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Science Technology

Solid State Battery Breakthrough Could Double the Density of Lithium-ion Cells (newatlas.com) 107

Researchers at Australia's Deakin University say they've managed to use common industrial polymers to create solid electrolytes, opening the door to double-density solid state lithium batteries that won't explode or catch fire if they overheat. Tangential writes: Dr. Fangfang Chen and Dr. Xiaoen Wang from Deakin's Institute for Frontier Materials claim to have made a breakthrough with "the first clear and useful example of liquid-free and efficient transportation of lithium-ion in the scientific community." The new technology uses a solid polymer material, weakly bonded to the lithium-ion, to replace the volatile liquid solvents typically used as electrolytes in current battery cells. The liquid electrolyte is the part of the system that becomes flammable during the kinds of infamous battery fires Samsung would rather forget. "If industry implements our findings I see a future where battery reliant devices can be safely packed in airplane baggage, for example, or where electric cars don't pose a fire risk for occupants or emergency services like they currently do," Dr Chen said in a press release. In addition to making batteries safer, the team believes this solid polymer electrolyte will finally allow batteries to work with a lithium metal anode. That would be big news in the battery world, where the lithium anode has been recently described in Trends in Chemistry as "critical to break the energy-density bottleneck of current Li-ion chemistry" -- the bottleneck that's stopping electric vehicles, aircraft and portable electronics from developing at the pace they should be.
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Solid State Battery Breakthrough Could Double the Density of Lithium-ion Cells

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  • by Bodhammer ( 559311 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2019 @01:48PM (#59463262)
    So can I have a flying car now?
    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      No, densities needed for electric flying are well over ten times the current densities.

      This would be more relevant to automotive field, where doubling densities would make them almost directly competitive with liquid hydrocarbon fuelled vehicles.

      • Re:Sooo... (Score:5, Informative)

        by lazarus ( 2879 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2019 @02:27PM (#59463454) Journal

        This is true. One gallon of gasoline contains about 33kWh of energy, so a typical EV only has the equivalent of 2 gallons of gas in potential energy. However, the internal combustion engine is so very very bad at converting that energy to movement and electric motors are so very good that generally that is all you need for your EV.

        Doubling the storage density of EV batteries would make almost all ICE passenger vehicles completely obsolete overnight, and would hasten the demise of ICE-based work vehicles like dump trucks, graders, plows, long-haul semis, etc.

        But as you say, is still not going to solve the problem of aviation.

        • Re:Sooo... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2019 @04:26PM (#59463952)
          Internal combustion engines aren't bad at being efficient, that's a myth. They are bad compared to a fictional engine that has access to a cold side heat reservoir at absolute zero - but because they run in an atmosphere they have no access to dump this heat. The equations count the free heat no one paid for going in from the atmosphere with the intake gasses as "fuel" costs on the energy in side of the equations so the first order analysis looks like efficiency = (Max air temp - temp cold exaust)/(max air temp) when you use absolute units. In reality the engine is much better because a constraint is working in an atmosphere like we have here on earth and so relative efficiency becomes (max air temp - cold temp exhaust)/(Max air temp - temp atmosphere).

          Tl;dr you don't pay for heating the atmosphere from absolute zero so you shouldn't be punished in efficiency rating for not cooling to absolute zero. If we could practically cool air to near absolute zero we could make a heat engine that uses no fuel and would run forever long the earth stays warm. Electric means is still often more efficient, but all heat engines get a bad rep that's undeserved.
          • by ras ( 84108 )

            They are bad compared to a fictional engine that has access to a cold side heat reservoir at absolute zero

            Bollocks

            Firstly, the theoretical Carnot efficiency is T-low/T-high where T is measured in Kelvin. Engines operate at over 300C, so that's 300K/600K - or north of 50%. ICE's get around 10% through most of their operational range. A modern by-pass jet engine gets over 50%. Again that's only at under optimal conditions, but unlike an ICE they spend most of their flights sitting in that sweet spot.

