[HN Gopher] Aluminum Batteries Outlive Lithium-Ion with a Pinch ...
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Aluminum Batteries Outlive Lithium-Ion with a Pinch of Salt
Author : rbanffy
Score : 131 points
Date : 2025-02-06 10:13 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| moron4hire wrote:
| > But before the Al-ion battery is ready for commercial
| applications, its energy density will need to be improved
|
| There it is. No mention of how much. Though they do tell you how
| much longer it lasts! So apparently we aren't _that_ averse to
| numbers.
| brohee wrote:
| Energy density is only an issue if you move the battery around,
| grid storage doesn't care so a bit concerning they don't
| mention that usage either.
| hedora wrote:
| Grid storage can reuse post-consumer batteries.
|
| Li-ion capacity fall off is a fixed percentage per year, so
| when your car hits 80% of original capacity in ten years, its
| battery pack can just be used for another ten years. It'll
| provide > 64% capacity at the end of that (grid workloads are
| less stressful than driving workloads).
|
| So, the alternative battery technology has to cost less than
| the cost difference between refurbishing and recycling old
| car batteries. That delta might be negative.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| There's been a few grid storage fires in the news, you'd
| think refurbishing/recycling would increase the risk. If
| the aluminium batteries are significantly less explosive,
| that might tip that balance?
| bArray wrote:
| I think grid storage does care:
|
| * Size is important, because they need to be stored and
| maintained somewhere. The larger the energy storage, the more
| infrastructure required.
|
| * Weight typically scales cost (the heavier it is the more it
| costs). If it really weighs a lot, you need to reinforce the
| ground too.
|
| * Efficiency in charging and discharging. You also need to
| monitor the state of each cell carefully.
| hamilyon2 wrote:
| At some point scaling up you start to compete with giant pile
| of heated sand. And it is tough capacity/price benchmark.
| _Microft wrote:
| The link to the paper is hidden a few links into the article
| (what's up with all these 'tags' that they link to?):
|
| _" A Recyclable Inert Inorganic Framework Assisted Solid-State
| Electrolyte for Long-Life Aluminum Ion Batteries"_,
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.4c01615 (Open Access)
| pjc50 wrote:
| Seems to be fluoro-chemistry; use of AIF3 and Fluoroethylene
| carbonate. The F ion sets off alarm bells, but I have no idea
| whether this is significantly more toxic than the corresponding
| chemistry of regular Li batteries.
| jokoon wrote:
| I am too lazy to copy paste the battery check list
| belval wrote:
| For some reason people downvote you, but batteries seem to have
| this constant flux of N=1 articles explaining why X new
| chemistry is about to dethrone lithium. When it's not
| aluminium, it's solid state. This article itself has several
| red flags:
|
| > In contrast, a typical Li-ion battery retains only 80 percent
| of its charge capacity after 300 to 500 cycles, depending on
| conditions.
|
| LiFePO4 lasts for about 3000 cycles before 80% degradation, not
| 300-500.
|
| > The batteries were also tested at temperatures as high as 200
| degrees Celsius
|
| Thermal runaway on LFP is 120C, not 200 but still not a
| temperature you will easily hit.
|
| And finally (as always):
|
| > before the Al-ion battery is ready for commercial
| applications, its energy density will need to be improved
|
| Which means it's not commercially viable.
|
| LiFePO4 is cheap to manufacture, uses lithium, iron, phosphate,
| all of which are fairly plentiful and lasts for over 3000
| cycles (before reaching 80% capacity).
| hedora wrote:
| In defense of them, 99% capacity retention after 10,000
| cycles is still much better.
|
| I wonder if they are quoting unrealistic 0-100% numbers and
| you are quoting realistic 20-80%. If so, and you multiply the
| Li capacity by 0.6, I wonder how far off aluminum's
| (undisclosed) density is.
|
| On an unrelated note, I'm surprised that lithium is only 4x
| the price of aluminum. They're both incredibly common
| elements, but lithium extraction is harder for a lot of
| reasons.
