ARPA-E Vitality Innovation Summit 2024: Coolest Tech

_{Almost 400 exhibitors representing the boldest vitality improvements in the USA got here collectively final week on the annual ARPA-E Vitality Innovation Summit. The convention, hosted in Dallas by the U.S. Superior Analysis Initiatives Company–Vitality (ARPA-E), showcased the company’s bets on early-stage vitality applied sciences that may disrupt the established order. U.S. Secretary of Vitality Jennifer Granholm spoke on the summit. “The folks on this room are America’s finest hope” within the race to unleash the ability of fresh vitality, she stated. “The applied sciences you create will resolve whether or not we win that race. However no stress,” she quipped. IEEE Spectrum spent three days meandering the aisles of the showcase. Listed below are 5 of our favourite demonstrations.}

Fuel Li-ion batteries thwart excessive chilly

South 8 Applied sciences demonstrates the chilly tolerance of its Li-ion battery by burying it in ice on the 2024 ARPA-E Vitality Innovation Summit.Emily Waltz

Made with a liquified fuel electrolyte as an alternative of the usual liquid solvent, a brand new form of lithium-ion battery that stands as much as excessive chilly, made by
South 8 Applied sciences in San Diego, gained’t freeze till temps drop beneath –80 °C. That’s a giant enchancment on typical Li-ion batteries, which begin to degrade when temps attain 0 °C and shut down at about –20 °C. “You lose about half of your vary in an electrical automobile for those who drive it in the midst of winter in Michigan,” says Cyrus Rustomji, cofounder of South 8. To show the corporate’s level, Rustomji and his crew set out a bucket of dry ice at practically –80 °C at their sales space on the ARPA-E summit and put flashlights in it—one powered by a South 8 battery and one powered by a standard Li-ion cell. The latter flashlight went out after about 10 minutes, and South 8’s saved going for the subsequent 15 hours. Rustomji says he expects EV batteries made with South 8’s know-how to take care of practically full vary at –40 °C, and step by step degrade in temperatures decrease than that.

South 8 Applied sciences

Typical Li-ion batteries use liquid solvents, corresponding to ethylene and dimethyl carbonate, because the electrolyte. The electrolyte serves as a medium by which lithium salt strikes from one electrode to the opposite within the battery, shuttling electrical energy. When it’s chilly, the carbonates thicken, which lowers the ability of the battery. They will additionally freeze, which shuts down all conductivity. South 8 swapped out the carbonate for some industrial liquified gases with low freezing factors (a recipe the corporate gained’t disclose).

Utilizing liquified gases additionally reduces hearth danger as a result of the fuel in a short time evaporates from a broken battery cell, eradicating gasoline that might burn and trigger the battery to catch hearth. If a standard Li-ion battery will get broken, it may possibly short-circuit and shortly change into scorching—like over 800 °C scorching. This causes the liquid electrolyte to warmth adjoining cells and doubtlessly begin a fireplace.

There’s one other profit to this battery, and this one will make EV drivers very completely happy: It’s going to take solely 10 minutes to succeed in an 80 p.c cost in EVs powered by these batteries, Rustomji estimates. That’s as a result of liquified fuel has a decrease viscosity than carbonate-based electrolytes, which permits the lithium salt to maneuver from one electrode to the opposite at a sooner fee, shortening the time it takes to recharge the battery.

South 8’s newest enchancment is a high-voltage cathode that reduces materials prices and will allow quick charging down to five minutes for a full cost. “We now have the world report for a high-voltage, low-temperature cathode,” says Rustomji.

Liquid cooling gained’t leak on servers

Chilldyne ensures that its liquid-cooling system gained’t leak even when tubes get hacked in half, as IEEE Spectrum editor Emily Waltz demonstrates on the 2024 ARPA-E Vitality Innovation Summit. Emily Waltz

Knowledge facilities want severe cooling applied sciences to maintain servers from overheating, and typically air-conditioning
simply isn’t sufficient. In truth, the most recent Blackwell chips from Nvidia require liquid cooling, which is extra vitality environment friendly than air. However liquid cooling tends to make data-center operators nervous. “A bomb gained’t do as a lot harm as a leaky liquid-cooling system,” says Steve Harrington, CEO of Chilldyne. His firm, based mostly in Carlsbad, Calif., presents liquid cooling that’s assured to not leak, even when the coolant traces get chopped in half. (They aren’t kidding: Chilldyne introduced an axe to its demonstration at ARPA-E and let Spectrum attempt it out. Watch the blue cooling liquid instantly disappear from the tube after it’s chopped.)

Chilldyne

The system is leakproof as a result of Chilldyne’s negative-pressure system pulls fairly than pushes liquid coolant by tubes, like a vacuum. The tubes wind by servers, absorbing warmth by chilly plates, and return the warmed liquid to tanks in a cooling distribution unit. This unit transfers the warmth exterior and provides cooled liquid again to the servers. If a part wherever within the cooling loop breaks, the liquid is instantly sucked again into the tanks earlier than it may possibly leak. Key to the know-how: low-thermal-resistance chilly plates hooked up to every server’s processors, such because the CPUs or GPUs. The chilly plates take up warmth by convection, transferring the warmth to the coolant tube that runs by it. Chilldyne optimized the chilly plate utilizing corkscrew-shaped metallic channels, known as turbulators, that pressure water round them “like little tornadoes,” maximizing the warmth absorbed, says Harrington. The corporate developed the chilly plate below an ARPA-E grant and is now measuring the vitality financial savings of liquid cooling by an ARPA-E program.

