Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

Supercaps wrote: Tue, 20 Mar 2018, 18:26 Start by reading the patent that was published yesterday.
That's not a patent. It's only a patent application.
Just to clarify a few things. The super capacitor in the picture is one of the range of super capacitors, not the one in the 3.55kWh unit.
They couldn't be much bigger than the one in the picture if there are 1200 of them in that 600 x 534 x 200 mm box.
The missing piece of the calculations is understanding of the technique used to extract almost all of the energy from the capacitors from 54VDC down to 44Vdc when in series without a series DC to DC converter. ... You can learn about this by reading the patent.
If you're claiming that the crazy scheme described in the patent application (where a 4500 amp pulse charge is followed by a rest and 1000 amp pulse discharge), actually causes the supercapacitors to store 10 to 45 times the energy they otherwise would, then you're claiming the known laws of physics are being violated.
The real test is at the terminals, which can easily be shown to deliver the energy stated.
No. That's not the real test. I have always said I expect it to have the claimed capacity. One way to tell whether there are lithium-ion battery cells in there, would be to remove a cell, take it apart, and have its cathode material chemically analysed. However simply plotting its rested-voltage versus energy (or charge) from 2.7 volts down to 0 volts, would probably be sufficient.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Johny »

@Supercaps reminds me of a person who poses a complicated riddle with a stupid know-it-all look on their face and the only reason they know the answer is that they were told.
If it's so amazing -and true - just spit it out.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Richo »

weber wrote: Sun, 25 Mar 2018, 14:38 One way to tell whether there are lithium-ion battery cells in there, would be to remove a cell, take it apart, and have its cathode material chemically analysed.
Mmmm I thought that at first but I believe that some of the supercaps do actually have similar materials.

So I'd just go with a cc discharge from Full to 0V.
Should be linear all the way.



So is anyone convinced yet?
I'm still wondering who is the scammer and who is the scammed.
So the short answer is NO but the long answer is YES.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Richo »

weber wrote: Sun, 25 Mar 2018, 14:38 However simply plotting its rested-voltage versus energy (or charge) from 2.7 volts down to 0 volts, would probably be sufficient.
Oh yeah what he said :lol:

Sorry :oops:
So the short answer is NO but the long answer is YES.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

I've finally cracked it! Finally figured out how the scam is done! You were right, Richo and Coulomb! They are lithium titanate (LTO) batteries. Here they are:

LTO1865battery.png
LTO1865battery.png (195.08 KiB) Viewed 9213 times

http://www.enjpower.com/productview_32.htm
https://www.ev-power.eu/LTO-technology/ ... .html#tab3
http://huahuienergy.manufacturer.global ... attery.htm

LTOs are perfectly acceptable lithium-ion cells. But Kilowatt Labs' and Arvio's claims of millions of cycles and a 45 year calendar-life are simply false. And their claims of operating at 85 degrees, being non-flammabile, and being non-toxic to the point of being compostable, are dangerously false. The patent application is nothing but a smoke-screen.

[Edit Note: I'm not claiming that Arvio are scammers, merely that they have been duped by Kilowatt Labs.]
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Adverse Effects »

LOL we wont see Supercaps in here again lol

well done guys
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

Just in case the video disappears from YouTube, here's the relevant image of the inside of Kilowatt Labs' so-called "Capacitor Module".

KilowattLabs.png
KilowattLabs.png (617.86 KiB) Viewed 9208 times
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Rusdy »

Hang on! Let say it is indeed LTO. At AUD 1.3 per kWh, isn't that a good bargain? That's even give me more confidence to buy the smaller pack (if it is indeed an LTO)!
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by jonescg »

They would have been better advertising it as an 'advanced lithium ion battery' in my opinion. At least it's not deliberately misleading...
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

Rusdy wrote: Tue, 27 Mar 2018, 08:41 Hang on! Let say it is indeed LTO. At AUD 1.3 per kWh, isn't that a good bargain? That's even give me more confidence to buy the smaller pack (if it is indeed an LTO)!
You mean AUD 1.3 per Wh.

You need to understand that all LTOs are not created equal. The lithium titanate is only the anode material. It replaces the carbon that is used in other kinds of lithium-ion batteries. So you also need to know what the cathode material is. The life of the battery will be determined by its shortest-lived component.

The cathode of a so-called LTO battery can be short-lived and cheap manganese oxide or the slightly longer-lived and slightly more expensive cobalt oxide, or it can be the longer-lived and more expensive blend of those two with nickel oxide. So there's really no such thing as an LTO battery. There is LTO/LMO, LTO/LCO and LTO/NMC, in increasing order of lifespan and cost.

Here's an even better match to the ones in the Kilowatt Labs device—a better colour match, and they don't have any words on them to indicate they are batteries!

SqLtoBatteries.png
SqLtoBatteries.png (168.46 KiB) Viewed 9165 times

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/ ... 12914.html
You can see that in 1000 qty they are USD 2.0 for a 3.12 Wh device. That's about AUD 0.85 per Wh.

