Could you create a battery powered plane?

In summary, the conversation discusses the potential use of electrical powered planes instead of fossil fuels and the challenges that come with it, particularly with the limitations of current battery technology. Scientists are actively researching and trying to find more efficient and lighter batteries, but it is a difficult task due to the energy and power density differences between batteries and jet fuel. Despite the potential advantages of electric motors, the current state of battery technology is not enough to make up for the energy density differences.
  • #36
Thought I'd read that the 20-25% efficiency was the basic engine, but that the actual performance once the engine is harnessed to drag around a lump of metal under normal conditions with occupants is far less, on the order of 5%.
 
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  • #37
Appreciate we're getting off topic from electric planes, but this recent report from the International Energy Agency puts CO2 generation into a lifecycle perspective, which is probably more useful than engine energy efficiency.

Figure 6 from the report is for comparative life-cycle GHG emissions of a mid-size global average car by powertrain, based on various assumptions. It will be interesting to see how electric planes - if they ever take off (yes, pun intended) - compare to their av-gas equivalents.

Figure6.jpg
 
  • #38
etudiant said:
The offset to the CO2 generated during the battery recharge is that the overall internal combustion energy efficiency is abysmal, well under 10% for cars. That gives battery powered vehicles a huge leg up, even if the charging process is inefficient.

Unfortunately you couldn't be more wrong.

1kg of gasoline (or ahem, petrol) releases 2.3kg of CO2 and 45MJ of energy.
1kg of Aluminium in Al-air battery (excluding mass of oxygen) produces 29MJ (theoretical maximum) and the primary production of Aluminium from bauxite (ie Al2O3) produces 10.4kg of CO2 per kg of Al, no recycling included here because we are literally burning metal.

Then modern vehicles get reasonable effy, internet says 17-21, to make the math easy I'll take 20%. 1Kg of gasoline then produces 9MJ of usable mechanical power, and produces 2.3kg of CO2 to do that.

For Al-air electric, let's take drive train effy of 85% (this is battery losses, inverter losses, e machine losses and friction etc) so to get 9MJ of mech power you need ~360g of Al, and to reduce this 360g of Al from bauxite produces about 3.8kg of CO2.

So per usable MJ of (mechanical) power the Al-air battery produces about 2x the CO2.
 
  • #39
On the positive side: The CO2 is produced in a fixed place, making capturing and sequestration an option. Splitting the CO2 to carbon and oxygen again (using CO2-neutral energy sources) is an option as well. All these things are not possible with internal combustion engines in vehicles.
 
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  • #40
mfb said:
On the positive side: The CO2 is produced in a fixed place, making capturing and sequestration an option. Splitting the CO2 to carbon and oxygen again (using CO2-neutral energy sources) is an option as well. All these things are not possible with internal combustion engines in vehicles.

If the CO2 is split back to O2 and C, then I would agree.

However with sequestering, there is another insidious side effect there not considered, esp if there is large scale global roll out. If sequestering, this process takes oxygen, and carbon out of circulation.

At least with the biological Carbon cycle, its well, a cycle, where CO2 is constantly produced and consumed, ie the oxygen is released as part of the cycle and the same molecules basically just do the rounds repeatedly.

But with sequestering and metal air batteries, you take carbon and bauxite, produce aluminium and CO2, you bury the CO2 (ie its gone now), take the Al and oxidize it with new oxygen. Then you go back, take that oxide with some new carbon to get the Aluminium back and make new CO2, which you bury again.

Which now means every time that 1kg of aluminium does its loop, 10.4kg of CO2 disappears from circulation, ie since by mass CO2 is ~30% carbon and 70% oxygen, ie we're literally loosing 7kg ox oxygen and 3kg of carbon to use 1kg of aluminium to make a meager 29MJ.

Imagine the effect of reducing O2 concentration in the atmosphere, I doubt good things would be the result...

A lot of these things sound good till you zoom out a bit and consider other effects.

Then this really is just an energy storage mechanism, you somehow still have to supply energy to do this from somewhere.
 