            Seco

            • Firstly, the theoretical Carnot efficiency is T-low/T-high where T is measured in Kelvin.

              wrong. That would imply running between 500R and 499R would be nearly 100% instead of 0%. The equation I posted is the actual Carnot efficiency.

              Engines operate at over 300C, so that's 300K/600K - or north of 50%.

              And that’s my point. You’re counting heating the gasses from absolute zero to 300k which was free. You didn’t pay for it, you can’t cool past it inside an atmosphere like we have on earth, and if we could we would have 24-7-365 free unlimited energy until the entire earth cools to absolute zero.

              ICE's get around 10% through most of their operational range. A modern by-pass jet engine gets over 50%. Again that's only at under optimal conditions, but unlike an ICE they spend most of their flights sitting in that sweet spot.

              internal combustion’s get a tradit

              • by ras ( 84108 )

                You’re counting heating the gasses from absolute zero to 300k which was free.

                Rubbish. The chemical reactions C + O2 => CO2, and H2 + O => H2O (which is mostly what is going on) is where the energy comes from. That is the only energy I or anyone else is counting.

                A analogous reaction is going on inside the battery. The main difference is in an ICE the energy released by the chemical reaction is used to generate heat, and then the Carnot cycle is used to extract work (ie, move the wheels) from

              • The only thing that matters for efficiency in most discussions is "how much energy was converted to useful work" / "how much energy was released from the storage medium"

                Temperature is relevant to optimizing the ideal Carnot cycle efficiency, but it's not terribly relevant to comparing overall system efficiency with non-Carnot systems such as batteries or fuel cells.

                You're right about the Carnot cycle equation, though in that form I've usually seen it expressed in terms of heat rather than temperature
                efficie

                • The only thing that matters for efficiency in most discussions is "how much energy was converted to useful work" / "how much energy was released from the storage medium"

                  Yes, but that breeds arcane accounting energy balance issues. Take isothermal expansion in a cylinder (which could be a part of the carnot cycle), it’s presented as efficient because you get a lot of work out, for the energy you pay for in. Problem is that only works in thermal contact with an ambient heat reservoir, and only because as the gas expands and starts to cool, heat flows in for free from ambient making a quasi equilibrium continuous process. Without emphasis on this “free heat

                  • >Here is where my point kicks in, I submit to you the heat below 300k is unavailable to do useful work deep in earths atmosphere and since you don’t pay for it distorts the concept to say you are throwing it away when that’s not even possible.

                    So look at it from the other end - if you design your engine to burn the fuel hotter, efficiency goes up, because you're releasing the heat at a higher temperature. Burn that fuel to generate heat at a 10,000K , and the 300K ambient temperature will onl

                    • If you aren’t familiar with exergy yet, it sounds like it will be worth your time to take a look. It’s a more sensible approach to problems in that it frames available energy for useful work and is consistent in balancing energy. I’m afraid you just missed the point about framing available efficiency under which useful work may be done and are stuck in absolute terms that don’t apply to the problem definition and while are true in general absolute terms portions can be effectively
                    • Yeah, that's a handy one.

                      You seem to be confusing efficiency of design with efficiency of process.

                      A heat engine can (theoretically) get very close to the Carnot efficiency - that's efficiency of design. Carnot efficiency however is generally low unless you burn your fuel very hot - that's inefficiency of process.

