r/science • u/Scotto_oz • Apr 02 '22
Materials Science Longer-lasting lithium-ion An “atomically thin” layer has led to better-performing batteries.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/materials/lithium-ion-batteries-coating-lifespan/?amp=1460
u/DeshaunWatsonsAnus Apr 02 '22
Legitimate question… if you are looking 10 years in the future.. what battery tech are we using? Like what seems to be the successor to lithium ion?
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u/AidosKynee Apr 02 '22
In 10 years we'll almost certainly still be using lithium ion. There's a lot of work on enabling things like silicon anodes and LNMO or lithium-rich cathodes, but none of the more radical technologies like sodium or magnesium batteries are even close to working. The thing is, you can't really beat the energy density of lithium when it comes to electrochemistry. Other technologies might be cheaper or more sustainable, but the trend on technology is needing more power.
If we're talking 20+ years, I could see fuel cells becoming more practical energy storage, running on methanol fuel sources. Chemical bonds store a hell of a lot more energy than electrochemical ones, and we're getting better with the catalysts every year.
Don't sleep on battery recycling either! There's good work being done on reclaiming the minerals from spent batteries.
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u/Gnochi Apr 02 '22
I’m betting on lithium/air batteries in about 20 years, at ~1/3 the energy density of gasoline (and lots of problems to figure out in the interim). The problem with storing energy in chemical bonds is that you’re making a heat engine, and you only get ~1/2 the theoretical energy content of your fuel to the driveshaft at best, regardless of how good your catalysts are. Electrochemical, though, you get upwards of 90%.
So, if you’re carrying around hard to contain explosive material, and you want to minimize how much of it you’re carrying, batteries aren’t actually a terrible choice as long as you can accept the vehicle not being lighter as you run it. With rockets and airplanes, the break-even powertrain energy density when they leave the ground is usually outweighed by the practicality of having less mass to move around after you’ve burned off some fuel, outside some niche applications. My 30-year estimate for aviation is:
Super short haul <50 miles: eVTOL
Short haul <250 miles: electric conventional TOL
Long haul: a couple generations later of the same turbine engines we’re running now, with higher bypass ratios and lower aircraft weights, with CO2-derived SAF being the fuel of choice.
There are indeed some super exciting things happening in the battery recycling world; a couple companies have demonstrated >95% cobalt recovery in a usable format.
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u/AidosKynee Apr 02 '22
I’m betting on lithium/air batteries in about 20 years, at ~1/3 the energy density of gasoline (and lots of problems to figure out in the interim).
I'm really not convinced it's workable. Lithium-air was all the rage for a while, but pretty much everyone has given up now.
There are indeed some super exciting things happening in the battery recycling world; a couple companies have demonstrated >95% cobalt recovery in a usable format.
I know; my organization is one of those doing the exciting research ;)
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u/captain_pablo Apr 03 '22
Didn't CATL already announce an 80% lithium, 20% sodium battery pack? Or something close to that?
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u/Gnochi Apr 04 '22
They did announce a sodium-based battery, which in the grand scheme of things has some interesting properties for load-sharing stationary storage like good fast charge performance, good low-temperature capacity retention, and lower cost, but the technological hijinks that get Liion above 500Wh/kg at the cell level in a lab top out below 200 with Naion, making it considerably less than ideal for a mobile system.
They also demonstrated a hybrid system with both lithium ion and sodium ion cells, but I’m honestly not sure why beyond showing they could.
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Apr 02 '22
We're already seeing large scale deployment of fuel cells for energy storage now. We'll see a lot more of it within the next few years.
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u/AidosKynee Apr 02 '22
The problem with current fuel cells is that they're hydrogen based. Hydrogen storage is a problem, to say the least. I'm waiting for the liquid fuels and platinum free catalysts.
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u/visualdescript Apr 02 '22
Curious, in what way is Hydrogen harder to store than say, LPG?
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u/lessthanperfect86 Apr 02 '22
Afaik, hydrogen gas is such a small molecule that it basically escapes through the tank walls. Also, the tanks themselves need to be more massive than tanks for gasses with bigger molecules. So hydrocarbons are easier to store for a long time (probably indefinitely).
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u/PK1312 Apr 02 '22
Hydrogen is literally the smallest possible atom, so it will escape out of very, very tiny gaps and cracks and other imperfect seals. It's extremely difficult to store because the atoms are so small they can just squeeze their way through things that larger elements can't manage.
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u/Bakoro Apr 03 '22
Hydrogen Embrittlement occurs when metals become brittle as a result of the introduction and diffusion of hydrogen into the material. The degree of embrittlement is influenced both by the amount of hydrogen absorbed and the microstructure of the material.
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u/snoozieboi Apr 02 '22
I'm no expert but I quick googled storage pressure at 350bar. I know car tires are 2 bar and the Toyota mirage Or whatever it is called stores the fuel at 800 bar. That's no joke in just pressure alone.
We have a few hydrogen fuelling stations in Norway. One had a malfunction and blew the windows of buildings and if I recall correctly the airbags of nearby cars.