  • #41
Because I like perspective, I went and roughly calculated how long it would take to consume half the atmospheric oxygen if 100% of todays global transportation energy was delivered with metal air batteries (~0.65TW), at that consumption rate it would take about 125k years to take half the oxygen out.

So maybe not such a big deal if the energy source is clean, at least not in the first thousand years or so!

(ref: dry mass of atmosphere 5.1e18kg, prop of O2 23% by weight, 309W av per person, 7.1B people, 28% total energy consumption (in US) is for transportation)
 
  • #42
essenmein said:
So maybe not such a big deal if the energy source is clean, at least not in the first thousand years or so!
I don't know what we will use in 1000 years, but I'm highly confident it won't be anything we use today.
The timescale gets even longer if you limit it to air travel. Cars can make more frequent recharging stops.
 
  • #43
russ_watters said:
Also, as far as I know, there's no such thing as an electric jet,

There is at least one, Lilium. It is a VTOL design that has undergone test flights - unmanned, I think only for the moment - and has a planned 300km range (and seems to have around a 300 km/h speed). The prototype is a two seater, which obviously is not very practical, so it will be interesting to see if they can scale up to bigger designs.
 
  • #44
Tghu Verd said:
There is at least one, Lilium.
Cool looking plane, but calling it a "jet" is just a fun-sounding fiction. It isn't.
 
  • #45
russ_watters said:
Cool looking plane, but calling it a "jet" is just a fun-sounding fiction. It isn't.

Yeah, many people have said that. And I wonder whether if we were to have this discussion in 50 years, anybody will be disputing Lilium's definition 😄

Still, if a jet requires an engine that burns fuel to produce thrust via the discharge of heated air and exhaust gases then we'll never have an electric 'jet'.

But there is one electric engine that I'm not sure has been mentioned, the ionic plane. I used this concept in my sci-fi novel, love the idea of a plane flying with its own lightning storm flickering over the wings!
 
  • #46
Tghu Verd said:
Yeah, many people have said that. And I wonder whether if we were to have this discussion in 50 years, anybody will be disputing Lilium's definition 😄
Certainly yes. It's not a jet, it's a ducted fan. They are very, very different things.
Still, if a jet requires an engine that burns fuel to produce thrust via the discharge of heated air and exhaust gases then we'll never have an electric 'jet'.
It doesn't. You could have an electrically heated Brayton cycle; it was proposed (not sure if tried) with nuclear power, for example (using the heat, not producing electricity).
 
  • #47
russ_watters said:
You could have an electrically heated Brayton cycle; it was proposed (not sure if tried) with nuclear power

Wow! Was that one of those crazy 50's ideas when nuclear was being proposed for trains and such? But would a Brayton cycle generate enough thrust? I don't know much about them.
 
  • #48
  • #49
  • #50
...let me expand on my issue with this:
Tghu Verd said:
There is at least one, Lilium. It is a VTOL design that has undergone test flights - unmanned, I think only for the moment - and has a planned 300km range (and seems to have around a 300 km/h speed).
As I said, this is powered by ducted fans, not jet engines. But does that matter? Well, maybe/maybe not. Using the term "jet" implies high speed - I'm not sure why else they would say it. But 300km/h is really slow for a jet - it's even relatively slow for a propeller plane.

Ok, so how about judging it for what it is? Well, it looks like it is intended to be a small, personal transportation vehicle - the proverbial flying car. Just looking at the prototype, while it looks cool, fan efficiency is a function of size: fewer bigger fans would be more efficient than more larger ones. But if they are ok with a very short range for a niche application - say, replacing a helicopter flight from the airport to your house or company <100 mi away, maybe that's ok.
 
