News: Electric car running with salt water

alx21

alx21

Legacy Member
The Quant is, essentially, a very high-spec electric car. It's using a motor per wheel to give it AWD with torque vectoring, and each of those motors makes 227 HP, giving a theoretical total of 908 HP.

The peak torque numbers are allowed to remain absolutely bonkers, at 2138 lb-ft PER WHEEL. Which means 8,552 lb-ft total.

These numbers are impressive, but the part of this car that could actually prove genuinely important is the use of what's called a flow battery. Flow batteries, specifically the redox-type, were patented by NASA in 1976.

More specifically, the Quant uses a nano-network flow battery, which is why the company is called nanoFLOWCELL.

This type of flow battery uses a

... lithium-sulfur chemistry arranged in a network of nanoparticles. The network eliminates the requirement that charge moves in and out of particles that are in direct contact with a conducting plate. Instead, the nanoparticle network allows electricity to flow throughout the liquid. This allows more energy to be extracted.

The energy density of the battery is enough that the Quant is claimed to have a range of 200-300 miles or so. And, perhaps even better than range, unlike traditional chemical batteries, to recharge the battery, you only need to replenish the electrolyte, which, in this case, is just salt water. The size of the electrolyte tanks affects the overall range, and refilling them should be a quick and easy process akin to fueling up a conventional gasoline car.
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Full article here: http://jalopnik.com/supercar-that-runs-on-salt-water-approved-for-use-on-eu-1635321784


At the Geneva autoshow, so it technically exists...
Nano-Flowcell-Quant-03-2014-fotoshowImage-d4f3637f-760885.jpg
 
I don't want to borrow from Illuminance too much, but water fueled cars have been known to work for at least 20 years, except back then if you tried to put one on the market you just died.

Google Stanley Meyer and raise an eyebrow.
 
the engineering team will die in a plane crash on their way to somewhere.

fuken hate humans
we have all this shit yet we still dig for that fuken garbage we all use instead of progressing
 
This is amazing. I'm going to look more into this technology as well. I'm not sure I buy the argument that oil companies can just kill off anyone who develops an electric car. They may have been able to discourage GM with the EV-1 and push it back 10-20 years but I think the cat is out of the bag and Tesla has proven that.
 
^^ I agree with the fact that so many companies are coming up with coherent products and market strategies that a cover up is near impossible nowadays.
 
^^

Well if it's true, it means it's a brand new technology, which means it WILL most probably be used by pretty much everything in the future...

On another note, can you imagine having 9000lbs/tq when flooring it?!?!

That doesn't even make sens, the car will do backflips all over the place lol
 
Some more interesting comments I found on another forum:

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...Flowcell-Quant?p=597294&viewfull=1#post597294


PRO:
- Faster "Charging"
- Some more range
- Even greater acceleration

CON:
- You have to put the energy into the electrolyte liquid first/recycle it (additional step, that is really the charging but it would be done outside the car); this adds a lot of extra overhead
- Huge logistical effort to put up fueling stations compared to chargers
- Can't just charge at home

So I don´t think this will pose a threat to Tesla. Performance is great, but range is not that much higher and the acceleration comes at the price of a lot more complex drive train (addition of supercapacitors, individual engines on each wheel - could do that for a Tesla too, really) which I don´t think will ever be able to compete economically, at least not on a mass market car (Model E).
Unlike the Tesla concept (start high end, work your way to mass market), this would really be contrained to high end cars which would make the installation of a comprehensive infrastructure even less likely.


http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...Flowcell-Quant?p=598904&viewfull=1#post598904


Two major roadblocks:

- The electrolytes freeze in cold weather. Unlike Li-Ion you can't draw from the battery when the temperature is below freezing to run a pack heater.

- The electrolytes are dangerously acidic, with specialized equipment needed to drain and refill the tanks to recharge the battery.

I don't see this making it to production any time soon.
 
SRT-What? said:
Geez I wonder why planes, rockets are all the thermal plant are not using sea water....

:rolleyes::rolleyes:
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Rockets actually use water, just split in it's elements, as fuel; i suggest you brush up on your rocket science 101.
Water is not the fuel, hydrogen is.
We need hydrogen as a fuel and oxygen to ignite and sustain combustion

water happens to contain both

we have to separate the molecules (electrolysis) and then we can exploit the fuel

Soon enough we will see that in everything
 
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Last week I wrote an article about a remarkable sounding supercar that uses a revolutionary sort of flow battery that can be recharged with what's implied to be saltwater. The car's design is striking, the specs are very impressive, and the technology seems revolutionary. But it also seems like bullshit.

I felt a little bad after writing that article because I very quickly realized I needed to apply much, much more scrutiny to the remarkable claims the company was making than I did. I expressed skepticism, but what I really needed to do — and what you readers deserve — is an in-depth evaluation of this technology and claims.
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http://jalopnik.com/the-supercar-that-runs-using-saltwater-is-likely-bullsh-1637600538
 
Kaimera said:
Rockets actually use water, just split in it's elements, as fuel; i suggest you brush up on your rocket science 101.
Water is not the fuel, hydrogen is.
We need hydrogen as a fuel and oxygen to ignite and sustain combustion

water happens to contain both

we have to separate the molecules (electrolysis) and then we can exploit the fuel
Click to expand...

Very true. But, and it is a major but, because of those damn pesky thermodynamic laws, it means that it takes more energy to separate water molecules than you get back from combining them again. Than means that sooner or later, you need an external supply of energy.

No process can ever be more than 100% (someone will be able to tell exactly the most effective experimental system ever but I think humans never bested something like 85% efficiency). So as soon as you take one tiny bit of it to sustain something else, boom, you need an external source of energy.

People have been trying to prove otherwise for centuries now, and it is not working.
 
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