Fluoride battery may be denser than lithium-ion + safer

spinningmagnets

spinningmagnets

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http://www.dailytech.com/Researchers+Create+Fluoride+Battery+Look+to+Replace+Lithiumion+Technology/article23093.htm

OK,...we've all read this kind of stuff before. I'll be the first to say that press releases like this are often just science labs looking for research grants, so they can continue making their house payments by research, rather than driving a truck, but...it sounded like it may be worth looking at.

The article states that "in theory" a fluoride battery could be made thats 10 times denser than a lithium ion, but I'd be happy if this turns out to be real and the fluoride was just twice as dense. (double the miles, half the size, or 50% of each)

Poly-tetra-fluoro-ethylene (PTFE) is "Teflon", and many air-conditioniong "freons" are based on fluorine, so there is already an industrial product stream in place for fluorides. It is the substance that gave its name to "Fluorescent" light tubes.

Who has it? from wikipedia..

Fluorite is a widely occurring mineral which is found in large deposits in many areas. Notable deposits occur in China, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Norway, Mexico, and both the Province of Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Large deposits also occur in Kenya in the Kerio Valley area within the Great Rift Valley.

In the United States, deposits are found in Missouri, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kentucky, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Ohio, New Hampshire, New York, Alaska, and Texas. Fluorite has been the state mineral of Illinois since 1965. At that time, Illinois was the largest producer of fluorite in the United States, but the last fluorite mine in Illinois was closed in 1995.[7]

The world reserves of fluorite are estimated at 230 million tonnes (Mt) with the largest deposits being in South Africa (about 41 Mt), Mexico (32 Mt) and China (24 Mt). China is leading the world production with about 3 Mt annually (in 2010), followed by Mexico (1.0 Mt), Mongolia (0.45 Mt), Russia (0.22 Mt), South Africa (0.13 Mt), Spain (0.12 Mt) and Namibia (0.11 Mt).[8] One of the largest deposits of fluorspar in North America is located in the Burin Peninsula, Newfoundland, Canada
Click to expand...
 
Imagine what a battery like that would do for things like:

Electric vehicles - 200kg of batteries reduced to 20kg, but still with 2-300km range, or even increase it to 40kg and do 4-600km. You could do battery swaps in 2 minutes instead of charging your EV.

Laptops - that weigh the same - but run for a week without charging

Phones that run for two months without charging.

Then you have the even more novel - More devices which are normally plugged into the wall can now be made totally wireless, if there is even any conceivable reason to - Possibly gaming consoles, TVs and projectors? People hate wires on those things.

Heated or cooled clothing. Right now, you can get motorcycle jackets, gloves and boots that plug into the bike - or run off a 1kg battery for an hour or so. With these things, you could wear them all day as an alternative to a heavy snow jacket.

The potential is mind boggling.
 
So all I have to do to get 10x capacity is open up my LiPo cells and squirt in some toothpaste? I'm off to go buy all the crest I can get!
 
Dont you guys know that fluoride is a communist plot...? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/)
 
Interesting, though I have some safety concerns, as some of the commentators on the linked article state, flourine is no laughing matter.

I suspect lithium air batteries will be more likely to produce a functional battery that can lay claim to the "10 times" energy density label.
 
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