Archive for June, 2011

UK Patent Office Reports 100th Green Patent

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

The UK patent office has reported grant of the 100th subject to their green technology accelerated examination program.

According to the UK Patent Office, more than 450 patents have been made through their “Green Channel” program, and time to grant is 8 months versus 36 month for a normal application.

The 100th patent is assigned to Protean Electric.  I believe the patent referred to is GB2472392, which is titled, “Regenerative braking system having an electric drive means to actuate a mechanical braking device.”  A link to the patent is here.

Read the UK Patent Office presser here, or as quoted here:

100th green patent granted to Protean Electric


Surrey based Protean Electric have been granted the 100th patent which has been examined under the Green Channel acceleration scheme. Protean Electric are a leading clean technology company that designs, develops and manufactures in-wheel electric motors for hybrid and battery electric vehicles.
The Green Channel enables inventions with an environmental benefit to be given priority within the patent system.
Over 450 green patent applications have been made since the service was launched in May 2009. The service can dramatically reduce the amount of time it can take for a patent to be granted. Under the Green Channel an application is granted after an average of 8 months from request for acceleration, compared to an average time of 36 months for a normal application to be granted.
Minister for Intellectual Property Baroness Wilcox said:
“Fast tracked green patents provide innovative businesses with a great incentive to develop green products that can be brought quickly into the marketplace.”
“There is a growing demand for low carbon products across the world and we want the UK to be at the forefront of developing this kind of technology. With the granting of the 100th green patent we are helping to support businesses and encouraging them to come up with innovative and green ways of thinking for the future.”
The 100th patent granted was to Protean Electric for a regenerative braking system for electric and hybrid vehicles.
Intellectual property manager for Protean Electric, Chris Harrison said:
‘The green channel patent system adopted by the UK Intellectual Property Office has, from the start, been central to our company patent strategy, allowing us to obtain patents on our innovative green technology within a year of initial conception. This has been of significant importance both in attracting investment and allowing us to demonstrate our leading edge electric vehicle technology to potential customers.
Our first granted patents provide protection for core aspects of our in-wheel electric motor technology that removes the need for traditional drive train components such as internal combustion engines, transmissions, drive shafts, axles and differentials while also being scalable for use in different applications.
These have been granted as soon as 10 months after filing at the UK Intellectual Property Office which, for a relatively young company that is keen on obtaining protection for their innovation, is of enormous value.’
To qualify for the green patent scheme, The applicant must make a request in writing, indicating:

    • How their application is environmentally-friendly; and
    • How their application is environmentally-friendly; and
    • Which actions they wish to accelerate:-search, examination, combined search and examination, and/or publication.
    • Which actions they wish to accelerate:-search, examination, combined search and examination, and/or publication.

The service is available to patent applicants who make a reasonable assertion that the invention has some environmental benefit. The IPO will not conduct any detailed investigation into these assertions, but will refuse requests if they are clearly unfounded, for example if the application relates to a perpetual motion machine. Applications will only be accelerated when requested by the applicant.
The written request can be made at the same time as filing the application, or can be made on a later date.
Further information on the scheme can be found on the Green Channel for patent applications.

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Car Body Battery Technology – A Closer Look

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

The New York Times has an interesting article on automobile body panels that can be used as electrochemical energy sources (that is, batteries).  I thought I would investigate the technology further.

Searching for Dr. Greenhalgh and battery on Google Patents let me to US Patent Publication 2010/0259866, serial number 12/297,811.  It does not appear to be listed on the publication, but according to PAIR the foreign priority date stems from UK matter number 0607957.8, filed April 21, 2006.

I cannot say whether the technology referenced in the NY Times article relates to the technology in the Patent Publication, but the latter is interesting nonetheless, so I will discuss it briefly.



To begin, the application summaries the technology as such,
In overview, the present invention relates to a multifunctional power storage structural device, namely a structural supercapacitor. Mechanical strength is provided by using a composite of woven carbon fibre electrodes and a polymer electrolyte. Unlike, for example, fuel cell solutions, structural components directly provide the energy storage, rather than simply being a small component of an energy system which is mostly liquid fuel. Double-layer supercapacitors also avoid the volume changes and electrode consumption associated with batteries, and, unlike Li-ion systems in particular, have only modest packaging requirements, making them much more adaptable to a range of structural roles.
As recited in paragraph [0020],
According to the present invention, carbon fibres are activated in any appropriate manner, as will be will known to the skilled reader, to provide electrodes 150 with the dual functionality of energy storage and mechanical properties. Referring to the general geometry of FIG. 1, conventional electrodes are replaced by layers of specially activated carbon fibre electrodes 150 and the surface is activated to increase the surface area, whilst not damaging the load-bearing core. The electrodes 150 are separated by an insulating space layer (110), preferably a glass/polymer fibre layer or a porous insulating film. The mesoporosity of the electrodes gives rise to a high contact area between electrolyte and electrode and, thus, the potential for high energy storage.
The electrodes are bonded together by an electrolyte resin which provides simultaneously high ionic conductivity/ mobility and good mechanical performance (particularly stiffness). In an embodiment, the electrolytic resin has significant structural capability so as to resist buckling of the fibres in the electrode and provide significant stress transfer. In another embodiment, the polymer resin comprises oxygencontaining groups that coordinate the ions required for the ionic conductivity and cross-linking groups that generate a stiff network. Hence, both structural stiffness and ion mobility are provided.
Accordingly, two activated mats of carbon fiber are laminated together.  The application does not appear to reference how the carbon fiber mats are activated, saying only that, “carbon fibres are activated in any appropriate manner, as will be will known to the skilled reader.”
In some examples, conductivity (that is, one form of a current collector) is provided by a conductive sheath.   Figure 4 is as follows:
The application says, in part:
In yet a further embodiment, a structural supercapitor is formed based on a radial fibre coating geometry. Such a fibre-sheath design can be applied to the case of a pseudocapacitor design. In order to address the fibres and avoid shorts, in FIG. 4 the carbon fibre electrode 430 is surrounded by a sheath of electrolyte 420 and a conducting outer sheath 410. In another embodiment, there may be additional pseudocapacitive layer between the carbon fibre electrode 430 and the electrolyte 420. In another embodiment, the conducting outer sheath 410 is a pseudocapacitor. A structural resin 440 holds the fibres in place, protects the fibres and transfers the load between them, if necessary. In a further embodiment, the structural resin 440 is electrically conductive; this may be achieved, for example, by adding conductivenanotubes. Four such fibre-sheath supercapacitors are shown in FIG. 4. In FIG. 4 the separate supercapacitors are shown to be isolated by resin; however, preferably, the outer conductive sheath may be shared between two or more fibre supercapacitors. In the limiting case, the outer conductive sheath entirely replaces the structural resin 440. With this system, a packing density greater than 60% could be achieved. The conducting fibres 430 are addressed separately to the outer sheath 410, in particular at the fibre ends.
-Matt

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