{"id":48754,"date":"2018-03-06T04:00:20","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T08:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/utnews.utoledo.edu\/?p=48754"},"modified":"2021-01-21T13:43:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T17:43:16","slug":"ut-engineer-creates-solution-to-cheaper-longer-lasting-battery-packs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/03_06_2018\/ut-engineer-creates-solution-to-cheaper-longer-lasting-battery-packs","title":{"rendered":"UT engineer creates solution to cheaper, longer lasting battery packs"},"content":{"rendered":"

An electrical engineer at The University of Toledo, who nearly died as a girl in Africa because of a hospital\u2019s lack of power, has developed a new energy storage solution to make battery packs in electric vehicles, satellites, planes and grid stations last longer and cost less.<\/p>\n

The new technology called a bilevel equalizer is the first hybrid that combines the high performance of an active equalizer with the low cost of the passive equalizer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dr. Ngalula Mubenga, UT assistant professor of electrical engineering technology, holds a battery cell next to the bilevel equalizer.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a game-changer because we solved the weak cell issue in lithium ion battery storage for packs with hundreds of cells,\u201d said Dr. Ngalula Mubenga, UT assistant professor of electrical engineering technology. \u201cWhenever we are talking about batteries, we are talking about cells connected in a series. Over time, the battery is not balanced and limited by the weakest cell in the battery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the bilevel equalizer, battery makers and automotive manufacturers balanced the cell voltages in a large battery pack using either a passive circuit, which loses more energy, or an active circuit, which is 10 times more expensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn spite of their significant losses, passive equalizers are used in most applications because they are relatively simple and low-cost,\u201d Mubenga said.<\/p>\n

In Mubenga\u2019s new technology, the cells are grouped into sections. Each cell within the section is balanced by a passive equalizer, while the entire section is balanced by an active equalizer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are 120 cells in a battery, divide the cells into 10 groups of 12,\u201d Mubenga said. \u201cThen you only need nine active equalizer units and 120 passive equalizer units using the bilevel equalizer. With current active equalizers, manufacturers would have to use 120 active equalizers. For manufacturers that can\u2019t afford to use only active equalizers, the bilevel equalizer is the solution to the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experiments have shown that the bilevel equalizer increases the discharge capacity of lithium ion batteries by about 30 percent, and the pack lasts longer because the cells are balanced.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of an electric vehicle\u2019s battery lasting only four years, it would last much longer,\u201d Mubenga said.<\/p>\n

Mubenga worked on the project with Dr. Tom Stuart, UT professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science, who had the idea for the bilevel equalizer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The solar panel, which was developed and installed by the SMIN Power Group, serves a community in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.<\/p><\/div>\n

Their team is licensing the hybrid equalizer and retrofit kit to manufacturers. The research was recently published in Batteries<\/a>, an international journal. Project funding was provided by the Ohio I-Corps program and Ohio Third Frontier program.<\/p>\n

Mubenga plans to present their new, patented technology Wednesday, March 7, at 2 p.m. at the Advanced Design and Manufacturing Expo at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland in a session titled \u201cLowering the Cost of Energy Storage for E\/HV and Grid Applications Using a Bilevel Equalizer for Large Li-Ion Batteries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mubenga understands the life-changing power of electricity. When she was 17 years old in her native country of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa, she waited three days for surgery after her appendix burst because there was no power at the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was living in a small town called Kikwit, far away from the big and beautiful capital city of Kinshasa,\u201d Mubenga said. \u201cI was very sick, doctors needed to do surgery, but they couldn\u2019t find any gas to turn on the power generator. For three days, my life depended on electricity. I was praying. I could not eat. And decided if I made it alive, I would work to find a solution so people wouldn\u2019t die because of lack of electricity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hospital found fuel to power the generator, doctors did the surgery, and Mubenga survived.<\/p>\n

She started studying renewable energy at the UT College of Engineering in 2000 and earned a bachelor\u2019s degree, master\u2019s degree and PhD in electrical engineering. After earning her professional engineer license in Ohio, she went on to found her company called the SMIN Power Group, which develops and installs solar power systems in communities throughout the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy passion is deep,\u201d Mubenga said. \u201cIn places like that small town of Kikwit, if you have solar power, you can have electricity and save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another factor fueling Mubenga\u2019s research motivation is a connection between her native country and lithium ion batteries.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the minerals for today\u2019s electronics are mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,\u201d Mubenga said. \u201cThe Democratic Republic of the Congo is a leading producer of cobalt, copper, gold, diamond, tantalum and tin in the world. Indeed, the Democratic Republic of the Congo contains about 50 percent of the world\u2019s reserve of cobalt, a mineral used to make lithium ion batteries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Ngalula Mubenga, UT assistant professor of electrical engineering technology, will present the bilevel equalizer Wednesday, March 7, at the Advanced Design and Manufacturing Expo at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,34,1,3,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48754"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48754"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63916,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48754\/revisions\/63916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}