                      The key is that we're NOT starting with heat - we're starting with chemical energy. As soon as you convert that chemical energy to heat, then you're limited by Carnot efficiency, though you have s

                    • You’re missing the point again. The problem assumes operating deep in an atmosphere, the energy below 300k (ambient) is unusable and cannot be discarded according to thermodynamics so saying you aren’t using it and counting it against the efficiency is disingenuous and misleading and there has been zero evidence or examples shown otherwise. Efficiency of process, fuel you paid for in (note the air going in is 300k) and the work out is the way to frame it, putting it in absolute terms that don
                    • Yes, the energy below 300K is unusable - but you didn't have to provide that energy in the first place, so it's not relevant to the efficiency equation. The efficiency equation is strictly concerned with what percentage of the energy that you put in can be converted to useful work. Heat doesn't measure energy, it measures the *change* in energy (delta-E_thermal) - so the thermal energy already present in the air and fuel doesn't actually show up in the heat form of the efficiency equation: eff = (Qhot-Qco

                    • It’s available process efficiency vs. absolute and the two are conflated even more often than people who forget about the ambient heat reservoir and the heat flow from it during isothermal expansion. It results in the two are not often applied consistently, sometimes to the same problem. This has led to a false impression of heat engines in general.

                      Might as set the absolute where it should be, throw the material down a singularity and get back double digits or react with antimatter to get 100% a
                    • Ultimately, the only thing that matters in efficiency is the total potential energy that is lost, vs the useful work that is done.

                      The mass-energy of gasoline that could be extracted by a black hole or antimatter reactor are not relevant to the discussion, because they are not lost. You can still take the exhaust gasses and chuck them into the same reactor to convert the remaining 99.999999999% of the mass-energy into something useful.

                      What potential do you give up, versus what do you get in return? An equa

          • Efficiency we are taking about is distance driven for unit cost. For one dollar, Model 3 goes 33.3 miles for me. (4 mi / kWh, 12 c/kWh). The BMW will go about 8 miles/$. (20 MPG, 2.50 $/G.)

            Who care about absolute zero or Carnot efficiency or source temp or sink temp.

            • Efficiency we are taking about is distance driven for unit cost. For one dollar, Model 3 goes 33.3 miles for me.

              Well, that model 3 is 40k plus options. The efficiency of a fiat e500 is twice as good as a Tesla, they cost half as much, and used cost a quarter. Even better are the cheapest econo gas cars, so cheap that the cost per mile for typical use is better than a Tesla or even most every electric. Neither BMW nor Tesla belong in a cheapest cost per mile argument, unless you mean the cheapest luxury operating cost.

              • Yes, you are correct. That is yet another efficiency measure. What you are talking about is total cost of ownership. Lots of variables, depreciation, up front cost, maintenance etc etc. Model 3 has lower TCO than all mid luxuy cars of similar price. Depending on the circumstances, it seems to be comparable to high end mid size cars like Accord and Camry.

                Clearly Model 3 is more expensive than civic, prius, focus, corolla class cars in TCO. Even the cheaper than Tesla BEVs are not able to compete with them.

                • Tesla’s problem is the tech still isn’t as mature as ICE and Tesla keeps giving people too much car for the $$. Even the model 3 is an excellent electric car with a design and build quality in the top tier. This may have a low operating cost, and even be a good value, but still isn’t cheap up front.
                  • by sd4f ( 1891894 )

                    I get the feeling that a really basic, poverty pack EV can't be brought down cheap enough to compete, so Tesla target a higher end of the market where the margins are much better.

                    When it comes to mass production, retail price isn't commensurate with cost to manufacture, material costs don't make up as big a component as one would think, the cost to manufacture isn't in the same proportion as retail price.

                    • What you say is true. The battery pack prices were so high on 2008 it could only compete with over priced 2 seater roadster 120K + market. By 2014 battery prices fell enough to make the 100K + market competitive. By 2018 the 50K + market came withing price parity for battery vehicles. In 2020 40K+ market BEVs are competitive. By 2024 the 30K market will be in the strike zone. Power train price curves [cleantechnica.com]

                      Tesla calculated the battery prices are halving every seven years. Sort of Moore's law for batteries. I

                    • Charging a BEV is not like refueling a gas car. You dont hold the charging cable and wait for 45 minutes. Plug it in and walk away. Imaging what retail would pay to bring customers in and keep them on premises for 45 minutes. Every outlet mall will install L3 charging stations, at dirt cheap rates, to attract BEV owners. The long distance driving will be like: Drive for three or four hours, pull into an outlet mall just off the exit ramp, plug it in, browse for shoes, perfumania, chicago cutlery and all those typical outlet mall factory direct stores, drive off. Driving continuously without break would be seen as undesirable.