Salvaged mining waste additionally sequesters CO₂

Phoenix Tailings’ senior analysis scientist Rita Silbernagel explains how mining waste incorporates helpful metals and uncommon earth components and can be used as a spot to retailer carbon dioxide.Emily Waltz

Mining leaves behind piles of waste after the commercially viable materials is extracted. This waste, often called tailings, can include uncommon earth components and precious metals which can be
too troublesome to extract with typical mining strategies. Phoenix Tailings—a startup based mostly in Woburn, Mass.—extracts metals and uncommon earth components from tailings in a course of that leaves behind no waste and creates no direct carbon dioxide emissions. The corporate’s course of begins with a hydrometallurgical remedy that separates uncommon earth components from the tailings, which include iron, aluminum, and different frequent components. Subsequent the corporate makes use of a novel solvent extraction methodology to separate the uncommon earth components from each other and purify the specified component within the type of an oxide. The uncommon earth oxide then undergoes a molten-salt electrolysis course of that converts it right into a stable metallic kind. Phoenix Tailings focuses on extracting neodymium, neodymium-praseodymium alloy, dysprosium, and ferro dysprosium alloy, that are uncommon earth metals utilized in everlasting magnets for EVs, wind generators, jet engines, and different purposes. The corporate is evaluating a number of tailings websites in the USA, together with in upstate New York.

The corporate has additionally developed a course of to extract metals corresponding to nickel, copper, and cobalt from mining tailings whereas concurrently sequestering carbon dioxide. The strategy includes injecting CO₂ into the tailings, the place it reacts with minerals, remodeling them into carbonates—compounds that include the carbonate ion, which incorporates three oxygen atoms and one carbon atom. After the mineral carbonation course of, the nickel or different metals are selectively leached from the combination, yielding high-quality nickel that can be utilized by EV-battery and stainless-steel industries.

Higher nonetheless, this complete course of, says Rita Silbernagel, senior analysis scientist at Phoenix Tailings, absorbs extra CO₂ than it emits.

Hydrokinetic generators: a brand new enterprise mannequin

Emrgy adjusts the peak of its hydrokinetic generators on the 2024 ARPA-E Vitality Innovation Summit. The corporate plans to put in them in outdated irrigation channels to generate renewable vitality and new income streams for rural communities.Emily Waltz

These hydrokinetic generators run in irrigation channels, producing electrical energy and income for rural communities. Developed by
Emrgy in Atlanta, the generators can change in peak and blade pitch based mostly on the circulate of the water. The corporate plans to place them in irrigation channels that had been constructed to deliver water from snowmelt within the Rocky Mountains to agricultural areas within the western United States. Emrgy estimates that there are greater than 160,000 kilometers of those waterways within the nation. The system is ageing and shedding water, but it surely’s exhausting for water districts to justify the price of repairing them, says Tom Cuthbert, chief know-how officer at Emrgy. The corporate’s answer is to position its hydrokinetic generators all through these waterways as a option to generate renewable electrical energy and pay for upgrades to the irrigation channels.

The idea of
inserting hydrokinetic generators in waterways isn’t new, however till latest years, connecting them to the grid wasn’t sensible. Emrgy’s timing takes benefit of the groundwork laid by the solar energy business. The corporate has 5 pilot initiatives within the works in the USA and New Zealand. “We discovered that present water infrastructure is an enormous ignored actual property section that’s ripe for renewable vitality improvement,” says Emily Morris, CEO and founding father of Emrgy.

Pressurized water shops vitality deep underground

Quidnet Vitality introduced a wellhead to the 2024 ARPA-E Vitality Innovation Summit to display its geoengineered energy-storage system.Emily Waltz

Quidnet Vitality introduced a complete wellhead to the ARPA-E summit to display its underground pumped hydro storage method. The Houston-based firm’s geoengineered system shops vitality as pressurized water deep underground. It consists of a surface-level pond, a deep effectively, an underground reservoir on the finish of the effectively, and a pump system that strikes pressurized water from the pond to the underground reservoir and again. The design doesn’t require an elevation change like conventional pumped storage hydropower.

Quidnet’s system consists of a surface-level pond, a deep effectively, an underground reservoir on the finish of the effectively, and a pump system that strikes pressurized water from the pond to the underground reservoir and again.Quidnet Vitality

It really works like this: Electrical energy from renewable sources powers a pump that sends water from the floor pond right into a wellhead and down a effectively that’s about 300 meters deep. On the finish of the effectively, the stress from the pumped water flows right into a beforehand engineered fracture within the rock, making a reservoir that’s a whole bunch of meters broad and sits beneath the burden of the entire column of rock above it, says Bunker Hill, vp of engineering at Quidnet. The wellhead then closes and the water stays below excessive stress, conserving vitality saved within the reservoir for days if obligatory. When electrical energy is required, the effectively is opened, letting the pressurized water run up the identical effectively. Above floor, the water passes by a hydroelectric turbine, producing 2 to eight megawatts of electrical energy. The spent water then returns to the floor pond, prepared for the subsequent cycle. “The exhausting half is ensuring the underground reservoir doesn’t lose water,” says Hill. To that finish, the corporate developed personalized sealing options that get injected into the fracture, sealing within the water.