If they were a bargain, why would they need to lie about what they are?
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by digsys »

Hi folks (Vic AEVA here)
They have a presentation here tomorrow, just up the road - Is it worth going? or is the horse beaten enough ?
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/home-ba ... f=efbevent
I already went to one last week on Sodium nickel chloride batteries .. MEH .. again, lots of missing / misleading info
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Rusdy »

weber wrote: Tue, 27 Mar 2018, 10:53 You mean AUD 1.3 per Wh.
Whoops :oops:

weber wrote: Tue, 27 Mar 2018, 10:53 You can see that in 1000 qty they are USD 2.0 for a 3.12 Wh device. That's about AUD 0.85 per Wh.

If they were a bargain, why would they need to lie about what they are?
Touche!!
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

Paul Wilson (@Supercaps) I'm still willing to allow, as I did earlier, that you yourself have been duped by Kilowatt Labs. If you understand that now, you could salvage some credibility by coming out and saying so. If you're still not convinced, then you need to remove one of those cells, and let someone who knows what they are doing, plot its voltage against time, on charge and discharge, between 1.5 V and 2.8 V, at a constant 1.3 amps (1C). It was clever of Kilowatt Labs to limit the voltage range to 2.2 V to 2.7 V as LTOs are fairly linear in that range, particularly when charged and discharged at 2C or more.

Either way, you need to stop marketing this product as a "capacitor module" and making misleading claims about its safety and longevity.

I note that for an LTO battery, the temperature required to produce thermal runaway, and the rate of heat generation when it occurs, give it about the same fire danger as an LFP battery, which is significantly lower than for other lithium chemistries, but not negligible. And LTO batteries use exactly the same electrolyte as every other lithium battery, consisting of the same toxic lithium hexafluorophosphate LiPF₆ dissolved in the same highly flammable organic solvents.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Richo »

weber wrote: Mon, 26 Mar 2018, 22:34 I've finally cracked it!
...here's the relevant image of the inside of Kilowatt Labs' so-called "Capacitor Module".
Are you sure?
All you seem to show us are links to cylindrical PCB mount batteries.

Not to be a skeptic on the dark side of the fence.
But the video only shows unlabelled cylinders.
They can be caps or batteries or a mix of both.
The graph that is moved around doesn't show much either.
If anything it shows they are caps given the discharge curve is linear.
And a graph can be faked without any testing.

To be fair that info is about as good as what supercaps has fed us.

Nice try tho.
So the short answer is NO but the long answer is YES.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

Richo. I suspect you're just trolling, but I'll bite:

Of course I'm not 100.000% sure. I'm a scientist. And of course a few of them could be actual supercaps, but their contribution would be utterly negligible. In fact if 1 in 20 of them was a supercap it might explain the weird figure of 3550 kWh, given that the LTO cells are 3.12 Wh.
3.12 Wh × 1200 × 19/20 = 3557 Wh.

The only reason any such supercaps would be there, would be so that they can fall back to saying:
"We only said it was supercapacitor-based. See. There are supercapacitors in there. Those lithium cells are only there as a charge retention circuit, to reduce charge leakage in the capacitors." :lol:

So we have my hypothesis, which fits all the known facts. And we have Kilowatt Labs claim, which either (a) violates the known laws of physics or (b) requires a completely unheralded breakthrough that increased capacitor energy density by a factor of 45 overnight. I know which one I'm betting on. And I think all our readers know which one requires the extraordinary evidence. :lol:
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

BTW, if the device removed for testing happens to be a supercap, I predict that it will have a capacitance of only about 100 F to 200 F, because that's what's readily available in an 18650 size at reasonable cost. This will be revealed by the fact that it takes only about 100 to 200 seconds to charge (linearly) from 1.5 V to 2.8 V at 1.3 amps.

If the device happens to be an LTO cell it will be revealed as such by having a decidedly non-linear voltage curve, being steeper below 2.2 V and above 2.7 V. And if it has a capacity of about 1.3 Ah it will of course take about an hour to get from 1.5 V to 2.8 V at 1.3 amps.
Example 1C charge and discharge curves can be found here:
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?sect ... id=1325358
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

I've posted some more explanations in the parallel thread on the DIY Electric Car forum.
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/sh ... post977537
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Supercaps »

Hi all. It’s interesting to hear all the view points. I appreciate that many people consider themselves experts, I respect that. In answer to the theory that due to the similar heat shrink found on the internet which was used on an LTO cell which looks like our super cap ... no it’s not an LTO cell. There are many chemical cell types and capacitors that use heatshrink.

LTO is a chemical battery containing lithium ion for energy storage, our super capacitors are graphene based with a fully absorbed electrolyte in the graphene. here are the main differences.

1- the capacitors we are using have the energy delivery in terms of kWh not in AH while LTO is in Ah

2- The temperature of operation is different between capacitors and LTO. Super caps are ok up to 85degC. This would kill an LTO cell.

3- The C rate is different, an LTO cannot charge in 30 seconds, a super capacitor can

4- Energy Density is different

5- The voltage curve looks like it’s the same but actually its not due to the different balancing techniques and its obvious the voltage differences between each cell

6- Super capacitor we are using have a lot of graphene while LTO is usually a cobalt based chemical battery which makes it too expensive as well. The trade price of the entire super cap 3.55kWh usable module is AUD$1/Wh. This includes 1200 cells, a motorised circuit breaker, Ethernet comms, heavy duty conductors, electronics and thick circuit boards etc. It’s a working product not just a box of cells.

