Australian Scientists Figure Out How Zinc-Air Batteries Can Replace Lithium-Ion Batteries (gizmodo.com.au) 118
Researchers at the University of Sydney has figured out how to solve one of the biggest problems standing in the way for zinc-air batteries to replace lithium-ion batteries. The reason zinc batteries are so sought after is because they're powered by zinc metal -- the 24th most abundant element in Earth's crust. Not only are they cheaper to produce than lithium-ion batteries, they can theoretically store five times more energy, are much safer and environmentally friendly. The problem with zinc batteries stems around them being difficult to charge because of the lack of electrocatalysts needed to reduce and generate oxygen during the discharging and charging of a battery. labnet shares a report from Gizmodo: "Up until now, rechargeable zinc-air batteries have been made with expensive precious metal catalysts, such as platinum and iridium oxide. In contrast, our method produces a family of new high-performance and low-cost catalysts." These new catalysts are produced through the simultaneous control of the composition, size and crystallinity of metal oxides of earth-abundant elements like iron, cobalt and nickel. They can then be applied to build rechargeable zinc-air batteries. Researcher Dr Li Wei, also from the University's Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies, said trials of zinc-air batteries developed with the new catalysts had demonstrated "excellent rechargeability" -- including less than a 10 percent battery efficacy drop over 60 discharging/charging cycles of 120 hours. The research was published in the journal Advanced Materials.
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Properly managed li-ions are perfectly safe [electrek.co].
Re:Five times (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I know you are just trolling, however..
The actual amount of electrical energy in a battery is generally not a major hazard - the issue with LiIon batteries is much more closely related to the use of Lithium in a state that can then continue and amplify the reaction (the energy is not minor, however the two together is the major hazard). That is why the energy in a car lead acid (starting, not electric drive..) battery is not much of a concern in a crash - there is a ton of it, and it can discharge strongly (enough to melt steel), however it tends to do so in a way that doesnt create a sustained high temperature fire.
The issues with this research however are more likely to surround what is not said.
10% loss after 60 cycles is not particularly great - however that is a low number - does is stabilize or accelerate to a quick death?
What does the self-discharge curve and time look like? (that is often a major factor).
What is the discharge voltage curve like?
The headline is f course throwaway - nothing of the sort is claimed.
The safety issue of LiIon is already solved, LiFePO4 batteries are better in almost every way, however have a minor weight/size penalty.
They last many more cycles, have a better charge/discharge voltage curve, react much less violently to failure, etc.
Of course since they would cost just a bit more, no one talks about them - since then, you know, they may actually be pushed in to consumer devices..
We couldn't have that.. you cannot compromise profitability with safety!
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Still have some of those old A123 B&D VPX batteries going strong. They'll probably outlast the toolset... the vac is already dead. Though the pack that fell under my car seat and was presumed lost for an entire new england winter didn't fair so well.
I was kinda expecting NiMH-LSD to take off for stationary uses once Li-ion started eating it's lunch in the portable market, but the UPS makers stuck with lead acid for so long that they've now leapfrogged to Li-ion (and it's still a tiny sliver vs. the le
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10% loss after 60 cycles is actually terrible. Hopefully they can improve that by 1 1/2 orders of magnitude.
Energy density is not the issue. The Tesla Model 3's curb weight comes in at pretty much the same as its ICE competitors in its class (BMW 3-Series, Audi A4, Mercedes C300, etc). Energy density comes in at fourth on the list of EV battery priorities. #1 is cost. #2 is durability. #3 is recharging speed (both ion mobility and efficiency, the latter determining heat removal requirements during fas
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Energy density is an issue for electric aircraft. The abstract says this battery has an energy density of 904 Wh per kg Zn. The question is now much the rest of the battery weighs - aircraft designers would like the whole system to have an energy density of at least 400 Wh per kg.
The Tesla model 3 sits at about 180 Wh/kg (if the numbers I found are correct - it is said to be 30% more energy dense than the 140 Wh/kg Model S).
Using Zn-air batteries in aircraft is more challenging than Li-ion because it needs
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For a first working demo it it pretty good. Nobody sane expects a research prototype to match an industrial product.
Re:Five times (Score:5, Informative)
Not according to literally every reveiwer who has been in in the vehicle, which is over a dozen. A base Model 3 is also more feature-rich [electrek.co] than its competitors such as the 3-series (there are also comparisons to the A4 and C300 if you'd like)
Now, you can spout nonsense that doesn't correspond at all to any reviews, but that's not to your credit. Seriously, the concept that a soft-touch sports sedan with a 5,6 second *base* 0-60, eight cameras, a dozen ultrasonic sensors and a radar *standard*, automatic crash avoidance *standard*, and a ton of other things is equivalent to a Dacia... why not just call it a used Yugo while you're at it?
