Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, October 23, 2006 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Joel Schindall

"Replacing Batteries Forever"

ABSTRACT -- A breakthrough technology is holding forth the promise of charging electronic gadgets in minutes, never having to replace a battery again, and dropping the cost improving the performance of regenerative energy storage systems such as hybrid cars -- or satellites! Indeed Compared to today's hybrid cars, the technology has the potential to provide an energy storage device with equivalent energy storage, ten times the power, a recharge time of only several minutes, and a lifetime longer than more powerful than even the latest batteries in hybrid cars -- while outliving the vehicle itself. The answer is, ultracapacitors. The new technology improves ultracapacitors by swapping in carbon nanotubes, thereby greatly increasing the surface area of electrodes and the ability to store energy. Nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors could allow laptops and cell phones to be charged in less than a minute. And unlike laptop batteries, which start losing their ability to hold a charge after a year or two, they could still be going strong long after the device is obsolete. Theoretically, there's no process that would cause the ultracapacitor to need to be replaced. Applied to a spacecraft, battery degradation would no longer be an issue. This talk will discuss the technology, challenges, applications, and timeframe for which such nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors might be available.

SPEAKER -- Dr. Joel Schindall is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and is the Associate Director of the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Professor Schindall re-joined the MIT faculty in June of 2002 after a 35 year career in the defense, aerospace and telecommunications industries. His research includes the invention and development of a nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitor which holds the promise of being superior to electrochemical batteries as a means of efficient regenerative electrical energy storage. He is also supervising research on high efficiency thermophotovoltaic electrical power generation using nano-etched photonic emitter surface coatings, and on dynamic simulation and reliability analysis of complex safety-critical systems. Prior to joining MIT, Dr. Schindall was VP and Chief Technology Officer of Loral Space and Communications, and Sr. VP and Chief Engineer for Globalstar, a 48 satellite LEO mobile phone system). Dr. Schindall received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1963, 1964 and 1967.