  • #51
This puts life into an old idea of an electric jet engine :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_PropulsionIndirect Air Cycle
Indirect cycling involves thermal exchange outside of the core with compressor air being sent to a heat exchanger. The nuclear reactor core would heat up pressurized water or liquid metal and send it to the heat exchanger as well. That hot liquid would be cooled by the air; the air would be heated by the liquid and sent to the turbine. The turbine would send the air out the exhaust, providing thrust.
The Indirect Air Cycle program was assigned to Pratt & Whitney, at a facility near Middletown, Connecticut. This concept would have produced far less radioactive pollution. One or two loops of liquid metal would carry the heat from the reactor to the engine. This program involved a great deal of research and development of many light-weight systems suitable for use in aircraft, such as heat exchangers, liquid-metal turbopumps and radiators. The Indirect Cycle program never came anywhere near producing flight-ready hardware.[8]
 
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  • #53
Not exactly a pure electric airplane, but a hybrid combustion/electric aircraft... actually a retrofit of a 50 year old design.

From today's Wall Street Journal:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/electr...t-makeovers-in-race-for-the-skies-11563200318

that _may_ be behind a paywall... here are a few other articles on the same plane:

https://www.dw.com/en/ampaire-test-flies-worlds-biggest-electric-plane/a-49098126
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/ampaire-test-flies-worlds-biggest-electric-plane/ar-AACxoIr

https://www.aviationtoday.com/2019/06/06/ampaire-hybrid-electric-cessna-flight/
diogenesNY
 
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  • #54
The twin-engine plane will be able to carry seven to nine passengers and boasts a range of up to 100 miles (160 kilometers).
Can serve some remote places and island chains.
 
  • #55
diogenesNY said:
Not exactly a pure electric airplane, but a hybrid combustion/electric aircraft... actually a retrofit of a 50 year old design.

Good catch, @diogenesNY, I heard an interview with Ampaire CEO, Kevin Noertker, recently, and he noted that once cruising altitude was achieved, the energy requirements of fixed-wing flight lend themselves to electric motors. This forms the basis of their hybrid design, which complements a traditional engine, rather than trying to entirely replace it. It seems a reasonable bridging technology until (if?) batteries reach fossil fuel-like energy densities, though I not sure how it would work in a large passenger jetliner.
 
  • #56
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  • #57
etudiant said:
There is an effort currently in the UK to convert a small passenger commuter transport to electric power.
The aircraft flies an island hop route involving very short distances, so the range deficiency of electrics is less problematical.
A BBC report on the project is here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-45876604

This is a reasonable next step in this development effort.

Similar plans for short distance flights in Norway:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180814-norways-plan-for-a-fleet-of-electric-planes
 
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  • #58
"Plans" are easy when they don't involve/require plans.
 
  • #60
There is Solid State Battery technology currently developing and its main problem is the cost to manufacture. They've 2.5x higher energy density than li-on types.

But I, personally, don't see the electricity as the main power source of the world. Considering the current battery tech. flying a 70 tonnes of 737 requires tremendous amount of energy and if that much of energy is packed in a battery form it would weight too much compared to fossil fuel. Specific energy of gasoline is incomparable high compared to batteries.

Second problem with electric powered vehicles is electric motors have low operational life compared to IC or Jet engines. Their maintenance is easy and low cost but in terms of operational hours I think they would require frequent maintenance when they are used in an aircraft.
 
  • #61
mastermechanic said:
There is Solid State Battery technology currently developing and its main problem is the cost to manufacture. They've 2.5x higher energy density than li-on types.

But I, personally, don't see the electricity as the main power source of the world. Considering the current battery tech. flying a 70 tonnes of 737 requires tremendous amount of energy and if that much of energy is packed in a battery form it would weight too much compared to fossil fuel. Specific energy of gasoline is incomparable high compared to batteries.

Second problem with electric powered vehicles is electric motors have low operational life compared to IC or Jet engines. Their maintenance is easy and low cost but in terms of operational hours I think they would require frequent maintenance when they are used in an aircraft.

Agree with everything but the last point, as far as I know electric machines far outlast IC engines and I imagine turbines as well.

If kept within operational (temperature) limits I can't think of anything that would wear out in an emachine other than bearings. There are issues with demagnetization in PM machines if over driven, but this is not really a problem if limits are observed. Where are you getting this idea from?
 
  • #62
essenmein said:
Agree with everything but the last point, as far as I know electric machines far outlast IC engines and I imagine turbines as well.