                      Jesus, I think you just definitely disproved fast charge BEV will ever be developed except by begrudgingly small bits.

                    • by sd4f ( 1891894 )

                      Charging a BEV is not like refueling a gas car. You dont hold the charging cable and wait for 45 minutes. Plug it in and walk away. Imaging what retail would pay to bring customers in and keep them on premises for 45 minutes. Every outlet mall will install L3 charging stations, at dirt cheap rates, to attract BEV owners. The long distance driving will be like: Drive for three or four hours, pull into an outlet mall just off the exit ramp, plug it in, browse for shoes, perfumania, chicago cutlery and all those typical outlet mall factory direct stores, drive off. Driving continuously without break would be seen as undesirable.

                      It may work out, it may not, I'm not making that prediction one way or another. I'm a bit sceptical because people are generally resistant to change, and if you consider it like a platform, then I really think your concept will struggle. At the moment, if you buy a ICE vehicle, you have the benefit of a huge network of fuel stations, where the likelihood of being left stranded is very small. You know the fuel sold is compatible with your vehicle, and whether your car has a long range or a short range, you c

                    • Grid and generating capacity is adequate already

                      Average car drives 12000 miles a year, 1000 a month, 33 a day, at 4 miles/kWh it is 8.25 kWh per car. Two cars per home, 16.5 kWh, allow 8 hours to charge it is 2 kW. The power of a toaster, oven, a/c, clothes dryer... All the homes, offices and malls run A/C full blast on summer evening, and we make enough and the grid can deliver it.

                      Not all can charge over night Current BEV market share is less than 0.5%. People who can charge overnight in their home i

          • by Trogre ( 513942 )

            None of that matters.

            All that matters is how much energy per unit of fuel is converted by the engine into useful work.

            If you are arguing that the bar is set too high due to us living in a warmer-than-absolute-zero climate, then you must also reduce the calculated energy density of petroleum accordingly and you're back where you started.

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by taustin ( 171655 )

          Doubling the storage density of EV batteries would make almost all ICE passenger vehicles completely obsolete overnight

          Only if driving distance per charge were the only way in which EVs are inferior, which is not the case. I can pump 400 miles of gasoline driving into my car in less than 3 minutes. The best chargers out there will take at least 7 times as long, which means a gas station with 6 pumps need 42 charging stations to service the same vehicles. Not to mention the 30 megawatt power line coming in.

          Replacing all ICE cars with electric will mean an upgrade of at least 50% in electrical generating capacity, and an upgr

          • Time to adopt a new word: "overcentury" :)

            But seriously, I think that the need for an equivalent to gas stations would not really be there... or would be needed far less. Anyone with a garage can charge at home, removing them from the pool of folks who regularly need a shared charging location. Then, since as you noted it takes a lot longer to charge than to pump gas, having a lot of places where people stay for an hour or more install a handful of charging stations each would go a long way toward solving t

            • I disagree. Each EV filling station may not need quite the volume but there will always be people away from home and therefore there will always be a need for chargers everywhere.
              • Some chargers, but they don't need to distribute anywhere near the total energy of gas stations, assuming most people can charge at home most of the time.

                As well, fast-charging stations have essentially none of the catastrophic or ecological risks of gas stations, so they're safe and easy to deploy at commercial locations like grocery stores that already have high-amperage electrical service, where they can serve as profitable power-vending machines.

