Thread for new battery breakthrough PR releases

Here's something I got in the spam. It's a magazine for battery and energy storage engineering. They have some interesting articles.

https://www.designnews.com/batteryenergy-storage

This caught my eye
https://www.designnews.com/material...y-have-five-year-battery-life/118340601859495

Will Future EVs Only Have a Five-Year Battery Life?
Fast-charging and nickel-rich chemistries will accelerate degradation of future EV batteries, expert says

According to Asad Farid of Berenberg Bank, future EV batteries are likely to need replacement after just five years of use. “People believe their battery degradation will be similar to that of the Tesla,” he said (see graph on left). “But we think battery degradation will remain similar to the case of the Leaf going forward” (see graph on right). (Image source: Berenberg Bank)

•First, he said, there’s a shift toward high-nickel cell chemistries in NMC (lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide) and NCA (lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide) batteries. Those nickel-rich chemistries have shown a lower cycle life of 2,000 charges (for NMC) and 1,000 charges (for NCA). In contrast, the lithium iron phosphate batteries commonly used in China typically hit more than 3,000 cycles. In a paper published earlier this year, Farid contended that the move to high-nickel chemistries is caused by the growing desire for greater driving range. Unfortunately, the move to higher energy density (greater range) comes at the expense of longevity, he wrote.

•Second, a shift toward faster charging speeds will reduce life expectancy, he said. Today, many utilities are installing DC fast-charge stations rated at 50 kW, 150 kW, and even 350 kW. And while such stations can charge big batteries in as little as 20 minutes, they also generate heat that can lead to decomposition of the battery’s anode and cathode. “When you triple the speed of charging, your battery degradation will also increase,” Farid said.

•Third, the use of air-cooling leads to faster battery degradation, he said. Today, some OEMs are choosing to use passive air-cooled systems instead of more expensive liquid cooling, but such systems trap more heat in the cells. Farid said that the degradation rate with air cooling is more than double that of dynamic, liquid-cooled batteries.
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I agree that the extra complexity of liquid-cooling battery packs leads to more stable temps, but...it's my understanding that the lower cycle life of the air-cooled Nissan Leaf packs is due to the sample group including Leafs that are operated in harshly hot climates, like Phoenix in the summer. When the "cooling air" from the fans is 120F, it will skew the results.

Thanks for posting this, awesome website.
 
Will Future EVs Only Have a Five-Year Battery Life?
Fast-charging and nickel-rich chemistries will accelerate degradation of future EV batteries, expert says

According to Asad Farid of Berenberg Bank, future EV batteries are likely to need replacement after just five years of use. “People believe their battery degradation will be similar to that of the Tesla,” he said (see graph on left). “But we think battery degradation will remain similar to the case of the Leaf going forward” (see graph on right). (Image source: Berenberg Bank)

•First, he said, there’s a shift toward high-nickel cell chemistries in NMC (lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide) and NCA (lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide) batteries. Those nickel-rich chemistries have shown a lower cycle life of 2,000 charges (for NMC) and 1,000 charges (for NCA)..
Click to expand...
That doesnt make sense ?
he is suggesting NCA is the worst.....But Tesla is shown to have good cycle life, and they are NCA !
 
fechter said:
•Second, a shift toward faster charging speeds will reduce life expectancy, he said. Today, many utilities are installing DC fast-charge stations rated at 50 kW, 150 kW, and even 350 kW. And while such stations can charge big batteries in as little as 20 minutes, they also generate heat that can lead to decomposition of the battery’s anode and cathode. “When you triple the speed of charging, your battery degradation will also increase,” Farid said.
Click to expand...
There's a service called Tesloop that uses Teslas as a taxi service. One model X they have has passed 300,000 miles without a battery replacement - and all the charging they do is fast charging.
 
You've flushed something valuable down the toilet today.
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:shock:

Purple bacteria 'batteries' turn sewage into clean energy
Date:November 13, 2018
Source:Frontiers
Summary:purple phototrophic bacteria -- which can store energy from light -- when supplied with an electric current can recover near to 100 percent of carbon from any type of organic waste, while generating hydrogen gas for use as fuel.
Credit: © muph / Fotolia

You've flushed something valuable down the toilet today.