Wrong. The base curb weight [tesla.com] of the Model 3, according to the official press kit, is 3549 lbs, which is 1610kg. 1730kg is the LR version, the heavier version. The BMW 3-Series ranges from [wikipedia.org] 1475-1770kg. The A4 ranges from [wikipedia.org] 1410-1695 kg. I can't find an official total range for the C300, but find values ranging from 1630 kg [caranddriver.com] to 1688kg [edmunds.com] to 1695kg [usnews.com] to 1715kg [topgear.com]. While the 1630kg is described as the "base weight" (analogous to the M3's 1610kg), I have no clue what the heaviest C300 config is, there could easily be configurations heavier than the 1715kg one.
To sum up:
Tesla Model 3: 1610-1730kg
BMW 3-Series: 1475-1770kg
Audi A4: 1410-1695kg
Mercedes C300: 1630-1715+kg
I'll repeat: The Tesla Model 3's curb weight comes in at pretty much the same as its ICE competitors in its class (BMW 3-Series, Audi A4, Mercedes C300, etc).
Re:Five times (Score:5, Interesting)
As for reviews, let's go down the list. By all means, read the full reviews yourself.
Motor Trend: [motortrend.com]
Top Gear [topgear.com]:
The Verge [theverge.com]:
Discharge (Score:3)
Self discharge is directly related to oxygen (or water) contact with zinc. The better you can seal out the zinc from atmosphere and spills when not in use the longer it'll last. Self discharge in zinc air is exactly the same reaction as preventing zinc metal from corroding--the electrons just take a longer path
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I'm no expert, but since air is used like fuel for this battery, shutting off the air supply ought to prevent self-discharge.
My concern with this new battery is that they're using a 120 hour cycle time. That means they're discharging it at a rate that would be too slow for vehicle use. Whether that is actually a limitation of the battery is unstated.
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It is a research prototype, not a finished product. They wanted to demonstrate that their new catalyst works, everything else is secondary here.
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10% over 60 cycles means it is a viable candidate to put more research effort into. This is not a finished product and obviously, there are many issues to solve. This is a pretty good incremental research result though because getting rid of the expensive catalysts.
As to capacity increase, I gather the 500% storage increase is naked Li vs. naked Zn. In practice that will more likely boil down to 50...100% more capacity, but that is already pretty nice. And, of course, at least 10 years (probably more) resea
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It's a good thing gasoline doesn't lead to car fires daily
But Zinc is supported by Neo-Nazis (Score:1, Funny)
Now how can we use it when we must destroy all Zinc?
Affordability (Score:2)
Why aren't hearing-aid batteries li-ion?
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Hows abouts the old carbon-zinc primary batteries? I mean, it's got zinc in it also.
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Re:Affordability (Score:5, Insightful)
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Those tiny little hearing-aid batteries are EXPENSIVE.
That's because hearing aids are regulated as medical devices. It has nothing to do with the batteries being zinc-air.
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Excellent rechargability? (Score:5, Interesting)
less than a 10 percent battery efficacy drop over 60 discharging/charging cycles of 120 hours
How does this compare to current lithium batteries? I thought my phone's battery was better (I heard like 100 recharges without any significant drop)
Re: Excellent rechargability? (Score:4, Interesting)
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This is our monthly "revolutionary battery" news item. There's always something wrong.
Except in the case where it's right such as NiMH and LiPo...
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This is our monthly "revolutionary battery" news item. There's always something wrong. Too big, too heavy, too few charge cycles, too slow to charge, too expensive, etc.
If we could only have less news about technology in it's early stages We must eliminate the media telling us anything until the technology is well and truly proven with a track record.
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Ah yes, the Evil Scientist Conglomerate, hell bent on world domination with diabolically crafted hoaxes like global warming, the hole in the ozone layer, honeybee population decline and moon landings, among other things, in order to suck up always more grant money from the world's helpless and totally not evil governements and corporations.
Re: Excellent rechargability? (Score:4, Interesting)
Aside from the "never actually get practically produced" bit, you've just described the media around every battery ever created since the dawn of electricity.
I most certainly do expect something from it. I do often with promising research. If you want to feel silly start looking at Slashdot articles talking about revolutionary batteries like LiFePo4 from 15+ years ago, and then laugh at all the posts like yours claiming we'll never see them and it's just researchers wanting more funding.