                • Well I haven't seen a charger that can go as fast as a gas pump yet, so let's judge how safe it is once that milestone is reached.
            • by taustin ( 171655 )

              If all cars are electric, a dozen or so charging stations at the local mall won't be anywhere near enough. Pretty much every parking spot would need one. The cost would be . . . prohibitive.

              And you fail to address people who do not have a place for a charging station. Apartment dwellers, condos with no enclosed parking, and so on. Tens of millions of people who now cannot use a car. It won't be practical unless charging stations can charge a car pretty much fully within a few minutes. (And that will involve

              • Why? Even using a standard-outlet trickle-charger, most people (with a garage or driveway) can recharge more overnight than they're going to use during the day - on average Americans only drive 30 miles per day, which is about what a Tesla can recharge overnight from a 110 outlet. (and of course averages always skew high - the median will be lower)

                Add some cheap 110V outlets for long-duration employee parking (and charge for the parking spot rather than the electricity, to discourage people from using them

          • by Trogre ( 513942 )

            Eh, I wake up to a full "tank" every morning.

            I never have to wait for anything to charge, unless I'm on a long out-of-town trip, then I plan my lunch around that one stop.

          • Total load of charging 100 million battery cars at 3 kW is same as running 100 million air conditioners in the evening. We have the capacity.

            We charge overnight and we top up every night, so every morning we have 240 miles on the battery. We never visit supercharger for daily driving. To me, first 280 miles same as ICEV. It will cost me 30 minutes for every additional 200 miles after 280 miles.

            And I get to buy gas at the rate of 60 cents a gallon. If you offer gas at 60 cents a gallon, thousands of ICE

          • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            Expect a new redesign for battery packs, externally mounted within an armoured chamber of course. So a robot can align with the entry point in the bottom rail, unlock the battery pull it out and replace it, just a matter of time and voila, a two minute battery change over, fully charged to replace partially discharged batteries. The battery as a consumable. So cars with specified battery remove able battery pack types, becoming a member of a service station chain who swap particular battery pack types. It a

          • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            To be fair, this is nothing new. Things like road building and building major buildings used to be multi-generational projects. A good point to make is that modern society has forgotten how to do such projects, if we can't build it in a few years, we don't even try.

            A great example of this is the Grand Cathedrals of the kind you find in many European cities. Pretty much the last one in this kind of construction in existence is Basílica de la Sagrada Família which has been under construction for wel

        • But as you say, is still not going to solve the problem of aviation.

          It's already solved at least for a subset of aviation. Shorter flights in smaller planes are already doable: https://vancouversun.com/busin... [vancouversun.com]

          Of course the problem is scaling it up, once you're talking about the energy required for a 777 to make it across the ocean, the batteries would weigh as much as the moon.

          • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            They're doable, but not viable. Any meaningful payload and range and you're not flying unless it's on aviation fuel. Laws of physics don't bend that way.

        • by sd4f ( 1891894 )

          I don't know what the latest and greatest batteries are capable of, but, we can directly compare and contrast with equivalents in weight and volume. I'm going to have to use values from wikipedia, so per kg of Li-ion cells, 0.265 kwh per kg and 0.693 kwh per litre.

          Based on 43.4 MJ/kg LHV for gasoline, that's 12 kWh of total heat energy per kg, and petrol engines, are around 25% efficient, it varies, but magic isn't happening so you get 3 kwh per kg. Using a density figure of 0.75 kg/l (it varies, but it's i

        • by jrumney ( 197329 )

          Good luck starting your theoretical ICE at zero Kelvin. Meanwhile the rest of us are quite happy calling ICE inefficient in real conditions.

        • "Doubling the storage density of EV batteries would make almost all ICE passenger vehicles completely obsolete overnight,"

          Density is only one of many factors that are needed to effectively supplant ICE. Cost, longevity, safety and scalability all heavily factor in as well. Aluminum air batteries were recently in the news for their high density, but the the fact that they currently have to be melted down and remanufactured to be "recharged" significantly decreases their usefulness. Similarly if you could

    • by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      No. But there are plenty more battery density doubling breakthrough stories in the pipeline.