Organic compounds in household sewage and industrial wastewater are a rich potential source of energy, bioplastics and even proteins for animal feed -- but with no efficient extraction method, treatment plants discard them as contaminants. Now researchers have found an environmentally-friendly and cost-effective solution.
Published in Frontiers in Energy Research, their study is the first to show that purple phototrophic bacteria -- which can store energy from light -- when supplied with an electric current can recover near to 100% of carbon from any type of organic waste, while generating hydrogen gas for electricity production.
"One of the most important problems of current wastewater treatment plants is high carbon emissions," says co-author Dr Daniel Puyol of King Juan Carlos University, Spain. "Our light-based biorefinery process could provide a means to harvest green energy from wastewater, with zero carbon footprint."
Purple photosynthetic bacteria
When it comes to photosynthesis, green hogs the limelight. But as chlorophyll retreats from autumn foliage, it leaves behind its yellow, orange and red cousins. In fact, photosynthetic pigments come in all sorts of colors -- and all sorts of organisms.
Cue purple phototrophic bacteria. They capture energy from sunlight using a variety of pigments, which turn them shades of orange, red or brown -- as well as purple. But it is the versatility of their metabolism, not their color, which makes them so interesting to scientists........snip
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181113080903.htm
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:D :bolt:
 
LG Chem invests in Enevate; silicon-dominant Li-ion battery technology
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/10/20181024-enevate.html

This could be big. A silicon/graphite/lithium battery with >1000 cycles to 80%, high charge rate, and 300whrs/kg.
No mention of the discharge, probably putzy, but that's fine for cars or large packs on bikes and such.

The cells have various certifications as of last year, so you might see them on the market in the near term.
John Goodenough, the original inventor of the lithium battery is on board as well. :bolt:
 
The trend seems to be that higher energy density = cheaper materials costs per cell = lower cost per kw/hr.
The first solid state batteries should be pretty spendy. Later on, we might find that they're significantly cheaper than the current generation.
 
EV Batteries—and A New Hope
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/27/vehicle-electrification-ev-batteries-a-new-hope-followup/
.....Nanotechnology enabled LIC is the.only plausible EV option on the present technical horizon. It is truly the only New Hope. But like the rest of the Star Wars saga, it presently exists in another galaxy far far away.
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Ok, not a battery, it mostly eliminates batteries,......Then again we have heard the hype before.

Water-stabilized hydrogen fuel promises twice the range of gasoline at half the price, with zero tailpipe emissions
https://newatlas.com/electriq-global-hydrogen-liquid-wonder-fuel/57488/
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Israeli-Australian company Electriq Global's new technology stabilizes hydrogen in a recyclable liquid that can be pumped and transported just like gasoline. That's huge news, because it enables long-range electric driving with fast refueling – and it plugs right into the existing fuel logistics model.

The Electriq system replaces a troublesome compressed hydrogen tank with a simple liquid fuel tank and...
An ecosystem comparison between regular hydrocarbon fuel and Electriq's liquid-stabilized hydrogen; it uses a very similar...
Electriq believes it can produce and distribute the fuel so cheaply that it should sell for...
Electriq claims its fuel is energy-dense enough that it can deliver twice the range of an...

Plenty of people want to move on from gasoline and diesel. Some are environmentalists, some want to stop supporting the geopolitics of oil, some like the lightning-quick performance potential of electric motors. Whatever the reason, the fuel that powered the 20th century seems unlikely to maintain its transport lead through the 21st.

But today's alternatives to fossil fuels all have their difficulties. EV batteries, for example, are heavy and expensive, they can struggle with heat, and they take an uncomfortably long time to charge, which many consumers aren't willing to deal with on longer trips.

Mind you, batteries are significantly better than straight-up hydrogen, which is energy-inefficient to produce, difficult to store and transport, and adds explosive potential to crashes. Hydrogen's main selling point is its ability to fit into current fuel distribution infrastructure; you can pump it into a car like gasoline, so if gas stations started carrying it, you'd be able to fill up anywhere.

But Electriq Global, an Israeli-Australian company, claims it's invented a new fuel that combines the best aspects of gasoline, hydrogen and batteries into a cheap, green and recyclable liquid that it believes could be the transport fuel of the future.

Electriq says it has worked out a way to stabilize hydrogen in a liquid form that's around 60 percent water. This makes it simple to transport and store, eliminating the single biggest reason why hydrogen hasn't taken off at this point.

Using a standard sized fuel tank, the Electriq system would, according to modeling, cost less than half the equivalent gasoline price to fill up, and it would deliver around twice the range, while being completely emissions-free – at least, back to the fuel production plant......snip

Here's how it works. Electriq produces the fuel at a production/recycling center. According to Electriq spokesman Michael Simonetti, the recipe is "surprisingly simple," and doesn't require any rare or expensive elements. When it's fully loaded, the fuel contains about three percent hydrogen and 97 percent supporting material.

The fuel is moved via tanker to gas stations, much the same as happens with gasoline, and drivers fill up their cars at a pump.
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Curious. If the liquid has a density close to water (likely) and contains 3% hydrogen by mass, that gives it 33,000 x 0.03 = 990Wh/kg which is good compared to batteries (until conversion efficiency cuts that by 3/4) but poor compared to petrol/diesel at 9-10,000Wh/kg.