| silon42 wrote:
| > 99% capacity retention after 10,000
|
| This would be really useful for plugin hybrids, even if the
| density is not competitive with LFP for pure EVs.
| tim333 wrote:
| Consumer gadgets too. I tend to replace the Li-ion
| batteries in my phones and laptops every 2 or 3 years and
| it's a pain. I'd pay extra for something that lasted a
| decade.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Consumer electronics use Lithium Polymer generally, which
| has one of the lower useful lifespans.
|
| Just replacing it with LiFePo batteries would give you 4x
| the lifetime. Of course, with current technology the
| battery would have to be twice the size.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I don't think lithium is 4x the price of aluminum.
|
| In January 2025, the North America price of lithium
| carbonate was $9.37/kg. But lithium carbonate is just 18.7%
| lithium, so the price is $50/kg of contained lithium.
|
| In comparison, the current market price of aluminum metal
| is $2.62/kg. And aluminum compounds (where the large energy
| expenditure needed to reduce Al(+3) to the metal is not
| needed) should be cheaper.
|
| Aluminum is much more common than lithium. It's the third
| most abundant element in the Earth's continental crust
| after oxygen and silicon.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > In defense of them, 99% capacity retention after 10,000
| cycles is still much better.
|
| Maybe, maybe not. The number that would actually matter is
| capacity in joules after 10,000 cycles, not the percentage.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Which means it's not commercially viable.
|
| Depends more on price than anything else. Maybe won't replace
| phone batteries, but a stationary battery for home or a
| utility-sized one that uses less temperamental chemistry
| would be very welcome.
| asddubs wrote:
| red flag #1 is before the article even starts
|
| picture of AA batteries
|
| >Lithium-ion batteries like these currently dominate the
| market, but aluminum-based alternatives could be a better
| solution
| metadat wrote:
| Yes, IMHO this is the appropriate response. What is the energy
| density and charge retention of aluminum salt compared to a
| lithium ion battery chemistry? TFA doesn't bother to divulge
| these critical figures.
|
| ---------------------------------------------------------------
| -
|
| 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.
|
| ---------------------------------------------------------------
| -
|
| Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025969
| h0l0cube wrote:
| It's a good list, but...
|
| > [ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently
| portable.
|
| ... only matters for mobility applications. You can forget
| about this one for grid storage.
| megaman821 wrote:
| If these non-lithium battery chemistries had any chance, it would
| be in grid storage. As time goes on LFPs keep getting cheaper and
| better, and there will be little market left for alt-chemistries.
| ajross wrote:
| Lithium is rare enough to always be a cost barrier vs.
| something like Al/Cl chemistries that are literally made of
| dirt and brine. It's true that grid storage looks like the
| biggest market, but there's a lot of space in non-mobile/less-
| mobile energy storage that would like cheap batteries.
| hedora wrote:
| Lithium is not rare. It is also extracted from dirt and
| brine. Compare copper, lithium and nitrogen on this chart
| (abundance and annual production):
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Ear.
| ..
|
| The cost difference (which is only 4x vs aluminum,
| apparently) is due to a combination of increased demand (not
| enough production capacity) and probably the amount of
| energy/environmental impact of the two processes (you have to
| go through a lot less ore/brine to get the aluminum).
|
| Also, aluminum benefits from a robust recycling
| infrastructure that hasn't come online for lithium yet.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Aluminum's recycling infrastructure is based entirely on
| reusing essentially raw aluminum, and only exists because
| bauxite is so expensive to smelt without access to
| dedicated hydroelectric dams.
|
| Recycling lithium in the form of extracting from batteries
| produces a significant amount of chemical waste, meaning
| that the cost savings of recycling is significantly less
| when compared with the difference between smelting and
| recycling aluminum.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Lithium is enriched in the upper crust of the Earth about
| 10 times over its average abundance, which makes it appear
| more abundant.