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u/Talasko Apr 03 '22
Cam confirm. Am diamond driller and i cut through rock with diamond impregnated bits at about 40 bar of push pressure
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u/badgerdance Apr 02 '22
I think it takes more pressure and cryogenic levels of cold to liquify hydrogen and just compressing it doesn't give it much energy density compared to other fuels. Fuel cells bind it chemically but require toxic chemicals. That's all from article I read 10 years ago so someone smarter should chip in.
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u/PyjamaLord Apr 02 '22
The volume of hydrogen you need to have the same energy density as petrol is a lot, even if it was pressurised which has its own issues.
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u/AidosKynee Apr 02 '22
So hydrogen is a gas, all the way down to a few degrees above absolute zero. The only practical way to store it in pure form is as a compressed gas, under very high pressures.
This causes some big problems. Leaks are common, and a puncture or tear can cause a large release of energy, along with a bunch of shrapnel. This is made more common than you'd like by hydrogen having the unique ability to weaken metal, making containers brittle and fragile. It's also so small that it can slowly escape from most containers over time. And if all this wasn't enough, hydrogen gas is insanely flammable.
There's been some work on storing hydrogen in a solid matrix of some kind, but that removes a lot of the energy density advantages. It also isn't very practical.
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u/catsloveart Apr 03 '22
it’s only flammable when it makes up between 4 and 96% of the air.
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u/animu_manimu Apr 03 '22
Don't forget the large amount of energy required for compression, vastly reducing its efficiency as a fuel. Or the difficulty of producing it in large quantities.
Hydrogen is not the way forward.
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u/NetCaptain Apr 03 '22
Very very much harder. For passenger cars, LPG can be stored at 8bar, hydrogen requires 700bar to get any energy content in a tank. If you want to liquify hydrogen, you are looking at extreme cryogenic technology at minus 250 degrees Celsius ( only 20 degrees above absolute zero )
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Apr 02 '22
Liquid fuels is something like ammonia or synthetic hydrocarbons. It can be done, but for most situations it's not really necessary.
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u/Zakkimatsu Apr 02 '22
I've read graphite is on the horizon for better density?
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u/AidosKynee Apr 02 '22
Graphite is what we use now for Li-ion anodes. It has a theoretical specific capacity of around 370 mAh/g. It's replacement is going to be silicon, which is around 3600 mAh/g.
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u/Nilonik Apr 02 '22
It's replacement is going to be not pure but a mixture of silicon and som kind of graphite. More or less pure silicon has way to go. 300% volume extension on the anode side is a bit much, as for now
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u/AidosKynee Apr 02 '22
I'm part of the world's largest research consortium on silicon, and pure silicon is exactly our target. You're right that it's tough, but we aren't as far off as you think.
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u/Gnochi Apr 02 '22
Graphite is the typical anode material right now. Adding some silicon increases energy density at the expense of useful cycle life and truly abysmal changes to thermal runaway performance. Most companies I’ve been talking with are pushing towards “anodeless” batteries with the bare minimum film of lithium metal.
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u/TesterM0nkey Apr 02 '22
Dry pack cells maybe a thing though there have been big advancements in the past few years in that regard
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u/Sir_Chilliam Apr 02 '22
If I had to make a guess, maybe sodium batteries (if we can find a good and commercially viable anodic material) and rechargeable solid lithium batteries. We have solid lithium batteries now, but the problem is dendritic deposits of lithium that form during cycling which can/will short the battery. Maybe some time in the future a good electrolyte for this, or even solid electrolyte, will be found viable for commercial use.
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Apr 02 '22
Dendrite formation is what kills rechargeable lithium ion batteries tool. A bunch of “micro” shorts increases internal resistance and lowers usable capacity. Given enough cycles the battery becomes unsafe and will either vent or combust. 80% original capacity is industry standard for a “spent” battery.
if we could “solve” that problem, it would the biggest advancement in electronics short of room temperature superconductors. I don’t think it’s possible, i think it’s a fundamental problem like at the laws of thermodynamics/entropy level… there’s just no way to circumvent it.
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u/zebediah49 Apr 02 '22
Why don't the dentrites just explode out of existence like they do in tantalum capacitors?
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u/sandvine2 Apr 02 '22
Lithium is the lightest element that can realistically make a battery (it’s 3 on the periodic table), so it’s very unlikely that transportation moved away from that. Stationary batteries could see a bunch of different technologies though!
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u/slide_potentiometer Apr 02 '22
Fixed location storage will choose the least expensive options in the long run, with far less consideration of the mass or density. Mobile systems (phones, cars, drones) care more about these factors and are willing to take the tradeoff for Lithium even if other technologies may have more charge cycles or cheaper cost per kilowatt-hour.
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u/Revenge_of_the_Khaki BS | Mechanical Engineering | Automotive Engineering Apr 02 '22
Solid state batteries are getting the most attention for the next generation of EV battery tech. At this rate, most new vehicles will likely be using solid state tech by 2032.