So I'm unsure how they square twice the range of petrol/diesel? Hydrogen is very energy dense (but hard to densify) but anything 97% inert is always going to be at a great disadvantage.

I'd love to know more about it, but I suspect they'll be guarding any technical details.
 
neptronix said:
The trend seems to be that higher energy density = cheaper materials costs per cell = lower cost per kw/hr.
The first solid state batteries should be pretty spendy. Later on, we might find that they're significantly cheaper than the current generation.
Click to expand...

Solid state batteries are not significantly different to other kinds of lithium ion batteries. Most parts of the battery is the same. But there is no separator, and the graphite electrode is replaced by solid lithium, which has two main benefits:
-We get rid of the nasty electrolyte used in lithium ion batteries, which is highly toxic and flammable
-There is less materials and weight in the battery. (Noticeably less materials in theory. Maybe not as much difference in practice.)

A solid electrolyte is less conductive than a liquid. Also, there might be mechanical issues / conduction issues. A liquid will always get a good contact with the surface of an electrode. A solid might not, especially if the solid material is "stiff". This all means that all materials needs to be extremely thin, and rolled/folded many many times, to ensure low internal resistance. The manufacturing technology to do this is not yet solved. At least not in the western world. So these Chinese guys must have found a way (if their cells performs).

And then I haven't even mentioned chemistry, which is the usual source of issues which prevents cells from performing (for a long time). I'm not a chemist.
 
Right, that's always been the problem with solid state batteries.. their power output.

But if you can produce a 400whrs/kg chemistry, power output becomes less of a big deal because you can cram a huge battery into everything. Let's say you manage to fit 200kw-hrs into a Tesla Model S. Well, a Model S is only using maybe 30kw to cruise along the highway, but needs >400kw when you're standing on the accelerator pedal, right?

500+ mile range would probably be a big enough selling point to lose some peak power though!

Let's say you're building a new non performance oriented electric car, like a chevrolet bolt. Currently it has something like a 60kw-hr battery. Just filling up the same battery space and keeping the weight the same, an appropriate solid state battery is probably about 110kwhr. 1C on the 110kwhr pack is 147hp, which is exactly how much peak power the Nissan Leaf has.

The bigger the range, the more useful an electric car becomes. Solid state batteries with kinda wimpy outputs would be great for most ebikes as well. Imagine stuffing 4kw-hrs into a bike triangle, and having 4kw max output? i wouldn't complain about that. I've been waiting for that for a looooooong time.
 
I don't think that is correct. Solid state batteries are often claimed to solve the power issue of liquid electrolyte lithium ion batteries. Especially for charging, since the solid electrolyte batteries doesn't have the drawback of a graphite electrode and SEI-layer buildup. So they should have a more or less symmetric charge/discharge capacity. So if it can do a 10C discharge, it can do the same charge, without side effects (unwanted chemical reactions). That is what Porsche is claiming/hoping for, for example, to be able to use their coming 350kW charging stations. With current cells, which have a practical limit of about 2C charging, no car with less than 175kWh of batteries (about 1 tonne of batteries) will be able to charge to the chargers full potential.

I don't think the earth can provide enough (affordable) raw materials for 200kWh batterypacks for every mans vehicle if they are going to continue to be manufactured from rare/scarce raw material. And not 50kWh either. Maybe for a 10-20kWh battery per man.

So what do you guys think about this Chinese startup? Are they claiming to have a working successfully tested cell (long term)?

Even if the power issue is solved, it is still not sure that the batteries are significantly lighter, since we (with our known western world tech) simply are not able to produce thin enough foils (cheap/fast/reliable). Which means the solid batteries will be heavier than 400Wh/kg.
 
Here is a paper about solid state batteries with claims high power:
"The cell possesses high specific power that is superior to that of conventional cells with liquid electrolytes. Stable cycling with a high current density of 18 C (charging/discharging in just three minutes; where C is the C-rate) is also demonstrated."
https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201630

One of the guys involved is Chinese:
"Yong-Sheng Hu is at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China."
https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201642
 
Fluoride discovery could lead to much longer-lasting EV batteries

https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/07/fluoride-battery-breakthrough-evs/?fbclid=IwAR2f1dexLmtCcM58ByOoQv8X5l7xkHCK9r4aL3tNGea2xPxmK6xfSDARdc8
 
Honda and NASA pioneer batteries with ten times energy density of lithium
("New flouride-ion batteries (FIBs) could dramatically reduce the environmental impact of electric vehicles' drivetrains"):
https://driving.ca/honda/auto-news/...ries-with-ten-times-energy-density-of-lithium