|
| Even so, despite the enrichment it remains about 500 times
| less abundant than aluminum (in atom numbers, which matter
| for batteries; in weight the lighter lithium would appear
| even less abundant).
|
| Moreover, the lower concentration of lithium in typical
| lithium ores means that for mining equal amounts of lithium
| and aluminum the environmental effects of mining lithium
| would be much worse, because more rocks are disturbed and
| more waste is produced.
|
| So there is no doubt that replacing lithium with aluminum
| for large-scale energy storage is a more sustainable
| option.
| dangrossman wrote:
| About 40% of lithium is "mined" from brine rather than
| hard rock sources, at least. Much less destructive and
| less carbon intensive.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Lithium was $61/kg 2 years ago and now it's $14/kg. It is
| neither rare nor expensive.
| pfdietz wrote:
| You're giving the price of lithium carbonate, not lithium.
| Li is only 18.7% of LiCO3.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I am giving a direct comparison between the same
| commodity at two points in time. Whatever people thought
| was true about the preciousness of lithium between
| 2021-2023 when the price rose 8x obviously needs
| reconsideration in 2025 after the price went right back
| down to where it had been.
|
| https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/ILAM25/overview
| don_esteban wrote:
| Lithium is not super precious, but its price is still a
| non-trivial multiply of aluminium's price.
|
| Your graphs show it. They also show that there has not
| been a substantial reduction in its price over the years.
|
| This means there is market potential for other
| (al/sodium) chemistries, mainly for grid-level storage.
| jeffbee wrote:
| If we're just racing to the cheapest available reactants,
| iron flow batteries are going to win that race. And,
| unlike these others, there are already iron flow
| batteries on the grid.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| This seems to ignore the entire supply/demand context of
| both metals. Demand for Al is basically flat, and the
| supply/demand relationship has reached an equilibrium.
|
| Electric cars (by far the biggest consumer of lithium)
| have been experiencing a an average compounded growth of
| something like 50% per year for the past 10 years. Li
| production is still catching up. The earth has plenty of
| Li deposits but there is a lead time to purchase the
| heavy machines needed to turn those deposits into
| productive mines.
|
| Once electric car growth hits the inflection point on the
| adoption curve, and growth becomes sub-exponential, we'll
| start to see major downward pressure on Li prices.
| pfdietz wrote:
| You made a statement (that it is neither rare nor
| expensive) that is about the absolute price of the
| commodity, not its price relative to another point in
| time. Lithium is not expensive compared to, say, gold,
| but it is expensive compared to, say, copper, never mind
| aluminum or iron.
| ajross wrote:
| Spot price for Al is $2.50 as I type this. Lithium is rare
| and expensive in context, yeah.
| tim333 wrote:
| see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42823063
| mlhpdx wrote:
| As a boater, I find salt being used to _reduce_ corrosion a bit
| ironic.
| chris_va wrote:
| Or ionic? :)
|
| On a boat, Aluminum "corrodes" and forms an oxide layer (also
| known as sapphire), which then protects it from further
| corrosion. But, said layer is not electrically conductive (or
| in this case does not allow Al ions to flow into the
| electrolyte), so you need something to prevent the protective
| layer from forming.
| anarchonurzox wrote:
| It really feels like progress in battery tech is unlocking the
| next "wave" of hardware development. Miniaturization leading to
| better drones, wearables, cameras, etc., and alt-batteries with
| better cycle efficiency to better usage of "green" technology. I
| love seeing these kinds of physical and chemical engineering
| breakthroughs, even if they aren't quite ready for industrial
| use.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Battery tech improvement has stayed mostly quiet because we
| never really had an impressive breakthrough, instead, we had
| decades of slightly better and slightly cheaper stuff, and it
| added up. Now we have drones, electric vehicles, grid scale
| storage, rechargeable batteries so cheap we put them in
| disposable products, battery power tools that match corded and
| gas options.