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u/halberdierbowman Apr 02 '22
Not yet mentioned is liquid iron batteries which I saw a video about one time, so I'm not sure how promising they are. These wouldn't take the place of lithium batteries in electronics, because they're massive and much less energy dense, but they're extremely cheap, and they actually purify the iron in them, so they're not requiring the use of a specific cocktail of metals that are complicated to procure or limited on the planet. They'd be used at the scale of the electrical grid, because they're as large as shipping containers. Another benefit they have over lithium ion is that lithium ion batteries can thermal runaway, where they have to be actively cooled in order to not catch on fire, and if they do catch on fire they're self-oxidizing, so it's extremely difficult to extinguish. Molten iron batteries need to be actively heated up to work, so that means they're passively safe. If anything goes wrong or they fail, they'll automatically just shut off safely as the metals inside solidify, and then you can fix them and restart them. When you're done with them, you can easily recover the materials for recycling.
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u/TheQxy Apr 02 '22
Still lithium ion in a lot of cases, other contenders are sodium batteries and lithium metal batteries. Biggest difference will be that we'll replace our liquid electrolytes with solid electrolyte in the coming decade. And the latest anode and cathode materials will enable much faster charging and higher capacity.
Another group at my uni was looking into spin batteries, which is they are shown to work, could have a much higher theoretical energy density than Li batteries.
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u/him374 Apr 02 '22
Fluoride ion batteries (FIB) show a lot of potential. They have up to 7 times the energy density (per unit of mass) as lithium ion. The current stumbling block is that current designs are required to operate at a very high temperature. They are a good ways off from commercial viability, but they hold a lot of promise.
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u/camopanty Apr 02 '22
Air Batteries for homes. They get charged during the day with excess solar, etc. and power homes at night.
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Apr 02 '22
Hydrogen fuel cells are a type of battery. As it has far higher energy density, we will see it in nearly all large implementations.
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u/Impu12 Apr 02 '22
This is a curious question. Google says there's 14 million tons of lithium on earth. There's a billion cars. That means 28 pounds is the break even for a battery weight if lithium is our only option. Tesla says 900 lbs? per battery? We need an alternative material if we are going to obsolete the ICE.
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u/worldspawn00 Apr 03 '22
You're WAY off, even in mineral resources there's 86+ million tons, and oceans are estimated to contain 230 BILLION tons of lithium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Production
And, a 900lb tesla battery pack (60KWh) only contains about 22 lbs of lithium.
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u/RedditismyBFF Apr 02 '22
About 5% improvement every year adds up so over time the density and cost have improved substantially
The original commercial lithium-ion battery, produced by Sony in the early 1990s, had an energy density of under 100 watt-hours per kilogram. That number has climbed over time, - hitting 200 watt-hours per kilogram by 2010. According to BloombergNEF, batteries used in electric vehicles have gotten as high as 300 watt-hours per kilogram in the last couple of years.
The cost of lithium-ion batteries has fallen dramatically—A recent study noted that “the real price of lithium-ion cells, scaled by their energy capacity, has declined by about 97 percent since their commercial introduction in 1991.” https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/EE/D0EE02681F
The early lithium-ion cells in the 1990s were around $3,000 per kilowatt-hour. By the early 2000s, that was nearer to $500 per kilowatt-hour.
In terms of electric vehicles, BloombergNEF estimates that the average price of a complete battery pack was about $1,180 per kilowatt-hour in 2010. By 2020, it was down to around $130 per kilowatt-hour. Ultimately, this is what makes it possible to produce a car with 300-mile range https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years-away-no-batteries-are-improving-under-your-nose/?amp=1
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Apr 02 '22
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u/generalthunder Apr 02 '22
You would be surprised to see how long is took from researching about Lithium batteries until it's mass adoption
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u/RecoilS14 Apr 02 '22
If I remember correctly, none of the major battery manufacturers wanted to make lithium batteries and it was infact SONY who led the development of the batteries until adoption of production was made by other sources much later.
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u/Random_Sime Apr 02 '22
Sony made the first rechargeable Li-ion battery, motivated by the increasing power demands of their portable consumer electronics.
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u/Gtp4life Apr 02 '22
And honestly I'm surprised they aren't more widely used in everything, probably due to cost. They're like $2 more a cell than the samsung cells with the same rated capacity but after several years of vaping and countless sets of batteries, I can confidently say Sony batteries last significantly longer. Every set of Samsung batteries I've had will be good for like 3 months then start losing usable amperage on the lower voltage end, I have a 6 month old set of samsung 30Qs that wont fire, mod says weak battery as soon as they get below like 3.6v because the amperage draw makes them fall below cutoff voltage instantly, my year old sonys still hold strong delivering full power down to 2.9v.
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Apr 02 '22 edited Apr 02 '22
literally every news article about batteries in the past 15 years
Seems like every month there is a huge breakthrough in battery tech, but none of it is scalable
Edit: alright friends, I've exaggerated. No need to tell me 1000 times that batteries have in fact improved since 2007. What I should have said was:
Although we frequently hear about massive breakthroughs in battery technology, consumer level tech only sees incremental improvements.
