A Greatly Improved Lithium Battery for EVs

[Puppyjump]

Stanford university researchers have developed a new Lithium battery chemistry that has 10 times the capacity of today’s Lithium batteries.

http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v3/n1/full/nnano.2007.411.html

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html

http://popsci.typepad.com/popsci/2008/01/the-two-day-bat.html



The Stanford battery has PROFOUND CONSEQUENCES that can make EV’s plentiful and affordable:

1) For a given Lithium battery pack sized for a particular application, for example an electric car, the Stanford battery will be 10 times smaller and lighter.

2) Assuming the fabrication costs for the Stanford battery are about the same as
existing chemistries for the same PHYSICAL SIZE, then for a given Amp Hour electrical capacity requirement, the Stanford battery will be 10 times less costly because the battery pack will be 10 times smaller with 10 times less material: VERY IMPORTANT FOR EVs

3) For the supposed concern that there is not enough Lithium in the world to be able to build battery packs in the quantity to convert most petroleum cars over to electric cars, the Stanford battery will allow 10 times more EVs to be in service with a given supply of Lithium. NOTE: The assertion that there is a Lithium shortage to prevent mass usage of EV’s has not been proven yet, so it may simply be a ploy by the petroleum interests to mis-educate the public, i.e. a typical lie.

4) As a side note, it HAS been proven that a suitable Large Format NiMH battery was suppressed 10 years ago that enabled a full sized EV to provide enough driving range of 100 to 150 highway speed miles to function as a commuter car for most of us: The Toyota Rav4. Chevron owns the patents on the Large Format NiMH battery and they sued Panasonic for $30 million and had their battery plant dismantled. Could this be because of the certainty that a fleet of EVs would result in a reduction of gas sales at the pump? Incidentally, the Rav4 EV is proof that no battery research is required to build EVs truly useful for about 90% of us, as at least a commuter vehicle, most of our driving. Battery research, like the Stanford battery, can improve the application to make an EV useful for a lower cost or with a greater resultant driving range.

http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1198

http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/rav4evetic.html

FINAL NOTE: Recent ads on Public Television by Exxon have been spouting the tag line that they are investing in Lithium batteries for hybrid electric vehicles. Why no mention of fully electric vehicles? What happens if Exxon acquires the patents and rights on the new Stanford Lithium battery? Will we ever see their use allowed in the full EV car?

You Should: MAINTAIN VIGELANCE on the Stanford Lithium battery. FOLLOW its progress. INFORM all your friends. SPAM congress with correspondence if it appears the Stanford battery is being sequestered.
The Internet is a powerful check and balance against fraudulent business practices or government policies as influenced by lobbyists. Never before has the free exchange of information been available to the masses.

 

[dnmun]

i had seen reference to the silicon nanowire anode before, but i finally looked at the nature abstract. the ref #17 to an article in ionics, has part of the article which describes 'supercooling' depositional instability of the lithium from solution away from the anode surface and how that would cause the anode to degrade from physical forces on the structure of the already deposited metal tearing the anode surface apart. the article is not complete, but if someone can download that article or scan it, it would be interesting to read.

the way i interpret this, and the import of the significance of the silicon nanowire idea is because there may be a structural size in the silicon nanowire which prevents the lithium metal from stressing the nanowire(the anode) and therefore the anode has much longer life and at the same time it increases the surface area of the anode without being 'fragile' filaments or dendites of previous anode treatments(a123 and dr goodenough), maybe actacell is using this too, but i suspect that google has a buncha people looking at it all the time since they have started pouring money into it, it is stanford after all.

 

[julesa]

I'm excited about this technology breakthrough too. But let's not break out the lithium foil hats yet, OK? This discovery alone will not increase cell capacity 10x. It increases the anode capacity about 8x. Unless they figure out a way to make a capacity increase in the cathode side of the cell (the part with the lithium), it will not be 10x less costly, or even 2x less costly. The silicon nanowire anode is more difficult to make than a carbon anode (though probably not 8x as difficult/expensive), and cathode technology is not changed at all.

 

[dnmun]

i think the idea behind the silicon nanowire related to the dimensions of the critical size of the lithium crystals growing in that 'supercooled 'layer they have modeled in the paper at ref#17 in the nature article. the trick is that the carbon nanowires may be small enuff to not get hung up in the expanding/contracting stretching of the anode by the lithium deposition, that allows the anode to remain intact and the large surface area can then be maintained longer so battery lasts much longer, plus silicon can be doped to conduct a lot whereas the lifepo4 crystal does not conduct as well so the amount of space in the pores of the ironphosphate in that article from the house of batteries reference library. too bad that thread got trashed and nobody discussed lithium technology as i had hoped. but i agree, if these silicon nanowires live up to the promise in that model, it could be the lifetime breakthrough needed to amortize the battery cost.