7- Life of an LTO depend on the depth of discharge, the super capacitors don’t care

8- Round trip efficiency is not 99% like the super caps, for an LTO its 90% in actual

9- The life of LTO is usually limited to 2000 to 6000 Cycles comparing to extremely high life of super capacitors

10- LTO cannot be placed in series for high voltage application

11- LTO internal resistance is better than super capacitors because of the electrolyte

12-LTO speed of charge is lower than speed of discharge. Super capacitors can charge and discharge at the same high rates

13-LTO have a limited number of high speed charge during the life

14-LTO has an obvious degrade in capacity with high speed charge and discharge. Super caps do not degrade this way.

15-LTO cannot he charged at constant energy rate to full, like other chemical batteries it must undergo equalisation. The super caps can be charged at full power to full capacity. This has been shown already in SOC graphs.

16. LTO is a flammable cell, super caps only burn if exposed to a high temp flame source then self extinguish if removed from the flame. This makes them much safer in volume.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

Hi Paul. Among many which are false, you've described a few real differences. However, unless you actually demonstrate that your cells can do those things that LTOs can't do, I hope you will understand if people don't simply take your word for it that there has been a 45-fold improvement in supercap energy density overnight, when LTOs are a far simpler explanation.

I look forward to seeing you:

1. Operating your cells at 85degC for a week or so.

2. Fully charging and discharging your cells in 30 seconds.

3. Showing the charge and discharge voltage/time curves between 1.5 V and 2.8 V per cell at 1C.

4. Igniting one of your cells in a high temp flame source then showing how it self extinguishes when removed from the flame.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by rhills »

I've been watching this debate with interest; much of the detail, from much cleverer brains than mine, is over my head.

However, this one caught my eye...
Supercaps wrote: Tue, 27 Mar 2018, 19:051- the capacitors we are using have the energy delivery in terms of kWh not in AH while LTO is in Ah
Admittedly I did secondary school Physics back in the 1970's so maybe things have changed since then, but I learned that
1 Watt-hour = 1 Amp-hour x 1 Volt

So, when you say that your capacitors "have the energy delivery in terms of kWh not in Ah while LTO is in Ah", are you saying that LTO batteries deliver their current without any voltage? That sounds pretty amazing!

As I understand it, a typical LTO cell has a capacity of around 3 Wh which would make it 0.003 kWh. Now that's not a lot, but it can still be measured in kWh so I'm not sure how that differentiates your capacitors from LTO batteries.

Looking forward to the results of independent testing.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Supercaps »

Hi Weber (Dave?) thanks for asking for these tests. I’m just in the middle of making some test reports this week. Actually I thought the fire test would be a good one so I did this last night already to put the idea to rest that we use LTO chemical battery cells instead of super capacitors. This also demonstrate the risk of lithium ion chemical battery cells in homes. I hope you make the time to come to the Smart Energy conference in Sydney in April 2018. We’ll have lots of test gear there for experts to enjoy.
https://youtu.be/Z7jjMq5UE9A
Also Karl Young makes an interesting point about super capacitor energy density here:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-highe ... rcapacitor
Other labs apart from Kilowatt Labs were reporting 100Wh/kg over 6 months ago.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/08/s ... s.html/amp
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by Supercaps »

Hi Jones, Weber and Richo, may I have permission to use your posts in my public speaking events coming up? It’s great that you have raised such valid concerns as it helps us explain the technology better. If so please let me know your real names so I can credit your comments. Some of the comments in this thread have been harsh I know, so no hard feelings from me as I’m sure your intentions are pure. I try to look at the core of the comments and have always tried to respond constructively.
Please let me know ASAP as we’re getting the talks together now.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by weber »

That fire test certainly proved that your cells are not lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) cells in steel cases. But we already knew that. I look forward to the video where you do the same thing to a known LTO cell in an aluminium case.

Here's a video comparing LCO and LTO cells in steel cases (which allow the pressure to build much higher before venting the flammable vapour). Unfortunately they don't take away the external flame, but we can still see how mild the LTO fire is in comparison to the LCO.



And here we see an LTO pouch cell being crushed. It only heats up to 99 °C.

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Post by weber »

Yes Paul, my real name is Dave Keenan, as you can plainly see beside every one of my posts. Just as you can see that I'm in Brisbane, and so not likely to turn up at one of your talks or shows. And no, you may not take my posts out of context and use them in your talks. But I hope you will direct people to this thread. Regards, Dave.
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Re: Arvio 3.5kWh drop-in-battery-replacement supercapacitor on sale

Post by jonescg »

Hi Paul, by all means raise the concerns posted here to prompt good discussion, but as I live in WA I won't be able to attend your talks to offer a right of reply. I hope others can learn about function of this new product, but only if you promise to play Taylor Swift's 'Haters gonna hate' in the background 😅.
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