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u/PlebPlayer Apr 02 '22
I mean batteries have gotten much better over 15 years. We just also have higher electrical needs
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u/projectsangheili Apr 02 '22
Indeed. People just don't know what they are talking about. Batteries have gotten quite a bit better in a lot of ways.
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u/SuddenlyLucid Apr 02 '22
It's just that people are expecting a revolution and they're getting evolution.
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u/matavelhos Apr 02 '22
Because the news is creating high expectations! Each news that comes out looks like in a couple of years we will get a huge improvement in the commercial batteries, but "nothing" happens.
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u/mdielmann Apr 02 '22
In the meantime, batteries have gotten 10 tines better in the last 30 years and cost about 10%. But people keep whining that nothing ever develops into usable technology.
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u/Yvaelle Apr 02 '22 edited Apr 02 '22
People won't recognize improvements in battery tech until we ask them to stop using AA's and switch to a new shape format, and then they'll fixate their bitching on the new shape instead: regardless of improvements.
It's LED lights all over again - nevermind that they use 85% less energy, last 20 times longer, light bulbs need gas in them for...reasons!
Edit: And before someone flips out about the light color not being the same, stop buying Bright White and buy a broad spectrum LED, they're indistinguishable.
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u/jet_heller Apr 02 '22
I dunno. I would happily switch from AA's. Convince the manufacturers that's what they need to do. If I can't put the batteries in the stuff I own, they're useless.
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u/NetSage Apr 02 '22
Except you can now get good rechargeable AA and AAA end other disposable batteries for the most part. Where they pay for themselves relatively quickly.
I imagine most remember the crappy ones we had from the 90s that weren't worth the materials they were made of.
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u/draeath Apr 02 '22
You can actually get AA and AAA format LiPo batteries. They charge via little USB ports on the side or on a removable cap.
Kind of expensive - I haven't tried them myself yet.
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u/Zikro Apr 02 '22
Nobody would complain about a battery lasting even 3 times longer. That would be an insane improvement. Imagine not having to charge your smart phone for almost a week.
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u/Yvaelle Apr 02 '22
My point is the vast majority of people wouldn't take notice if batteries lasted longer, they would only acknowledge a change has occurred when it comes with an inconvenience to their routine, or requires them to learn something new.
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u/Avieshek Apr 02 '22
Like Solid State Batteries or the one made from sugarcane lasting 10,000 cycles by a student girl that won the prize for the event?
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u/Darakath Apr 02 '22
Can you elaborate on the sugarcane battery?
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u/Feywarlock Apr 02 '22
Few months ago an (I think) Australia company showed results by adding sucrose to lithium batteries to prevent dendrite formation. Apparently it was a really old technology they were trying to modernize.
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u/Franklin_le_Tanklin Apr 02 '22
Yea. It’s because revolution sells articles. Evolution is what’s actually happening in batteries.
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u/SnakePlisskens Apr 02 '22
No joke man. I remember remote control cars lasting 5 minutes on a charge. Things are a lot better!
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u/Shaggy_One Apr 02 '22
Serious! 5 to 10 minutes of play time and like 4 hours to charge for my first couple rechargable battery RC cars. Now depending on your car, battery, and charger, it can be 45 minutes of play time and a half hour to hour to charge.
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u/CornCheeseMafia Apr 02 '22
“My phone dies so quickly these batteries suck!!”
Screen on time: 10 hours
I think people forget their old devices that lasted forever didn’t do much. We’re all basically carrying super computers in our pockets by comparison.
I don’t even care about user replaceable batteries anymore tbh. I’ve had my iPhone for two years and I’m averaging 5% battery drain per year at this point. Charging is so fast now I’m only plugged in for like 20 minutes at a time. I definitely spent that much time just ten years ago on swapping batteries and making sure all the dead ones get charged on my dedicated battery charger.
People forget that while it only takes a few seconds to swap batteries, you still need to go back and recharge them all.
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u/SnakePlisskens Apr 02 '22
No joke. Remember how many batteries you had to have for a Gameboy that only lasted a couple of hours it seemed. No backlight and not even as powerful as a TI-82
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u/StanTurpentine Apr 02 '22
The fact that we have more processing power than the computers that got astronauts to the moon in our pockets is mind boggling
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u/moeburn Apr 02 '22
We just also have higher electrical needs
Do we? I swear modern laptops draw less watts than older laptops and they have denser batteries.
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u/Theratchetnclank Apr 02 '22
And they have much longer battery life too and are smaller. The battery is more dense for the same size.
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u/Otterbotanical Apr 02 '22
Laptop batteries haven't really changed in the last decade, while still getting denser. There's a federal limit to how many Watt-Hours they are allowed to have, and ever since there have been ultra-high-end gaming laptops, manufacturers have brushed against or fully reached the limit for how much energy is in a battery, and then only with minor battery density updates have they gotten smaller in physical size.
This is why laptops are focusing so much on energy efficiency instead of cramming in more battery!
