Well, this sounds too awesome to be true, but will be a huge step forward once they are being produced.
Here is the paper (also linked in the article): http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsenergylett.6b00029
Next steps: See if its save IRL, large scale production, higher energy density
I will be at least 2- 5 Years before they hit testing and another 5 years after that to hit production. Sadly
Isn't accident breakthroughs awesome?
Tesla should have a look at this.
I don't see how it was an accident, from what I read, they were looking into ways to improve the cycle stability of nano wires & found one that worked.
Sound like awesome research to me.
If someone spilled a can of coke on them & found that it did something amazing, I would consider that an accident.
Sounds good! Someone email Elon Musk about it.
The research paper made a little bit more sense after reading this. Sounds like they are really on to something.
Scientists Pinpoint the Creeping Nanocrystals Behind Lithium-Ion Battery Degradation
It's kind of interesting that they have been making batteries by the ton for so long and still don't totally know what's going on inside.
I talked to one of the regional managers at Alabama Power one time, they're all under Georgia power just different names.
This was 5 years ago and he basically said that battery technology is way ahead of where we are now but there's a huge stranglehold by energy companies on the patents and regulations that are blocking them from being released.
The bad thing about moving to 100% renewable is that there's not enough natural resources in the ground that we know of to support and hold all of that power. (So says some media groups who knows if it's true)
From what I've gathered, a big problem is production facilitation, capacity and price. It is simply hard to be price competitive as a new technology if you require a very expensive production, or completely new production machinery. I remember one of the 'quarterly battery breakthrough news stories' that someone had figured out how to make denser capacities with existing manufacturing equipment for Li-ion batteries. This was the most exciting battery news I'd heard in a while because that actually has a shot at becoming reality within the near future (read: within a decade). Also, many forget that a battery is not just a battery, there is a reason your car has a lead-acid battery (lower capacity, high discharge/high bursts of amperes) and your phone a Lithium-ion (higher capacity, slow discharge), they do different things.
When it said lifetime, I thought it meant that the battery could never go flat.
But it just means that it can take a charge over multiple times without having a fall off in terms of performance.
Wheres a @jajone4 when he's needed to disprove Click bait
Or find the real info and share it lol
Is anyone else thinking about how forced obselencse has been conspired by the battery makers?
Puts tinfoil hat on
Also what happened to doubling the capacity of lithinium-ion batteries? Is this a diffrent chemical compound? Could someone help break this appart for someone who doesn't actively read per reviewed papers, or write them.
I only see this tech being used in industry and aerospace. It will never filter down to consumers because this will negate the need to people to "upgrade" the devices every two years. If you think about it...there hasn't been any major advances in the underlying hardware of cellphones, tablets, and laptops in the last two years, let alone five. I don't consider minor incremental improvements to be advances. So my original point stands. This batter will be great for satellites, deep space probes, and maybe even landers and rovers as well as certain applications within a few industries (perhaps Tesla's power wall...) but by and large this will never see the light of day in a consumer device.
The I"nvention of obsolescence" is a good doco though I only understood half, had a weird copy that was half in German.
Sort of a silly thing to say... The vast majority of our engineering knowledge comes from aerospace R&D.
Did you know common things like memory foam, high grade aluminum alloys, carbon fiber materials, etc all come from aerospace engineering? Not to mention literally the entire field of Aeroacoustics, Fluid mechanics (aerodynamics) as well. You benefit from that every day as your car gets better gas mileage since aerodynamic efficiency was considered in it's design.
I would take that a step further and say US government military funding (DARPA) a lot of what we have today is because of our foreign policy, for better or for worse
You misunderstand what I mean. I'm not saying that we don't get or won't see a benefit from this tech. I saying we will never see it in consumer devices.
Companies don't want you to own something that lasts forever. They don't make money that way. They want you coming back every 18 to 24 months and buying whatever the latest and greatest piece of kit is. Apple has trained nearly everyone to throw away their devices after 18 months or so. Couple that with a lot of companies war against the Right to Repair bills that are springing up everywhere and you can see why better battery technology will take an exceedingly long time to filter down to consumer devices, if ever at all.
I do not deny that aerospace has provided us some of the greatest technology humanity has ever conceived. I'm saying that this battery tech will see more use in the aerospace industry than it will in the consumer industry.
Take for instance the 787 and the lithium battery fires that they were suffering right after the plane was launched. Not only would this battery tech virtually immune to fires and exploding, but lasts nearly forever. Seems like a perfect match to me. I can also see this vastly improving the electric car market....if auto makers embrace it and are willing to give up their current 5 to 8 year replacement cycle on EV's and hybrids.
Just saw this documentary. It's a good overview of the state of curren lithium-iont battery technology. They explore alternatives, which promise safety and higher density, and the documentary ends with something which is perhaps even more important (definitely more important) than your smartphone battery, namely large scale energy storage for the electrical grid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGyKN3YvoFc
Its good for sustainability and consumers, however I don't think battery companies will like this tech out in the wild so it may never become a actual product for the masses.
Current Lithium Ion cell batteries tend to only last 100-700 recharges before they loose their shit, and they can have inner cells fail during that time.
Can the planet really afford to suppress such technology like this and continue mass wasting of resources? Scientists say no, but what do they know, big business knows best right!?!
I think yall are missing something here... It makes no sense for a company to withhold battery tech at this point.
Historically, every viable battery break through has been put into wide spread use. Battery tech has come a LONG way in a very short amount of time. Nobody is intentionally dragging their feet.
Battery manufacturing is not a cash cow and is highly competitive. If a company hangs back in battery R&D, they get left behind very quickly. Tesla's new big factory is going to put plenty of smaller manufacturers out of business because it's going to reduce the going rate price. Batteries are expensive to design and expensive to make. If there's a viable break through, it's rushed into use to keep a company afloat. "Now" is always the best time to profit in an growing market.
Energy storage density and stability is literally the biggest bottle neck of nearly all of our technology. Energy storage holds back cars, mobile computers, electric airplanes, energy weapons.... everything. If a "magical" battery is invented, you better believe that the inventor is going to capitalize on it ASAP; EVERYBODY stands to profit.
It's a safe bet that if this new "magical" battery is more than a click bait title... ie is actually viable... it'll be rushed into every corner of the market as fast as they can pump them out. There's too much money to be made for them to "keep it in the industrial, military, aerospace" markets.