      Enjoy!

    • Not until Paul Moller says so.
      • by sycodon ( 149926 )

        Poor guy.

        Working his ass off all these years with people laughing in his face only to be completely overtaken by the big guns in aerospace.

    • by Strill ( 6019874 )

      You need room-temperature superconductors for flying cars.

      • What nonsense are you spouting? We already have various "flying cars" out there - all they need to be practical is better batteries.

        What would superconductors even contribute? More efficient motors and wiring? Those are already in the high-90% efficiency range, there's just not that much benefit to be gained.

        Room-temperature superconductors would be great when you need to maintain extremely high magnetic fields that aren't actually doing much net work - such as in fusion reactors or maglev trains, or whe

        • Not only that, but you need a pretty big room to fly a car in.

        • "practical" is never the right word to describe a flying car.

          We as humans have trouble at times driving in 2 dimensions, 3 would be an abject disaster. And whatever time horizon is out there already for autonomous vehicles, extend that another 20 odd years for flying.

        • and will always be expensive energy wise. keeping stuff in the air costs more energy than rolling it down the road. especially if you need to hover it.

          also for practicality they need a LOT more things than just an energy source, though the energy source is kinda what is needed. regular fuel works just fine if you accept that it'll still cost a lot of money to fly a helicopter.

          the energy density is the driving factor for helicopters energy source though.

          I would need to call bullshit on a battery not being ab

          • >I would need to call bullshit on a battery not being able to catch on fire... it's still quickly approaching the energy density of dynamite.
            You're right that doubling the energy density of lithium ion batteries would bring it considerably closer to the energy density of dynamite - but let me throw in a few other data points for comparison:

            Lithum-ion battery ~= 1MJ/kg (would double to 2MJ/kg, still less than half of dynamite)
            Dynamite ~= 5MJ/kg
            Sugars, carbohydrates, or proteins ~= 17MJ/kg
            Wood ~= 18MJ/kg
            Al

          • > keeping stuff in the air costs more energy than rolling it down the road.

            Depends on how you keep it in the air. Helicopters are bad, multi-copters are usually even worse with their small high-speed propellors. Low-speed airplanes can actually be relatively efficient - consider gliders and ultralights, which can have extremely long glide distances with zero additional energy input, or maintain altitude with only a trickle of propulsion. And of course dirigibles and blimps depend on buoyancy to stay a

    • The aspect of a flying car isn't technology or energy density, but one of safety.

      Most flying car designs are similar to that of drones, with a good number of small propellers (or jets) that keep the car balanced in the air... However the issue of safety comes to mind. Airplanes if lost power can still be able to glide down fairly safely. Helicopters are just too risky for most transport, except for absolutely necessary ones, requiring a lot of inspection and training more then a normal consumer can handle.

      • Hmm, if the car uses a bunch of lifters instead of a single giant one then why would it not be safe to land if one or even a few went out? Obviously the single giant propeller design going back to the 50s is a consumer death trap at altitude, though.
        • Each lifter will need an independent motor, energy source, and controlling computer, there needs to be no single source of failure.

          • Sure, but there's no reason that can't be done.

            Computers are tiny, each lifter already has a motor, distributing the weight of the batteries makes sense anyway.
            .

        • Sure, just use 8 motors and that will give you some redundancy in case one fails. A quad will fall out of the sky if one motor goes out, as would IIRC a 6-motor setup.

          Plus airframe parachutes [wikipedia.org] are a thing and are proven to work, no reason you couldn't stick them on a flying car.