|
| EVs in particular are entirely about batteries. The energy
| density of fossile fuels is the only thing going for combustion
| engines. Electric motors are simpler, cheaper, more efficient,
| more powerful, better for the environment, the only problem is
| storing the electricity needed to power them. Electric cars
| actually came before gas cars, that's 19th century tech! The
| only reason we are only starting to see them back on the roads
| is because until now, we didn't have good enough batteries.
|
| I expect such research to pay off eventually in the same way.
| No big breakthrough, but maybe in the future, you will look
| into buying a new car and realize that that $10k electric car
| you thought would be useless actually has decent range, that
| the generator section in the hardware store has been mostly
| taken over by battery packs and that city buses do not sound
| the same as they did before.
| squeedles wrote:
| I thought one of the biggest barriers to Al-ion use was large
| dimensional change with charge state introducing mechanical
| stresses. No discussion of that, but a viable solid state
| electrolyte is pretty sweet.
| elihu wrote:
| It's mentioned in the article. They say it doesn't change
| dimensions all that much when charging/discharging.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| A bit of inaccuracy in the article:
|
| > a typical Li-ion battery retains only 80 percent of its charge
| capacity after 300 to 500 cycles
|
| That's off by 10x at least. Typical LFP batteries that are widely
| used now have thousands of cycles. Over 5K in some cases. Some of
| the solid state batteries that are coming to production in the
| next few years might do better. 300 to 500 is more typical of
| some older chemistries. Even NMC batteries used in e.g. Teslas
| have cycle life spans of at least 1500 or so cycles.
|
| And for reference, if you charge and full de-charge your car that
| would be 1 cycle. A decade is only 3653 or so cycles (there might
| be 2 or 3 leap years). Most car vehicle owners don't charge
| nearly as often or so completely. A typical Tesla that is
| partially charged maybe once a week or so is not going to need a
| battery replacement until the 2040s or so.
|
| Anyway, the article carefully avoids talking about energy
| density. Which is of course the key thing here. Together with
| other things like charging speeds. Operational temperatures, etc.
| These all matter.
|
| This is a university study, not a plan to get this to production.
| Promising and interesting but probably well over a decade away
| from any serious applications. By that time we might have all
| sorts of other battery tech that is sitting a bit higher on the
| technological readiness scale on the market.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I find it interesting that my 2021 MBP's "health" was down to
| about 85% after the first year, but has only decreased to 82%
| after two additional years. I have 653 cycles now.
|
| Assuming that's accurate, and batteries spend a majority of
| their usable lifetime around this capacity, perhaps battery
| estimates should be based off of the 80% capacity mark.
| peer2pay wrote:
| 80% SoH is the de-facto industry standard for
| EoL/replacement. Mostly because after that you will
| eventually get a "knee-point" in your degradation curve at
| which operation is risky and largely inefficient.
|
| Without knowing specifics, your MBP might have had issues
| with an individual cell such that initial capacity dropped
| significantly until the cell was disconnected.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| I've seen several laptops start out in the 90-95% SoH
| range, drop off quickly to the mid-80s and stay there for a
| very long time. Similarly for iPhone batteries, they go
| below 90% pretty fast, then each % off takes longer and
| longer until they actually start dying. Maybe that's due to
| different baselines though, BMS of laptop batteries
| normally refer last-full energy to the design energy, which
| is probably just a fixed value in an EEPROM and might not
| ever be reached due to a more conservative charge cutoff
| and tolerances.
| vasco wrote:
| Enough cycles and you get a free pillow so the risk comes
| with rewards sometimes!
| thefourthchime wrote:
| I use https://apphousekitchen.com to only charge to 80%
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Apple added a feature that only charges to 80% if you're
| only using it while plugged in (and discharges to 80% if
| not disconnected).
|
| That made me uninstall aldente again.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I struggle a bit with this concept. It feels silly to me to
| only use 80% of my laptop's battery capacity in order to...
| avoid my usage bringing my battery's capacity down to 80%.