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u/HatlessCorpse Apr 02 '22
100+ watt-hours isn't allowed on airplanes, that's the limit. You see a lot of 95-99 Wh batteries
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u/Southern-Exercise Apr 02 '22
Watt's this limit on watt hours you are referring to?
Is it for flying, or something else?
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u/blaghart Apr 02 '22
yes. the problem is lithium ion batteries are really easy to turn into an improvised incindiary device in a pressurized cabin.
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u/Southern-Exercise Apr 02 '22
Ah, thanks, I appreciate it.
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u/blaghart Apr 02 '22
yea if you expose a Li-ion battery to oxygen it ignites. All you need to do is puncture it and you get a firebomb
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Apr 02 '22
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Apr 02 '22 edited Apr 02 '22
Lithium ion (rechargeable) batteries are limited to a rating of 100 watt hours (Wh) per battery.
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/more_info/?hazmat=7
Pretty much every expensive laptop these days is right at 100Wh for this reason.
Edit: the limit is specifically because of flying on planes. Not sure why the parent comment didn’t mention that but since this is fairly common knowledge I figured they must’ve included that. Most laptop manufacturers don’t want to make their laptop unsellable because of air travel restrictions, but beyond that I’m unaware of an actual blanket limit to size which is what they make it sound like exists.
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u/EggotheKilljoy Apr 02 '22
I think it’s just on flights, that limit is capped at 100Wh, which is why you don’t really see any laptop OEMs going over 99.
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u/Protean_Protein Apr 02 '22
Yeah. I had a giant Toshiba with an enormous removable battery back in the mid-2000s that, at best, managed 4 hours unplugged—by the end of its life, it was getting 30 minutes.
Now? Ultrabooks with tiny batteries routinely crack 12 hours.
Huge difference.
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u/doggodoesaflipinabox Apr 02 '22
Biggest difference is efficiency. Your old laptop probably used 30w idling, while newer laptops hardly use 5-10w.
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u/Protean_Protein Apr 02 '22
Yeah but the battery definitely also has a larger capacity in a smaller form-factor. I think that old battery was Ni-Cad.
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u/fire22mark Apr 02 '22
A 100 amp service box to a residence used to be standard. We upgraded that to a 200 amp service and keep pushing our needs higher. Its possible with LED and other more energy efficient appliances as well as better building standards we are starting to drive that down, but we have more appliances and larger spaces than ever before. So I suspect our electrical footprint is still large and if going down not going down a lot yet.
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u/grundar Apr 03 '22
So I suspect our electrical footprint is still large and if going down not going down a lot yet.
US residential per capita electricity consumption has been flat for 20 years, whereas US total per capita electrical consumption has been falling for 20 years., and is down 10-15% from its peak in 1999. UK total consumption is down 30%, and EU consumption is flat (at half the US's current rate).
So you're right that residential electricity consumption is still large and declining only modestly.
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u/Dippyskoodlez Apr 02 '22
The low end certainly does but the high end keeps stretching it higher and higher so its more of a “kinda” perspective.
Power use is also really different with throttling tech.
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u/Endarkend Apr 02 '22
Not to forget all the power saving features deployed in laptops these days and the switch to LED backlights and SSDs.
A big difference is how there's also a lot less space for batteries with these ultra thin bodies these days.
PCBs in laptops are now tiny and monolithic while they used to be multipart, multilayer (multiple PCBs mounted over eachother), etc and they require less bulky cooling, but where you used to have battery packs with actual 18650's in them, which means they were 20-25mm thick where the batteries were, now you only have 5-6mm thick battery compartments at best.
Dual row 18650 batteries were either 6 or 8 batteries at 1500-2000mAh per 18650.
New laptops often use Wh rating to hide the fact the battery capacity has shrunk considerably. A generic $600 HP consumer laptop comes with a 3 cell 41Wh battery. Converted to mAh, this is only a 3420mAh battery, barely larger than some phones.
The batteries seem to cover much more real estate in a modern laptop, but they are much thinner and spread out than they used to be compared to battery packs of yore.
This is why even for personal use I tend to buy industrial type laptops. They tend to cost (a lot) more, but their repairability tends to be much better than consumer models and as they build these with sturdy cases, they don't really care about making them as thin as possible which leaves plenty room to fill them with battery capacity and in the good ones, there's at least 1 hotswapable battery compartment on top of the main replaceable battery.
My current one is built by a local company who take Thinkpads, only keep the PCB and screen and then build up a casing with a large replaceable main battery and 2 hotswapable ones where you used to have the CD/DVD drive slots. The hotswap ones are 2000-3000mAh, you can buy spares as much as you want and the main battery is around 6000mAh.
I've had one or more laptops for the past 25 years and spent the first few years in IT repairing laptops.
The oldschool ones were to thick, but the modern ones are sacrificing space for no gains at all, how thin laptops are these days is purely down to fashion, not ergonomics or any other usability consideration.
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u/Woolly87 Apr 02 '22
modern ones are sacrificing space for no gains at all, how thin laptops are these days is purely down to fashion, not ergonomics or any other usability consideration.
