DHS gives batteries a jolt
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At the heart of the solution is technology from Flexel, a Maryland-based company that had developed battery technology for the "Smart Dust" program — a National Security Agency (NSA) initiative designed to enable the use of very small electronic sensors, according to Flexel CEO Bob Proctor.
"The problem with making a very small electronic sensor is the power supply," Proctor said. "The two professors that founded the company started looking at alternative battery technology, because the battery became 'the problem.' For those types of small electronic circuits — think about the size of a dime — you need a thin-filmed power supply."
In seeking a solution, Flexel conducted research using ruthenium, a precious metal with attractive electrochemical properties that normally was deemed too expensive — about $100 per ounce — to be used in batteries, Proctor said. However, the Flexel team made an important discovery: simply spreading a thin layer of ruthenium on a surface produced the desired results.
"The reaction that ruthenium undergoes as part of the electrochemical process is a surface reaction," Proctor said. "So, if you think of a particle of this material, anything that's core inside the material is wasted — it's unnecessary.
"The insight was, 'If I can make a surface that's only an atomic layer or two of this material, it offers a lot of potential as a battery material, because now the cost becomes something that's very reasonable.' I'm only using micrograms of the material, so it becomes a cost-effective power supply."
Flexel also discovered that it was "just as easy" to make large printed sheets of the thin-battery material as it was to make the small, dime-sized sheets needed for the NSA project, Proctor said. In working with the DHS S&T, Flexel researchers found that ruthenium could be used as a catalyst in a disposable battery "with performance that was far better than we even projected in our original application," or as an active material in a rechargeable battery, Proctor said.
"So, it really depends on the application, but we can essentially modify the system for a rechargeable application or a disposable application," Proctor said. "In the disposable-application world, because of this catalyst action, the cost becomes very inexpensive relative to the capacity of the battery. It's pretty darned exciting, actually."
The big question is how much
The big question is how much heat will the batteries produce and tolerate in various scenarios? We have seen HT, cell phone and flashlight batteries overheat, burn and even explode. If a firefighter’s PPE shorts out, starts smoking or explodes when exposed to extreme heat one can’t exactly drop it. There is also the question of consumption Vs. readiness. One can replace AA batteries between shifts or assignments, but how does one have faith in the value of the charge left within sewn in batteries? At the least one would need a meter to check voltage and values plus report PPE fitness to a Safety Officer on a regular basis. And above all, should one find their PPE battery low, how easy will it be to immediately swap out dead PPE for new during an active incident? What if stores is or runs out of various sizes? Then there is the issue of approved agency and personnel ID/markings that must be transferred from dead PPE to new. BTW, have they found a way to vapor seal the batteries against setting of a gas or dust explosion? Needless to say, UL, NFPA and ASTM are going to have a ball throwing every test imaginable at these puppies!