If kept within operational (temperature) limits I can't think of anything that would wear out in an emachine other than bearings. There are issues with demagnetization in PM machines if over driven, but this is not really a problem if limits are observed. Where are you getting this idea from?

Uh, actually they're all sourced by my own experience. I observed that op-life on small DC engines. Small model aircraft DC motors have 1000 hr service life but typical aircraft engine have 15000 hr. Here you may say, "okay, wait, you're comparing a model engine dc motor and jet engine" but the point is I don't think life is not tightly linked to size so the proportion must be conserved.

The thing is you should not design an aircraft having just sufficient amount of power because in this case the engines must operate at full throttle all the time and that cause overheating, vibration etc. Then we must have much more power than needed, so while it's pretty hard to manufacture a electrical motor able to lift a Boeing 737, it's nearly impractical to manufacture a more powerful one.
 
  • #65
mastermechanic said:
Uh, actually they're all sourced by my own experience. I observed that op-life on small DC engines. Small model aircraft DC motors have 1000 hr service life but typical aircraft engine have 15000 hr. Here you may say, "okay, wait, you're comparing a model engine dc motor and jet engine" but the point is I don't think life is not tightly linked to size so the proportion must be conserved.

The thing is you should not design an aircraft having just sufficient amount of power because in this case the engines must operate at full throttle all the time and that cause overheating, vibration etc. Then we must have much more power than needed, so while it's pretty hard to manufacture a electrical motor able to lift a Boeing 737, it's nearly impractical to manufacture a more powerful one.

Using small brushed machines with bronze bushings to extrapolate life expectancy of a electric synchronous machine with no brushes and pressure lubricated bearings is a little disingenuous. Just like for IC engines, you can build them so they last a few hundred hours (eg F1 race motors) or last nearly for ever (eg lister diesels).

That Ohio electric link says "Assuming that the motor is being operated under normal conditions, sized correctly for the application and within the manufacturer’s design requirements, it can last 15 years or more. "

Basically, IMO, just like for any machine, there is nothing inherent in electric machines that say no more than 15 years, it depends on design and how its used.

Regarding contamination ingress, salt/moisture etc, this plays havoc on any mechanical thing, neither electric or IC are somehow immune to those effects.

The problem with electric planes is not the machines, its the energy source (battery) that, barring some momentous discovery, makes them impractical IMO.
 
  • #66
gleem said:
Not only is energy density an issue... but also charge rates so that a vehicle can get moving again in a reasonable amount of time.
That's no problem if you have multiple quick-swap battery packs.
 
  • #67
essenmein said:
Agree with everything but the last point, as far as I know electric machines far outlast IC engines and I imagine turbines as well.

If kept within operational (temperature) limits I can't think of anything that would wear out in an emachine other than bearings. There are issues with demagnetization in PM machines if over driven, but this is not really a problem if limits are observed. Where are you getting this idea from?
I agree that electric motors are likely to be reliable with a very long service life, but it's worth noting that turbines dramatically outperform piston engines when it comes to service life and maintenance interval (which is part of why they're popular on aircraft). They really only have 2-3 moving parts, and it's all radially symmetric and spinning smoothly rather than vibrating and oscillating all the time, so there's honestly not much to go wrong.
 
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  • #68
While conceptually simpler than piston engines fanjets are still subject to vibration and much care is required to reduce it to acceptable levels at these high rpm's. In addition they operate at high temperatures are subject to collision with intake debris so metal fatigue and damage are a concern as well as bearing wear. Although overhauls may be every 5000 hours for large engines this may cost millions of dollars per engine. https://www.avbuyer.com/articles/engines-biz-av/what-is-jet-engine-maintenance-112549

Electric motor have that conceptually simple construction and while temperature can be an issue they are protected from debris and metal fatigue. Bearings seem to be the biggest maintenance concern.
 
  • #69
The largest area for debris is the fan which should be very similar in both cases. If I remember correctly the fan is also a common cause of catastrophic engine failure - independent of the power source for the fan.
 
  • #70
I haven't reviewed all the posts on this thread, but here is a development that might be relevant. It is about an all-electric airplane being developed jointly by Harbour Air and MagniX.
 

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