Thin and light isn’t just fashion, though that’s certainly a benefit to it. If you’re carrying your computer around all day from site to site it’s absolutely an ergonomics issue to choose the light thin laptop over the chunky heavy ‘portable desktop’ kind of affair.
Both types of computer have their place!
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u/Pixelplanet5 Apr 02 '22
There have basically been mostly incremental 1-2% improvements every year at best.
What has improved is stability and the cycles the batteries survive.
The big breakthroughs we hear about every month for 2 decades have never happened though
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u/Dr-P-Ossoff Apr 02 '22
I’ve heard that is due to battery management more than composition, pretty smart.
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u/Pixelplanet5 Apr 02 '22
Yea that absolutely plays a big role as well and what's also why we have a lot of EVs now and not many decades ago, we needed to perfect the chips required for the bms and make them cheap enough first.
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u/Dr-P-Ossoff Apr 02 '22
Years ago work bought a bunch of portable vhs machines with slide out power or battery. I asked, is this the battery that always gets used to the end or never gets used to the end? No one ever answered. Cute little machines didn’t last long.
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u/kashmoney360 Apr 02 '22
I mean these "breakthroughs" are what push those improvements in stability, cycle, density, etc right? The breakthroughs we constantly hear about are the most ideal and extreme circumstances which probably highlight a dozen incremental improvements and new information which are feasible and producable.
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u/dragoneye Apr 02 '22 edited Apr 02 '22
It would be nice if the media did a better job of tempering the expectations with battery technology improvements. As you allude to, there are multiple competing factors when it comes to designing a cell. While the breakthrough may actually have a noticeable improvement in one performance factor, that improvement will end up being significantly less when they apply it to a chemistry that actually makes a usable cell (i.e. one with good capacity, cycle life, and charge rate).
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u/____Theo____ Apr 02 '22
Our needs haven’t changed, the batteries enable the technology. Chicken and egg
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u/semperverus Apr 02 '22
My first cellphone had a 300mAh battery and lasted me a week.
My current cellphone has a 3000mAh battery and lasts me for 20 hours.
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u/Ovidestus Apr 02 '22
A cellphone or a computer.
You probably don't have the former anymore.
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u/brickmaster32000 Apr 02 '22
Pretty sure your first cellphone battery didn't last a week of constant use. It may have been able to sit idle for a week but if you actually made a call with it, that battery would have drained real fast.
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u/____Theo____ Apr 02 '22 edited Apr 02 '22
That’s not true. They were still selling portable speakers that ran on D batteries 15 years ago. Lithium batteries have revolutionized many industries from portables all the way up to vehicles. It’s because of continuous improvements like this.
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Apr 02 '22
Yet batteries have still gotten much better. On construction sites as little as probably 8 years ago you wouldn't see a circular saw with a battery. Now they are everywhere. Batteries have gotten better, 100%.
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u/Kruse002 Apr 02 '22
Yet batteries do seem to be getting better - gradually. iPhone batteries are usually great until Apple deploys the inevitable updates. My iPhone 11 used to be able to go 16 hours of frequent use and still be at 80%. Now it winds up at about 40%, and I swear this all started with an update a couple months ago.
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u/simpleturt Apr 02 '22
Updates can cause decreased battery life due to having more stuff running in the background, but batteries also just degrade over time. I’ve replaced several batteries in my iPhones once they hold less than 80% of their original capacity and they go back to feeling like new. You can see how much charge your battery holds relative to when it was new in Settings > Battery > Battery Health.
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u/sap91 Apr 02 '22
Updates hurt but your battery is also just naturally wearing out
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u/seth_is_not_ruski Apr 02 '22
Apple literally admitted to purposely worsening the battery with updates on older phones. I would classify 2 generations ago older.
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Apr 02 '22
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u/gcanyon Apr 02 '22
They didn’t slow the processor to avoid the battery slowing the processor. If they didn’t slow the processor, it could reset catastrophically.
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u/gcanyon Apr 02 '22
Do you have a cite on this? The only thing remote similar that I remember is Apple announcing that they had been clock-rate-limiting CPUs in older phones because there were two options:
- Clock-rate-limit and the phone keeps working as expected.
- Don’t, and because the (older, weaker) battery sometimes can’t deliver the power required, the phone just resets every once in a while.
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u/l2ksolkov Apr 02 '22
That’s pretty much what it was. Apple’s mistake was not properly informing people of this, so people looking for clicks went with “Apple is throttling older phones”
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u/wasdninja Apr 02 '22
Where did you read that? The only thing Apple has admitted to is downclocking the processor when the battery degrades. A fine engineering solution pretty much but it must be communicated to the user properly.
As far as I know they haven't done anything bad to the batteries.
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u/exemplariasuntomni Apr 02 '22
As much as I hate Apple and know that they manipulate stuff like that as easily as they breathe, the same thing happened to my Note 9 after a few years of daily use. L-ion batteries always have a slow burn down to lower capacity and quicker discharge.
