[HN Gopher] A long-lasting, stable solid-state lithium battery
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A long-lasting, stable solid-state lithium battery
Author : macinjosh
Score : 62 points
Date : 2021-05-17 20:14 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.seas.harvard.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.seas.harvard.edu)
| neals wrote:
| Dear battery technology claimant,
|
| Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary
| battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to
| existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner
| from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will
| likely fail, because:
|
| [ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale.
|
| [ ] it will be too expensive for users.
|
| [ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles.
|
| [ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels.
|
| [ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures.
|
| [ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable.
|
| [ ] it has too short of a lifetime.
|
| [ ] its charge rate is too slow.
|
| [ ] its materials are too toxic.
|
| [ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode.
|
| [ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care.
|
| [ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then.
|
| [ ] by this time it ships li-ion advances will match it.
|
| [ ] your claims are lies.
| phtrivier wrote:
| In this case, which cross(es) are the most likely candidates
| for being crossed ?
| bsder wrote:
| At least check a few of the boxes. It will lead the discussion
| properly.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| FWIW, this is a meme reference. See:
| https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt.
| detaro wrote:
| feels a bit overdone, given the freaking press release admits
| as much. We don't need meme copypasta here.
|
| > _"This_ proof-of-concept _design shows that lithium-metal
| solid-state batteries_ could be _competitive with commercial
| lithium-ion batteries," said Li. "And the flexibility and
| versatility of our multilayer design makes it_ potentially
| compatible _with mass production procedures in the battery
| industry._
| h0l0cube wrote:
| > and is just around the corner from taking over the world
|
| From the article they don't appear to be making such a claim:
|
| > Scaling it up to the commercial battery wont' be easy and
| there are still some practical challenges, but we believe they
| will be overcome
|
| Do you have anything concrete to say about this technology?
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Looks interesting. It has a second electrolyte that is 'is less
| stable with lithium', sounds like it you might not want to crush
| it as might happen in an auto accident.
| pkaye wrote:
| In a NOVA episode on super batteries, I saw a demo of a lithium
| ion battery that was safe enough that you could puncture or
| snip of pieces of the battery packet while it is in use.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Lithium Ceramic Batteries are fairly forgiving, it looks
| like: https://youtu.be/kJXRyWQgOY4
| dougmwne wrote:
| All the standard comments about battery breakthrough articles
| apply. Who here is tracking which emerging battery technologies
| will hit scale manufacturing first and how much of a difference
| will they make for cars, stationary storage and personal
| electronics from a cost, weight and volume perspective?
| rzzzt wrote:
| ...for mice!
|
| I am also interested in seeing a tabular summary, but it seems
| to be quite a big task to collect all or most candidates. The
| published paper alone lists quite a few references, each one
| possibly offering an alternative electrode composition.
| samatman wrote:
| I like it, but I'm also afraid of it.
|
| Lithium metal reacts explosively to water, and it's impossible to
| avoid a vehicle battery cracking open in a bad enough accident.
| Physics is a stern task master.
|
| Existing lithium ion batteries are pretty dangerous, as we've
| seen from accidents involving Teslas and the like: but so are
| gasoline autos.
|
| It would be hard to persuade me that these batteries aren't
| substantially more dangerous still.
|
| That all said, rapid recharging could be a useful feature for
| stationary storage batteries, and the higher energy density is a
| nice bonus, although space isn't really the limiting factor for
| storing renewable energy. There's a place for this technology,
| somewhere.
|
| I'm always happy to read about new battery chemistry, but always
| come back to the slogan: Goodenough's batteries are good enough.
| post_break wrote:
| Lithium iron phosphate batteries are extreme safe though?
| samatman wrote:
| Relatively speaking, absolutely.
|
| Both those and other formulations (mostly lithium cobalt
| oxide) have ionic lithium, hence, lithium ion.
|
| This uses metallic lithium, which again, reacts explosively
| in the presence of water. The danger of 'standard' lithium
| ion chemistries is, as a sibling comment mentions, that the
| electrolyte and anode are flammable. LiFePO is much more
| stable and unlikely to burn, relative to lithium cobalt
| oxide: but neither of them will straight-up explode if a
| naive fire department sprays water on them to try and put a
| fire out.
| bumbada wrote:
| >and it's impossible to avoid a vehicle battery cracking open
| in a bad enough accident
|
| If you watch old car racing competitions, you will see that
| they were extremely dangerous because of the gas deposit
| burning at the minimum crash.
|
| How many of those you see today? Close to zero. They let the
| deposit deform under an accident and it really works.
|
| Electric cars are much safer for humans than ICE in accidents
| because batteries could displace under people instead of
| hitting people like engines do.
|
| Electric cars are going to make cars significantly safer by
| avoiding the accident in the first place.
|
| I prefer having a car that helps me not having an accident than
| worrying too much about what would happen in a bad enough
| accident.
| audunw wrote:
| It's not the lithium which is dangerous with li-ion batteries
| though. It's the flammable liquid electrolyte. That's what
| gives you explosions and fire. I think the lithium does make it
| harder to put out after it has caught fire though, but it's not
| generally the reason why they catch fire.
|
| With next generation batteries, some have been shown to be
| completely fire proof, as they don't all use the same flammable
| electrolyte as Li-ion. With some, you can cut them in two
| without anything happening.
|
| I'm not at all worried about the lithium in lithium metal
| batteries. The key is reaction rate. A pure chunk of lithium
| metal can be dangerous because all the metal is available for
| reacting to happen nearly instantly. A microsopically thin
| slice sandwich between non-reactive materials is not a big
| concern. With catastrophic damage you may have thermal run-
| away. But fire departments in countries with high share of EVs,
| like Norway, have already shown they can handle it well, and
| they consider EVs far safer than gasoline cars.
| samatman wrote:
| Sure, a lot depends on the exact formulation of the
| batteries.
|
| It still makes me nervous. Most of what you said was about
| lithium _ion_ batteries, which is irrelevant here. I gather
| that you know that, and I do as well, but I thought it was
| worth spelling out for the general reader.
| tigen wrote:
| It's not irrelevant at all, you mentioned them yourself,
| and he spent more time discussing lithium metal. What's
| irrelevant is your nervousness.
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