New York Times: Neue Silber-Zink Batterien für Laptops und Handys - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[Bre-X]

December 2, 2008, 2:05 pm
Battery Maker Bets on Silver-Zinc for Laptops
By Jared Flesher
CNet interviews ZPower chief executive Ross Deuber
As batteries go, the rechargeable lithium-ion variety is among the greenest options available. They can last for years, they are recyclable, and they don’t contain the toxic heavy metals found in many of their Walkman-powering predecessors.

Your iPod has a lithium-ion, and most likely, so does your laptop computer.

Now, ZPower, a company based in Camarillo, Calif., is developing a new kind of battery for consumer electronics that it says will be more powerful than lithium-ion, safer, and potentially more earth-friendly as well.

The technology ZPower is banking on is called silver-zinc, which it says will provide up to 40 percent more power than a lithium-ion battery of the same size.

Ross Dueber, the company’s chief executive, says a top-tier laptop manufacturer will release the first computer designed to accept silver-zinc batteries in mid-2009. The laptop’s runtime with silver-zinc will increase from the roughly 5 hours afforded by a typical lithium-ion battery to at least 7 hours, according to Mr. Dueber.

Financial backers of ZPower include Intel, the computer industry giant, and OnPoint Technologies, a venture capital fund of the United States Army.

Silver-zinc battery technology isn’t actually new – it’s been used before by the military and in aerospace programs – but ZPower would be the first to make a silver-zinc battery that’s rechargeable.

Perfecting that battery for the masses, however, has proved a challenge. The company has delayed its product’s announced release several times, most recently missing a target of August 2008.

When the battery does go public, Mr. Dueber predicts silver-zinc’s first customers will likely be “the road warriors” – people who spend a lot of time away from the office and need a battery that will last as long as possible.

Be prepared to pay for that longevity. Silver is relatively expensive and silver-zinc batteries will cost more than their lithium-ion counterparts. Mr. Dueber wouldn’t say how much, but he expects laptop manufacturers will charge a “modest premium.”

In addition to more juice, ZPower has also been promoting silver-zinc as safe and green.

On the safety front, one drawback of lithium-ion technology is that every once in a while a battery explodes or catches fire. Mr. Dueber said silver-zinc doesn’t have this problem.

“Lithium-ion uses a very flammable liquid inside as the electrolyte,” he said. “We, on the other hand, use water.”

In terms of the environment, ZPower has been touting its silver-zinc battery as 95 percent recyclable by weight and containing no heavy metals or toxic chemicals. Still, silver is regulated as hazardous waste by the Environmental Protection Agency and can be harmful to aquatic life. So ZPower’s claim to greenness may depend largely on whether it can successfully entice customers to recycle.

Mr. Dueber says his company’s strategy will be to offer monetary incentives to customers who mail back batteries after they are depleted — which is usually after at least 18 months of operation. ZPower will then reclaim and reuse the valuable silver and other metals. The rebate for customers who recycle a battery will likely be in the “tens of dollars,” according to Mr. Dueber.

Although ZPower’s recycling plan may largely be a financial calculation, it could also add up to environmental benefits in terms of sustainability.

“In the case of our silver-zinc battery, we actually will reuse the components in future batteries,” Mr. Dueber said. “So we create a kind of closed cycle where we only have to mine the material once, and then we just keep on reusing it.”

Casey Harrell, a Greenpeace spokesman on toxics and electronics, said it would be something of an environmental feat if ZPower could deliver on its recyclabilty claims and establish such a closed resource-use loop.

ZPower says its batteries don’t explode. (Image: ZPower)“If ZPower follows through and does the materials recycling, that would be a significant improvement, because that’s not currently what happens if you recycle a lithium-ion battery in the United States,” Mr. Harrell said.

The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation — a collective formed by battery makers to promote the recycling of lithium-ion and other batteries in this country — claims that none of the batteries it collects end up in landfills.

That’s accurate, according to Al Hardies, a spokesman for Inmetco, the company in Ellwood City, Pa., that actually recycles the batteries for the R.B.R.C. But that’s not the same thing as saying all the materials in the battery are actually reused to make new batteries.

Mr. Hardies said the value of a recycled lithium-ion battery arises from its cobalt content, so the batteries are sent to smelters that can reclaim the cobalt. The rest of the battery, including the lithium and plastic, is burned up in the smelting process as fuel. Whether that part of the process qualifies as a form of recycling is a question of semantics.

“They’ll often call the incinerating ‘recycling’ in that circumstance because it’s used for heat,” Mr. Harrell of Greenpeace said. “That’s what we would call downcycling. Clearly, there are lots of things we can use for sources of heat, and we don’t need batteries or even battery waste to be used as fuel.”

Mr. Harrell said ZPower’s own recycling and reuse plan might not be easy to pull off. He notes that Nokia, a leader in terms of making it easy for consumers to recycle used cellphones, reports a global recycling success rate of only 3 percent. And, he says, many of the consumers he interacts with still have no idea that it’s even possible to recycle electronics.

“It will be interesting to see the implementation of ZPower’s take-back approach,” Mr. Harrell said. “It will be interesting to see how much money they will actually have to offer. And it’s not just the money, it’s the marketing. It’s going to be way more difficult than they imagine in terms of getting it right.”

Mr. Dueber, in contrast, points to the success in the United States of recycling lead-acid car batteries. The E.P.A. estimates that about 90 percent of lead-acid vehicle batteries are recycled. Other studies, including one commissioned by the Battery Council International, a trade group, have found the rate to be even higher.


Original Artikel: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/battery-maker-i…

website von ZPower: www.zpowerbattery.com

[sleupendriewer]

hört sich "teuer" an