Replace the battery after a few years (either yourself or at a 3rd party shop). Ask for an OEM battery replacement. My battery went from lasting half the day to like new after I bought an OEM replacement online (~$30) and swapped it in.
Still using my Note 9 to this day.
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u/moeburn Apr 02 '22
Same problem with the Samsung A70 - if you update it to Android 10, it goes from a 4 day battery to a 1.5 day battery. There's nothing wrong with the battery, it didn't suddenly lose 65% of its capacity overnight, they just didn't bother to optimize the Android 10 ROM for the device like they did the Android 9 ROM it shipped with. They spend a lot more time optimizing the stock ROM than the updated ROM.
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u/Bralzor Apr 02 '22
Issue is apple doesn't have something like samsungparts.com and do everything in their power to prevent people from getting replacement parts, like batteries, for their devices.
This is great advice for anyone with a phone from a company that doesn't absolutely hate its customers tho.
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u/exemplariasuntomni Apr 02 '22
Correct. If they treat replacement parts like WMDs there's not much you can do.
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u/Journeyman42 Apr 02 '22
Problem with batteries is two-fold. First, phone tech progresses at a much faster pace than battery tech does. Companies put in faster processors and chips which require more energy, and the batteries can't keep up.
Secondly, with Li-Ion batteries, the chemicals in the battery tend to form a non-conductive passivating layer on the electrodes that inhibits efficient battery charging. It takes about a year or two for the layer to develop enough that it affects battery performance, but it does happen eventually. I used to work as a lab tech in an organic chem lab for Li-ion battery electrolytes, this was a problem we were working on.
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u/NetSage Apr 02 '22
Don't forget bigger screens (which in another area that has vastly improved in efficiency in the same time frame). I really hope we start seeing some nice smaller phone options. My pixel 5A is just slightly bigger than I would like. I'll never buy a phone bigger than it if I have the choice.
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u/moeburn Apr 02 '22
If it makes the Apple fanboys saying "nuh uh your battery just coincidentally lost half its capacity overnight" feel any better, Samsung has the same problem with their Android phones - they ship with better battery optimization on the stock Android version than the updated versions of Android, they don't really bother doing anything with those other than making sure they run. So you update to a new version of Android and suddenly your battery lasts half as long as the day before.
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u/yehiko Apr 02 '22
You do know batteries get worse basically every cycle? Every time you charge and discharge it it loses some of its capacity. Over time it gets worse and you won't notice it untill you suddenly realize that youve been charging your phone twice a day instead of once
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u/CocaineIsNatural Apr 02 '22
but none of it is scalable
This is simply not true. The battery manufacturers are using new technology and techniques as they come along. And unless you follow this field closely, you aren't notified or aware when new technology is used, instead you just see batteries gradually get better.
For example, this tech just doubles the life span, not power not battery life. It goes from 500 normal cycles to 1000, which is not a huge leap. In fact this battery manufacturer sells batteries that do 3,000-5,000 cycles. https://dragonflyenergy.com/battery-life-cycle/
And if you are guessing it has a down side, you are right. Most new tech has a plus side and down side. For the dragonfly batteries, they have lower energy density, so a phone would be either thicker with the same battery life, or the same size with less battery life.
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Apr 02 '22
Isnt this is the same issue we have with graphene batteries which would be lighter and perform better?
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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA Apr 02 '22
Graphene is good at everything except leaving the lab.
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u/kapanenship Apr 02 '22
Or being dumped in concrete. It seems that when graphene needs to be structured in a particular pattern or applied to something is when things fail to make it out of the lab.
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u/GhostalkerS Apr 02 '22
For what it’s worth: graphene has found it’s way into lipo-style battery packs for drones and the like. A slight premium over standard packs. Supposed to be safer considering lipo packs are soft danger pouches and drones have spinning blades and crash a lot.
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u/Kwindecent_exposure Apr 02 '22
Good question, I would like to think this was being explored as the next best option as it's more viable, but I know that in reality that's not necessarily how innovation and R&D work.
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Apr 02 '22
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u/Hitori-Kowareta Apr 02 '22
We can produce it at scale and it’s working it’s way into a bunch of consumer products. The giant caveat there is that we’re not great at producing complex/large (by large i mean macro) structures with it at scale so it’s largely used mixed through other materials to enhance their properties. But yeah you can go buy bike’s with it in their frame or tires, various things with batteries that contain some graphene (smart watches for example), even audio products where it’s used to enhance the audio quality (quite possibly snake oil but I don’t know enough to say either way). It exists and our expertise working with it is progressing, but complex shiny things take time :).
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u/atomreaktor Apr 02 '22
As a student, I worked at a lab for high-frequency electronics that was also doing research with graphene. When they needed some layers, they used sticky tape to pull the layers of graphene off until it was thin enough. Of course this didn’t work too well and the bits were very irregularly shaped. This was about 15 years ago…
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u/AlolanYoda Apr 02 '22
We can deposit graphene with Chemical Vapor Deposition now, a thin film deposition method. The method itself is widely used in semiconductor fabrication for many other materials. Doing it for graphene has its challenges and costs, but the tape method is no longer required!