Because you know the best way of not getting something? Don't fund it.
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Re: Excellent rechargability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. A while back, the big story on Slashdot, the story was silicon anodes. Guess what? Tesla uses them in at least some, if not all, of their battery packs.
The announcement generates hype. The commercialization does not. Most announcements ultimately don't pan out, but those that do change the world - but those changes quickly become our "new normal" and we forget about what a big deal they were. Look at old cell phones and the size of the batteries it took versus the more humble power demands they were facing. And be thankful that the pace of technology advances marches on.
Re:Excellent rechargability? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, yeah, but I assume that with 5 times the capacity you'll have to charge 5 times less often.
Though in reality, phones will likely end up with a battery 5 times smaller. But the phone will be 1mm thinner..
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A charge/discharge cycle of 120 hours is pretty slow.
Let's say you need a 120kWh battery for your car to go 500 miles.
To cover 500 miles in 60 hours, you need to be going around 8MPH. Not very quick for a car. That's assuming you can also keep the peak current draw under C/60, or 2kW. You could probably move a car at 8MPH with a 2Kw motor.... Not very useful for a car.
The point here is batteries tend to wear out quicker as you put in to take out more current.
I would be impressed if they did 60 charge/discha
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I would be impressed if they did 60 charge/discharge cycles in 120 hours, not 120 hours per cycle.
Be impressed. From TFA:
Premature question. (Score:1)
They just demonstrated their method in the lab for the first time, what does it matter how it compares to something that is already refined and on the market for ages? What matters is the potential!
Re:Excellent rechargability? (Score:4, Interesting)
The cells Panasonic makes for Tesla cars are rated for 3000 cycles. Standard lifetime for batteries is the point at which they retain less than 80% of their original capacity.
Phone batteries tend to be closer to 500 cycles, which is why they are usually noticeably degraded after a couple of years, or even 18 months for heavy users.
However, the other factor to consider is how easy it is to manufacture, repair and replace a given type of battery. If you can restore lost capacity just by adding water, say, it's not such an issue if it only lasts 50 cycles.
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Keep in mind the phrasing. It didn't say 60 charge/discharge cycles of the battery, it sais 60 120 hour charge/discharge cycles. How many times did they charge/discharge the cells in 120 hours? Even the slowest of slow charging batteries I have seen are 1/10C, so 20 hours for a full cycle. So maybe the minimum here is actually 1200 full battery cycles for 10 percent. Sounds good in that light.
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From the article:
The rechargeability of the battery was tested for 60 discharging/charging cycles (1 h each step) at 10 mA cm-2 continuously.
So they did do 60 charge/discharge cycles. Each half of the cycle was 1 hour (ie 1C) for a total test time of 120 hours.
Sam
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That comparison is completely meaningless. This is a research prototype that serves to show the new catalyst is viable, nothing else. Nobody with a clue will compare this to an industrial product.
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Let us look up some actual data about cobalt rather than rely on a random AC's notions.
The bottom line is that world production is 124,000 tons of cobalt, and proven reserves are 7.2 million tons, or a 60 year supply. It is important to understand what "proven reserves" means - it is a very conservative estimate of the known supplies that can be profitably extracted at current prices. These figures are always much lower than what could be called "ultimate reserves". According to the USGS report: "Identified
After A Cup of Coffee, I Wonder (Score:1)
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will gray chinese types hack into the educator's computer systems to learn what they could just read over at the journal advanced materials?
Probably already done, and the factories are already being tooled up. Most of the Universities in Sydney are filled with Chinese students anyway, no hacks are not required...
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The educator/inventor you're talking may be Chinese himself, you know. He's listed as "Member of China Studies Centre", collaborates with Chinese universities, and has a Chinese name... though it looks like he studied in Singapore so maybe he's just ethnically Chinese. But who cares? Patents slow progress, I hope various countries steal and develop the tech.
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When rare earth gets export controls for some reason?
Other battery chemistry gives the world the ability to escape set prices and political export controls imposed by a few producers.
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The costs of rare earths? How do they figure into this?
Zinc air batteries don't use rare earths but neither do lithium ion batteries. NiMH do but they are not being discussed.
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10-50 years in the future. If it pans out. Pretty standard time-frame for this sort of thing.
They would last only about 2 to 3 years (Score:2)
If they lose 10% in 60 cycles, they would be near useless after 500 cycles. Lithium Ion batteries are at least twice as long lived. I have cell phone batteries that still are above 90% after two years.