“Unlike Li-ion batteries, FIBs do not pose a safety risk due to overheating, and obtaining the source materials for FIBs creates considerably less environmental impact than the extraction process for lithium and cobalt."
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full scientific published in Science:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1144
 
^
Hehe, battery companies telling FIBs :wink:

Anyway, seems aluminium carbon battery cells have attracted some attention. An older article:
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/super-fast-charging-aluminium-batteries-ready-to-take-on-lithium/8427.article

And some recent developments:
https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/can-aluminum-take-us-beyond-lithium/44692193958697

I have seen Al-C 'cells' on the internet with an alkaline electrolyte, however this eventually corrodes the aluminium. And it's more like a capacitor at that stage anyway.
 
No actual source here...just some thoughts....

I just read an article on how brine is a massive problem across the world for countries that turn salt water from the sea to fresh drinking water. There's like billions of gallons produced every day from it...

I would think a low cost solution would be the sodium battery... We can convert this brine into sodium by extracting the extra chloride....why not try to utilize that if we're basically already producing the energy source...we just need some additional refining and then develop a battery that can challenge the best liion batteries...

I feel like capacity is going to overtake charging speed because if Tesla can produce a car that can go 500-600mi then that's basically your driving for a day anyway...so you do that in one day...just charge the thing overnight and your good to go again in the am.... I would say most people wouldn't need fast charging + 500mi of range... For me personally I'd rather take the range over charging speed...

It'll be interesting to see the switch over to 21700 format over 18650 for Tesla in their S and X. I'm guessing they will upgrade the capacity to 110-125kwh battery pack from this? Just a guess...
 
Philaphlous said:
No actual source here...just some thoughts....

I just read an article on how brine is a massive problem across the world for countries that turn salt water from the sea to fresh drinking water. There's like billions of gallons produced every day from it...
Click to expand...

I don't see it.
All they need to do is pull the clean water out and put the rest back in the ocean where it belongs.
 
Arlo1 said:
Philaphlous said:
No actual source here...just some thoughts....

I just read an article on how brine is a massive problem across the world for countries that turn salt water from the sea to fresh drinking water. There's like billions of gallons produced every day from it...
Click to expand...

I don't see it.
All they need to do is pull the clean water out and put the rest back in the ocean where it belongs.
Click to expand...

We're wandering a bit off topic :)

As with everything we do, there's an impact on output from such things.

Part of desalination removes all the oxygen from the water, it's much higher (double?) in salinity than standard seawater and contains chemicals from the process. Aside from all the small life that dies on the intake filters (or sucked inside) it generally kills any animals and plant life in its output path that need oxygen. It doesn't dilute quickly as it is more dense and simply sinks to the bottom where there's not as much water movement to help it disperse. I imagine this makes it particularly bad for any plants and animals that live on the bottom more so than those higher up but with flow on effects to the food chain.

There's probably a better way to agitate the water and mix it in but it can still be an absurd volume of brine with some of the bigger desalination plants.

Not to say it cannot be done right, my local one had artificial reefs built on the the infrastructure and whatever they're doing isn't seemingly killing vast swathes of life - but it's also something that isn't in constant use - it's on hot standby - ready for when our standard water supply isn't sufficient.

There's a difference between trying to do the right thing and basic indifference - sadly profit first seems to be the order of the day with most things. Thankfully my local one seems to be driven by the green sentiment of locals - for now.

*take this message with a large grain of salt/brine - I'm no scientist.

Back on topic - those fluoride batteries also good for our teeth? :mrgreen:
So many awesome sounding battery tech that never really eventuate - getting an idea into production is hard, who knew :(
I do love reading about the different ways people try to solve these issues - keep trying!
 
LockH said:
Honda and NASA pioneer batteries with ten times energy density of lithium
("New flouride-ion batteries (FIBs) could dramatically reduce the environmental impact of electric vehicles' drivetrains")
Click to expand...

So... No "new" news/updates on this... but last week assemblymag.com used a "big word" re this...

https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94724-new-battery-breakthrough-could-replace-lithium-ion

Including:
When paired with a composite cathode featuring a core-shell nanostructure of copper, lanthanum and fluorine, Brooks and his colleagues achieved reversible electrochemical cycling at room temperature.
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Lantha-Watt? Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanthanum

Lanthanum is a chemical element with symbol La and atomic number 57.
Click to expand...

... and:
Although it is classified as a rare earth element, lanthanum is the 28th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, almost three times as abundant as lead.
Click to expand...

Groovy. La La La... (he says skipping away...)
 
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