Content area
Full text
Over the past three decades, NASA has granted more than 1000 patent licenses in virtually eaery area of technology. The agency has a portfolio of 3000 patents and pending applications available now for license by businesses and individuals, including these recently patented inventions:
Thermally Regenerative Battery with Intercalatable Electrodes and Selective Heating Means
(U.S. Patent No. 6,042,964)
Inventors: Pramod K. Sharma, Sekharipuram R. Narayanan, and Gregory S. Hickey Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The invention provides a more direct and efficient way of utilizing heat to store electrical energy than the solar panels most spacecraft rely on. The heat is directly converted at high efficiency into stored chemical energy in a battery containing a thermally regenerable electrode. The battery contains at least one electrode that intercalates a first species from the electrolyte in the first electrode compartment to form a thermally decomposable complex during discharge, while the other electrode supplies another species to the electrolyte in the second electrode compartment....