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If they lose 10% in 60 cycles
Careful there, because not all cycles are created equal. It's indicated that they got 120 hours in a single cycle. So if we assume that we lose 10% for every 60 cycles, that's still sum(60*120*(1-n*10%),n = 0 -> 9). That's 39600 hours.or 4.5 years of usage. However, for a multiple number of reasons, I doubt this will see light anytime soon in a phone. There's a lot of lingering questions as to if it scales and what kind of self discharge these things are look at to name a few.
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that's still sum(60*120*(1-n*10%),n = 0 -> 9). That's 39600 hours.or 4.5 years of usage.
You're off by a factor of 60. Sixty cycles over 120 hours total, not 60 cycles at 120 hours each. That makes it 27 days.
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Must have read it wrong, could of sworn it indicated 120 hours per cycle.
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If they lose 10% in 60 cycles, they would be near useless after 500 cycles. Lithium Ion batteries are at least twice as long lived. I have cell phone batteries that still are above 90% after two years.
Is this a problem?
Remember when a phone lasted a week on battery, then the iPhone came out and lasted a day and everyone said that was rubbish? People adapted because the benefits outweighed the issues.
If you give me a battery with 5 times capacity but only lasts 1/4 as long I think I can live with that. Especially when the used product is more recyclable and it is less toxic to produce.
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Now take the first Li-Ion prototype where the current catalysts were demonstrated and compare that. Then you get something approaching a fair comparison.
24th most abundant element? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's right next to Lithium, which is the 25th.
The abundance of the active material in a battery has almost nothing to do with the cost of production.
It's all the other shit that goes into it, along with the production process.
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It's right next to Lithium, which is the 25th.
That isn't really enough information to make a call. The 24th most abundant could be 1.01x more abundant , or it could be 1000x more abundant than the 25th.
Effort to extract, and environmental impact are probably more important metrics.
Re:24th most abundant element? (Score:4, Informative)
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Also depends where in the crust you're looking
"Upper crust" Li is 22ppm, Zn is 52ppm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If you're looking in seawater Li is 0.17ppm, Zn is 0.011ppm
Re:24th most abundant element? (Score:5, Informative)
For which Zinc has a good thing going: it's so cheap we use it for everything, and so easy to refine and reuse its been used since antiquity.
.
Zinc costs $0.20 for 100g; at a similar purity, 100g of lithium is nearly $10
Being ~50x less expensive, and being much easier to use are pretty big wins for Zinc.
Zinc batteries are nothing new - it's in the same alkaline batteries we've been abusing for generations.
So 2x the power density and 50x cheaper? That can be historic.
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"Zinc batteries are nothing new - it's in the same alkaline batteries we've been abusing for generations."
And the reason we keep using them for disposable batteries instead of rechargeable ones is that zinc historically sucks at being recharged.
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And if we can make even semi-decent rechargible zinc cells, it's a major win.
At the end of the day, every battery needs to be replaced; lithium isn't a magic bullet.
I'm not sure I care if I have to replace five zinc batteries after a hundred cycles each, or one lithium battery that lasts 500.
If it costs less overall, and you get twice the energy density, why not use zinc?
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"And if we can make even semi-decent rechargible zinc cells, it's a major win."
We made them, and they were a major loss, with horrid energy density (although the 1.6 nominal cell voltage was nice to have, they couldn't match the Amp-hours of Ni-MH) and only lasted about 40 charge cycles before going to utter shit and not accepting a charge any longer. They are called PowerGenix batteries.
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There were also the Rayovac "renewal" batteries. Rayovac even hired Michael Jordan as the spokesman. (I wonder how much he was paid to do those ads...) I even have a charger for he "renewal" batteries. I keep it around because it charges NiMH and NiCd cells.
I wouldn't call those renewable alkalines semi-decent.
It doesn't sound like you hold them in high regard either.
But if the Aussies have figured out a major improvement... that could change things.
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They probably moved to a solid composition instead of a semi-liquid composition to avoid whiskering, but that won't solve it entirely.
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Zinc loves sacrificing itself that way. It's hard to undo it.
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Careful, lithium-ion batteries aren't made using metallic lithium as a feedstock. You need to compare lithium carbonate or nitrate, and weigh the lithium fraction thereof. Refining costs to metal shouldn't factor in, because it's not refined to metal.
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Zinc is also about 10X heavier than lithium on a per-atom basic. So on a per-atom basis, lithium is actually more abundant than zinc and only 5X as expensive.