|
| OK, so it can go below 80%, but if it takes 3-4+ years, I'm
| not sure I care. (Don't get me wrong - I do of course use
| the built-in intelligent charging on Apple and Android
| devices. No reason to charge a battery to 100% when I'm
| going to plug it in for bedtime in a few hours anyway.)
| nicoburns wrote:
| It might make sense if you occasionally use the full
| 100%. But for most people I expect it makes more sense to
| just use 100% of the capacity and then replace the
| battery if/when it degrades. For some reason, many people
| seem to have an aversion to replacing the battery in
| phones. Yes, it's expensive, but those same people will
| often replace the entire phone which is much more
| expensive!
| Tagbert wrote:
| For most people they are not using 100% of capacity every
| day. In fact large numbers of laptops are primarily used
| plugged in and just move from desk to desk. In that
| scenario charging to 80% has no downside. The upside is
| that your battery may last longer. If you are keeping
| your laptop for longer than 2-3 years that might be
| worthwhile.
| cameldrv wrote:
| It's more than just going down to 80%. After a while the
| battery will essentially fail entirely and not hold a
| charge, or swell up and push around other components of
| the computer, and it becomes a fire hazard.
|
| I have an M1 MBP and I use it 95% of the time at my desk.
| I use Al Dente, and if I'm going to be using it away from
| my desk or I'm going on a trip, I'll just click the
| button to fully charge it. Even if I forget, the battery
| life is good enough that 80% is usually enough.
| apt-apt-apt-apt wrote:
| I was pretty careful with my 4.3yr old Intel MBP, nearly
| always using Charge Limiter to max at 80% or so.
|
| It's at 500 cycles now, the battery has been declaring it
| recommends service for a year, and taking it out to cafes
| limits my work time to 2-3 hours max (starting at 80%).
|
| There were at least one or two occasions where it 'cooked'
| itself to empty inside my backpack though, when it didn't
| sleep on lid close as expected.
|
| Not sure how big an impact charge limiting has made (is my
| battery life better? did I avoid pillowing?). Or the self-
| cooking. But that has been the life of this computer.
| kccqzy wrote:
| > Typical LFP batteries that are widely used
|
| It depends on the use case. I believe LCO batteries are still
| more widely used since they are popular in small electronic
| devices rather than electric vehicles. These do not achieve the
| thousands of cycles you mention.
|
| In general I don't like articles that simply talk about specs
| of Li-ion batteries as a whole without specifying the exact
| chemistry. Apple has different incentives when they choose a
| battery as compared to say Ford.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| High discharge rate + high energy/mass density optimized
| chemistries usually have the worst charge cycle degradation.
| LFP doesn't have top discharge rate or energy/mass density, it
| trades some of that off for improved long term stability.
| morserer wrote:
| Li-ion != LFP.
|
| LFP is incredible, but LFP batteries are 5x larger than li-ion.
| The two aren't comparable. You won't find LFP batteries in cars
| nor smartphones.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| It would appear LFPs are making their way into EVs, despite
| having about half the energy/mass density.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery
| Reason077 wrote:
| LFP has made huge energy density improvements in recent
| years, so the difference is much less than that today.
|
| If you compare a standard range Tesla Model Y with LFP
| pack, the newest LFP pack stores around 62 kWh, vs. around
| 80 kWh for the long range (NMC) variant. And the LR pack
| actually weighs _more_ than the LFP one, putting the
| difference in energy density at <30%.
|
| Further more, typically with an NMC pack it's recommended
| to only charge to 80% for day-to-day use, to reduce long-
| term degradation. But with an LFP pack you can routinely
| charge to 100%. So the effective difference in range for
| day-to-day driving if you follow those recommendation is
| small.
| dgacmu wrote:
| There are a lot of LFP model 3's on the road, and my
| understanding is it was only canceled because of
| manufacturing location effects on tax rebates.
|
| A lot of BYDs cars use LFP. And they sell a -lot- of cars.