          So all this is solvable, the only major problem is really the power required to lift 4+ people, some useful cargo and the vehicle itself vertically, which is where the batteries come in. If the power densities increase significantly,

      • Actually, helicopters can glide as well, using autorotation to generate lift - in fact they are arguably even safer than airplanes when main power is lost. There's even a whole class of rotorcraft , autogyros or gyrocopters, that are specifically designed to operate that way, and have way to deliver power directly to the rotor at all. And they're widely considered the safest heavier-than-air aircraft in the world (so long as the pilot isn't trained to fly airplanes - as the normal stall-escaping airplane

    • No. Nobody can have a flying car until they are completely self flying. I don't trust people to drive themselves properly in 2 dimensions, I'm not a fan of giving them a 3rd to worry about. I don't need people crashing through my roof.
      • Three dimensions should reduce the incidence of vehicle-to-vehicle crashes substantially just because the density of vehicles becomes so much lower. What you would see is an enormous increase of crashes of vehicles into stationary objects like power lines and trees. Too much of the time, power lines are akmost invisible.

        In situations where vehicle density is high, like parking lots, wind gusts become a severe problem. Even perfect control can't overcome a sudden burst of wind providing several hundred pound

  • by vidnet ( 580068 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2019 @01:54PM (#59463288) Homepage

    If we had a 1% battery improvement to market for every "major breakthrough" we see in the news, we wouldn't even need the breakthroughs.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        That's because the supply of scientists, who completely fail to understand that scientifically possible != Economically viable

        I'm not sure that's directly their job. They are to find interesting phenomena that have a possibility of leading to practical benefits.

        An R&D lab is where theory is turned into practice, or at least attempted to. Such people would probably be called "engineers" instead of scientists. Is there a title for something in-between?

        Any idiot with a computer and some basic internet savv

        • Also, headlines are helpful to get more funding to scientists. So. Bring on the bogus stories, so long as we get cool new things.

          Finally, I must confess that I'm getting old and crotchety. I seriously caught myself thinking "I'd rather stick to the old batteries, because they're proven and I already know how to use them." wtf.

          Going to shout some kids off my lawn now.

      • by ras ( 84108 )

        is almost as large as the number of truly clueless people who pass for reporters these days.

        This is someone publishing a press release from a University. The paper itself is hidden behind a paywall, and a search Sci-Hub is currently returning the wrong paper. The press release is all the web site has to go on.

        The press release was written by the Uni's marketing department. The marketing department is charged with turning research into ads for the Uni. The main difference between a press release from a

    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2019 @02:07PM (#59463366)

      We do have a lot of breakthroughs, The problem is battery technology is mostly linear, while electronics is exponential.
      Laptops 20 years ago would be considered good battery life if you can use it for 2 hours on battery. Today we can get about 6 hours. Electric power-tools 20 years ago were mostly just for the hobbyist who needs to get 1 or 2 screws in. Now it is nearly impossible to find a corded driver. As even a small battery in these are good enough for a normal days work.

      When I was a kid an RC Car had about 20 minutes of playtime. Now we have drones that can be in flight for hours.

      However some devices are using more power then ever. So our Smartphone which we are lucky to get 16 hours of usage from it, just use more power then the old Nokia that had an inferior battery but could last for days. But the old Nokia just had an optional backlit LCD screen, and kept enough power to stay connected to the cell tower and then use more power when a call is given. Todays Smartphones, are not really phones, but Computers, with a phone chip.

    • You must not have been paying attention - battery capacity has skyrocketed over the last few decades while prices have plummeted.

      If commercial batteries had only improved by 1% for every major theoretical "breakthrough", you'd still need a battery the size of a brick to power your iPhone.

    • by ranton ( 36917 )

      If we had a 1% battery improvement to market for every "major breakthrough" we see in the news, we wouldn't even need the breakthroughs.

      The cost of lithium-ion batteries per kWh is 10% what it was a decade ago. That is a combination of scientific improvements and manufacturing improvements, but it is still a drastic improvement. Sign me up for another order of magnitude improvement in the next decade.

    • I like your optimism, you must be the most fun at parties.