Next step: inversion (Score:2)
The next step is figuring out how to make them work when held right-side-up like half the planet is going to do.
Real problem with Zinc (Score:4, Informative)
Looks like these guys didn't learn from PowerGenix and their nickel-zinc batteries.
The problem with every fucking zinc battery is that it WHISKERS LIKE MAD when you discharge/recharge it.
Stop the micro/nano-structures which form nilly-willy on the Zinc side of things after the battery has been manufactured and put into use, and you literally solve the charge degradation problem, charge cycle count problem, and the variable energy density problem all in one go.
Now how do you stop the Zinc from whiskering?
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I thought whiskers were the big problem with NiCad batteries, also? Battery conditioner equipment was supposed to reverse that, or maybe just arrest it for a time. A ham radio buddy used to take a 12 Volt power supply and zap the crap out of NiCad AA cells in order to de-whiskerize them, but I'm not sure how effective that was.
Alas, I have no solution for your whisker problem.
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Whiskering also happens with Ni-MH batteries as well. You can break the structures down with an applied voltage, at the cost of degrading the actual anode and cathode materials.I brought a dead (like 5 year old PKCELL) set of 4 Ni-MH AA back to life (tested originally at 0.2 volts each on a meter, they should've been fucked) with a hard slam of 24V @ 1.25A for a few seconds, and suddenly they took a charge again, and held that charge, but heavily reduced capacity.
The cross-section of those cells was QUITE
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easy. let zinc transition from being a boy element to a girl element. girls dont have whiskers!!!!!! also, the batteries wont become waste, cause GIRLS DONT POOP!!!
Re:Real problem with Zinc (Score:5, Informative)
Solid electrolytes are a big promising tech in this front, where you have an ion-conductive glass that functions both as electrolyte and separator membrane. The separator is harder than the dendrites and so there's little damage during charge / discharge.
I'm sure dendrites will be overcome eventually. And that will help a lot of different techs, not just zinc (lithium metal is also bad with dendrites).
This needs to be the first of many discoveries. (Score:2)
including less than a 10 percent battery efficacy drop over 60 discharging/charging cycles of 120 hours.
10% drop over 60 charges?
That's not good.
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10% drop over 60 charges? That's not good.
Certainly it would be better if it degraded less, and I hope they can improve things, but it's not necessarily a showstopper as it is, either.
Consider that in many use cases, a battery is almost never fully cycled. For example, my cell phone rarely gets below 30% charged, simply because I plug it in every night. If the 10%/60 figure is for full discharge/recharge cycles, then the battery's real-world longevity might be significantly better than that. (and that's not even counting the fact that charge in
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That's not good.
That is a first research prototype demonstrating the catalyst works. Are you people all unable to understand what is described here?
Let's go mining (Score:2)
...earth-abundant elements like iron, cobalt and nickel.
Damn, I was hoping we could shut down those dodgy cobalt mines that exploit child labour.
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It's supposed to be part of the catalyst. Unless they are misusing the term the amounts used should be quite small. A small amount of platinum matters, cobalt not so much.
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Most people's impression when they hear cobalt is off because they think of cobalt 60, a radioisotope. But while it has some toxicity, it's not actually that toxic among metals, particularly when not in the form of soluble salts. Cobalt is even used as a major alloying agent in orthopedic and dental implants; it's not allergenic like nickel. As for the broader envirnonment, cobalt deficiency is much more common in soils than excess. Cobalt-deficient soils lead to a shortage of B12 in animals that graze ther
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You do realize that cobalt is found pretty much everywhere on Earth where nickel and copper are mined, don't you? It's historically been recovered most from the DRC because they have the richest deposits, but with prices rising from increased demand, it becomes justifiable to work recovery into the tailings streams of the majority of nickel and copper mines the world over.
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This is the reason for *Cobalt, Ontario* for instance. It was a silver mining area.
No they won't (Score:2)
No they won't. Christ, how stupid do you think we are?
Getting old (Score:2)
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The "game changer" parts are added by stupid journalists. What is really going on is that research goes into better rechargeables and there is progress.
That's not the problem (Score:2)
"The problem with zinc batteries stems around them being difficult to charge because of the lack of electrocatalysts needed to reduce and generate oxygen during the discharging and charging of a battery."
That is not the problem. The problem with *every* rechargable battery that has "air" in the name is that air contains all sorts of nasty things the gum up the works after some time. Every xxx-air battery suffers from this, zinc-air, lithium-air, aluminum-air, etc.
The solution is some sort of filter that rem
Oh, no! (Score:2)