage capacity of one to two kilowatt-hours that can power an electric scooter for 100 to 150 kilometres on a single charge. The battery will last as long as the vehicle does. Ovonic is a subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices Inc.
Using a standard wall socket, Ovonic's NiMH battery can be recharged to more than 60% of its capacity within 15 minutes and to full capacity in two to three hours. The company's largest prototype scooter can cruise at a speed of more than 80 kilometres per hour.
"We hope to go into high-volume production of batteries and electric scooters in the near future, which will improve the quality of life for millions of people in many of the major urban centres of the world," says Greg Fritz, marketing programs manager for Ovonic.
In the first quarter of 1999, about 5,500 tonnes of nickel were used in Japan (the world's leading manufacturer of NiMH batteries) to make more than 190 million individual NiMH batteries, according to Heinz H. Pariser & Co.
Also tapping the market for cleaner vehicles is Connecticut, U.S.A.-based Evercel, which makes a 55 watt-hour-per-kilogram Ni-Zn battery. This unit has a distance range similar to the Ovonic battery.
Ni-Zn batteries have long been recognized for their good performance. Drumm made the first serious attempt to commercialize them in the 1920s, when the batteries provided power for train lighting and propulsion on Irish railways. However, further applications were limited by the battery's short life cycle.
Evercel says it has extended the life cycle with a new, patented technology. The Evercel Ni-Zn battery can be fully recharged in less than three hours, and recharged at least 500 times before losing the capacity to hold a charge. It has a power density of 500 watts per kilogram, high enough to handle the quick bursts of energy required by electric vehicles.
The Ni-Zn battery may also be more reliable than the NiMH battery at high temperatures, says William Baker, a spokesman for Evercel.
Photo: Ovonic Battery Company
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www.evercel.com www.ovonic.com/obc/scooter.html |