    • by Bengie ( 1121981 )
      li-ion is improving at a rate of 5%-8% per year. That is about in-line with 1% per announcement, based on what I can recollect about the rate of announcements.
  • The study was published onAugust 07, 2019
    DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.07.008

    To be fair, the date on the journal Joule is about a week ago:
    Volume 3, ISSUE 11, P2687-2702, November 20, 2019

    Direct link to abstract:
    https://www.cell.com/joule/ful... [cell.com]

    Actual journal article is behind a paywall.

  • by Way Smarter Than You ( 6157664 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2019 @02:05PM (#59463354)
    Every time I see an article like this I go, "oh yes! Oh uhm, never mind... heard this a zillion times before". And still using more or less the same battery tech since forever.
    • by Z80a ( 971949 )

      Don't worry, the day we actually get one it will be barely news anywhere and people will just buy it without even knowing, like it happened with almost all modern breakthroughs.

  • by Shotgun ( 30919 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2019 @02:10PM (#59463382)

    So, can the substrate be used as a structural component? Many circuit boards are built on G10 fiberglass. I knew a Dyke Delta builder that got his hands on some 8'x12' sheets of the material to build his wing skins from. It would be a breakthrough for electric aviation if the wings could double as energy storage.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2019 @02:32PM (#59463472)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • For I have yet to see a battery technology breakthrough advertised in this forum make into production and have an actual impact on people's lives.
    • For I have yet to see a battery technology breakthrough advertised in this forum make into production and have an actual impact on people's lives.

      Then why are there batteries available now that are a LOT better than the best available several years ago, resulting in actual impact on people's lives?

      Did we miss all the REAL breakthroughs?

      Or did you just not notice when some of the ones mentioned here quietly made it into production and deployment?

  • This is great... And you hear about these breakthroughs every year. None of them have resulted in a commercial product Samsung or Apple has put into their phones. Until then, stop getting my hopes up!
  • by Lanthanide ( 4982283 ) on Wednesday November 27, 2019 @04:07PM (#59463886)

    John B Goodenough (yes, that's his real name) the inventor of the original rechargeable lithium-ion battery for which he just won a nobel prize as well as being team-leader for the group that invented RAM, is working on a solid state lithium battery himself. He's 97.

    Youtube video about that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    So all the people who are saying "they announce these big battery revolutions all the time but nothing comes from it" might be a little different this time with Goodenough behind the work. Wikipedia has an article about his battery here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • Don't forget... one of the reasons we don't have widespread deployment of killer robots is lack of battery life.

  • How many times have we seen posts like this promising some breakthrough, better batteries seem to be one of the more frequent and yet we still don't have on the market a carbon nanotube enhanced battery nor a Metal / Zinc air battery despite seeing similar promising breakthrough posts on those as well.

    • Zinc-air batteries have been available for decades. They are usually tiny, coin cell batteries less than 1/2 inch in diameter.
      • I was typing that comment from memory and I did in fact misremember what the two types of batteries that were hyped were (what I read was not Zinc air battery) Lithium-Sulfer Air battery and Aluminum Air Battery; these are Slashdot articulates and if you search you can find them in the last year or two's old history.

  • Here we go again. Weeeee!
  • The Maxwell Technologies bought by Tesla has a dry electrode formation. Looks like their secret breakthrough has come through. Otherwise it is impossible to price a 8000 lb Cybertruck with 250 mile range for 40,000$.
  • Toyota (and a couple of others) allegedly have been working on a solid-state Li battery for some time. How does this "discovery" relate to those others?

  • somebody should combine all those battery advances that were made (every week, or so it seems) into one.

    • Indeed. I can't wait for my liquid-solid-gas-flow-electrolyte battery with iron-litium-lead-carbon electrodes. You think we can incorporate fuel-cell technology too? Though I suppose a flow battery and a fuel cell are basically the same thing.

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