|
| The 2024 Mach-E is LFP. The Kia EV5.
|
| And so on. I think you have an outdated model of lfp
| tradeoffs.
|
| Many of the extended range models still use higher-density
| chemistries. But LFP is making amazing strides.
| avtolik wrote:
| I read last week that about 40% of the electric cars produced
| now are with LFP batteries.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| LFP batteries are Li-ion though
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Lithium-ion is an umbrella term that properly includes common
| cell chemistries like lithium iron phosphate (LFP), lithium
| nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) and lithium nickel cobalt
| aluminium oxide (NCA).
|
| It doesn't make sense to compare LFP vs. lithium-ion, because
| the first is a sub-type of the second.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Most commonly when people say lithium ion they really mean
| lithium polymer (lipo). Usually for the other lithium ion
| chemistries they will specify like you Jane (LFP etc).
|
| You are technically correct - that's just how I've seen it
| casually used
| Animats wrote:
| BYD has raised lithium-iron phosphate Wh per liter up to
| lithium-ion levels. Wh per kilogram is still maybe half that
| of lithium-ion.
|
| BYD "Blade battery 1": 168 Wh/kg. 448 Wh/L. Shipping now.
|
| BYD "Blade battery 2": 210 Wh/kg. Announced for 2025. [1]
|
| Tesla current lithium ion battery: 260 Wh/kg. 416 Wh/L[2]
|
| (Tesla also uses lithium iron phosphate, in their lower-end
| cars.)
|
| Close on size, big difference on weight. Weight differential
| is narrowing.
|
| At this point, all fixed installations should be lithium iron
| or better. There's no excuse for big lithium-ion battery
| fires such as Moss Beach and the Port of Los Angeles any
| more.
|
| Solid state batteries with better density are coming along,
| but nobody has those in volume production yet.
|
| (Incidentally, if you ask questions like this to search
| engines that use an LLM, the results may be bogus, as they
| tend to pick numbers from the wrong places. Check the
| references.)
|
| [1] https://electric.guide/renewable-energy-storage/byd-
| blade-ba...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" Wh per kilogram is still maybe half that of lithium-
| ion."_
|
| At the pack level, it seems to be a lot less than that. If
| you compare a Tesla Model Y standard range (with LFP pack)
| to a Model Y long range (with NMC), you're looking at
| around 62 kWh vs 80 kWh for the latest versions. But the
| NMC pack actually weighs slightly _more_ than the LFP pack,
| putting the difference in energy density at < 30%.
| elihu wrote:
| LFP is a type of lithium ion battery. Modern LFPs perform
| pretty well, though they're a bit worse than "regular"
| lithium ion, in part because they run at a lower nominal
| voltage of 3.2 volts rather than 3.6 volts. They're used in
| cars all the time, just not usually in the United States.
|
| I've never heard of an LFP smartphone battery, but that
| doesn't mean it isn't done. I wouldn't be surprised if it was
| common in China.
| Psyonic wrote:
| While most cars are not LFP, your claim that you won't find
| LFP batteries in cars is incorrect:
|
| Rivian switched to LFP:
| https://insideevs.com/news/720396/2025-rivian-r1s-r1t-lfp-
| ba...
|
| Some Teslas use LFP:
| https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/2464/tesla-lfp-
| batteries-c...
| Reason077 wrote:
| Most Chinese-built EVs use LFP. And China is the world's
| largest EV market, bigger than the rest of the world
| combined. So presumably, the majority of EVs shipping
| globally are using LFP batteries today.
| guerby wrote:
| And China is using LFP even for electric trucks.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" Li-ion != LFP."_
|
| No, LFP is one form of Li-ion battery, along with other
| chemistries like NMC, NCA, LMO, etc.
|
| > _" LFP is incredible, but LFP batteries are 5x larger than
| li-ion."_
|
| Nope. Today it's more like 20-30% less energy density. And
| the gap has been closing over time.
|
| > _" You won't find LFP batteries in cars"_
|
| Absolutely false. The vast majority of Chinese-built EVs
| (brands like BFD, NIO, MG, XPeng, Geely) use LFP in many
| models. Most Chinese-built Teslas use LFP packs. Tesla's
| Powerwall 3 home storage batteries use LFP. Western
| automakers are also increasingly looking to LFP to reduce
| costs and improve stability and safety.
|
| In fact, I'd say the significant majority of all EVs shipping
| in the world today contain LFP batteries.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| > You won't find LFP batteries in cars
|
| That's not correct.
|
| The MG4 uses LFP. So does some Model Y and Model 3s from
| Tesla.
|
| See a long list here: https://evdb.nz/ev-battery
| dragontamer wrote:
| LFP is 3000 cycles last time I checked.
|
| NCA, a very common LiIon chemistry, is only 500 cycles as the
| article rightfully claims
|
| The article is anywhere from 'correct' to off by 600% depending
| on which LiIon chemistry. But that's the nature of such a wide
| chemistry, there's so many LiIon out there it's hard to
| generalize.
|
| NCA / NMC is common for phone and even EV applications though.
| So it's not necessarily wrong and both have similar endurance
| specs.
|
| > Anyway, the article carefully avoids talking about energy
| density. Which is of course the key thing here.
|
| No one cares about density in utility scale applications. It
| can be heavy as all heck but as long as it's cheap it will be
| an effective solar or wind battery.
| megaman821 wrote:
| Also for utility uses, why is 80% the benchmark? It seems
| likely that batteries will be used down to 60% capacity; so
| double the number of cycles for a reduced capacity.
| ziga wrote:
| You can't really generalize cycles based on chemistry alone.
| Battery management and usage matters. But two examples with
| NCA/NMC chemistry:
|
| - The Tesla Powerwall 2 battery warranty[1] is for
| effectively 3650 cycles (daily cycle for 10 years).
|
| - Many cases of Tesla cars at 200k mileage (~1000 cycles,
| depends on battery size) with less than 15% capacity loss[2].
|
| And these batteries didn't die after reaching the high number
| of cycles, they just retained less capacity.
|
| [1] https://energylibrary.tesla.com/docs/Public/EnergyStorage
| /Po...
|
| [2] https://insideevs.com/news/723734/tesla-model-3y-battery-
| cap...
| hinkley wrote:
| The last aluminum battery discussed here only had about 40% of
| the volumetric density of Lion and did not mention wh/kg, just
| w/kg. Which sounds a lot like lying with statistics.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Oh, but they should be able to get that time down to a few
| months if they just use an LLM.
| Melatonic wrote:
| When people say Li-ion they typically are talking about Lipo
| batteries (unfortunately). LFP obviously are much better
| longevity wise.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Tldr; another Better Battery Bulletin
| AngryData wrote:
| If you want a battery that will last a really long time, nickel-
| iron batteries already do that. They have 50+ year life spans and
| are incredibly robust. And if you care about recycling, well its
| just nickel and iron. The nickel you obviously would want back,
| but the iron is worth almost nothing.
|
| Until we can surpass current lithium batteries in energy density,
| cycle stability, and safety all at once, iron-nickel is more than
| good enough to be used in any application where current lithium
| tech struggles, and will outlive you along with being infinitely
| recyclable and basically as safe as any battery ever could be.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Nickel-iron batteries self-discharge quickly, so they are not
| suitable for long-term energy storage.
| tryptophan wrote:
| 1% per day which is the number I found doesn't seem terrible
| for solar type systems.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Sounds like it could potentially be a cheaper (and maybe less
| fire prone) battery where weight and volume is less of a concern
| - maybe batteries for residential / commercial buildings or grid
| storage ?
|
| Possible also easier recycling - especially locally close to the
| battery.
|
| Even compared to LFP (much higher cycle longevity than the
| article quotes) these sound like they retain energy capacity much
| better
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