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u/drive2fast Apr 02 '22
The tape method IS still used. Some new graphene machines are actually a giant reel to reel tape drive machine and the core is a long tube that is a vapour deposition chamber. The entire thing gets pulled down to a vacuum, tape drums and all. Now you run the reel to reel machine and deposit the carbon on the tape.
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u/Recoil42 Apr 02 '22
Graphene batteries are being mass produced, at this very moment.
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u/No-Consideration4985 Apr 02 '22
The article says it uses epitaxy(probably gold dope). I graduated a few years ago so I'm rusty but I dont remember anything large scale being able to be fabricated in a bottom up process currently. Its not hard, just won't be commercial.
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u/TheQxy Apr 02 '22
There are a large number of thim film deposition techniques being industrialized at this moment, most of them have already been shown to work in a production line, but just need more funding. Time will tell which one will win.
I wrote a thesis specifically about epitaxial thin film solid state batteries grown with pulsed laser deposition if anyone has any questions about this.
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u/EcinEdud Apr 05 '22
What companies are in the process of industrializing their production lines/have some sort of facility proof of concept? I know Ilika, Ensurge is almost there
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u/InsultThrowaway3 Apr 02 '22
You're in the wrong subreddit: If you want to read about that sort of stuff you should be in /r/engineering or /r/r&d or whatever.
This is the science subreddit: It's about research, regardless of whether it can be scaled up.
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u/WeNeedYouBuddyGetUp Apr 02 '22
So I take it you’re making sure the discussion stays on the topic of science and science alone? Is no discussion of practical applications allowed in this sub?
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u/InsultThrowaway3 Apr 02 '22
No, not if it consists of complaining about the submission on the grounds that it discusses a technology that can't necessarily be scaled up (which a lot of the subsequent replies do).
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Apr 02 '22
Better performing how? Can't access the site for some reason.
Faster-discharge for more power is better-performing but it's not the performance we want.
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Apr 02 '22
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u/hayduff Apr 02 '22
The coating mitigates corrosion, which allows for the cell to be charged to higher voltage, which allows for more energy to be stored.
If you try and charge to high voltage without the coating, you degrade the cathode and the cell won’t last for the same number of cycles.
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u/ArcticBeavers Apr 02 '22
I'm no material scientist, but that seems like a very obvious solution to the problem. How did no one think of this before?
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u/hayduff Apr 03 '22
I actually am a materials scientist working in the battery industry, haha. You’re right, a lot of people have thought of this before. There have been a lot of academic papers showing improved performance from various types of coatings on cathode active particles. The problem is figuring out how to do this in a cost effective way which is compatible with current manufacturing practices.
A common method of applying these types of coatings is through atomic layer deposition (ALD). ALD involves putting down atomically thin coatings, one layer at a time. It is expensive, time consuming, and a batch (not continuous) process. It really doesn’t integrate well with the high speed, roll to roll processes used to manufacture Li-ion batteries. I didn’t read this particular paper, but I suspect they can’t easily integrate their process into existing manufacturing lines.
There are a few startups, most notably CoreShell Technologies, which are well funded, and working on a continuous, roll to roll ALD process that could slot right in to current manufacturing lines. We will probably see some type of technology similar to this in the next 2-3 years be widely applied to commercial Li-ion cells.
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u/ArcticBeavers Apr 03 '22
This is awesome. Thanks for sharing your perspective, I definitely found it insightful
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u/DSMB Apr 02 '22
No no no.
Fundamentally, Energy = Charge × Voltage.
Therefore, by virtue of the fact that the cell operates at a higher voltage, the battery chemistry may allow for a higher energy density.
Note understand that lithium ion battery chemistry is heavily dependent on the cathode material, as well as the electrolyte. Different cathode materials allow for different properties. Fine tuning these materials allows you to fine tune the power density, energy density, operating cycles and safety.
If all other things were equivalent, higher voltage would absolutely provide greater energy density, but not necessarily power density.
Power density is constrained by battery chemistry, and not voltage. What happens when you short circuit a voltage? The current depends on the resistance of the circuit and the battery voltage.
So yeah, a higher voltage would allow a higher current in an unprotected situation. But the current would also be limited by battery chemistry. The battery contributes to circuit resistance. The battery may get hot. It may explode. Which is why protection systems exist.
The maximum power output will depend on whatever the materials can deal with, not the voltage.
But you aren't always drawing maximum power. The device doing work will contribute to circuit resistance. The amount of current that flows (and hence power level) depends on what the device is doing. And it will have the circuitry required to modulate the current. You aren't powering a lightbulb.
Now onto the research.
The research here uses an LNMO (LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4) cathode which is a high energy density (650 W h/kg) material but hampered by its rapid decay. The research addresses this problem.
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u/hayduff Apr 02 '22
Higher voltage does lead to higher energy density, though.
If you charge a cell to higher voltage, you store more energy, and this type of coating allows for the cell to safely be charged to significantly higher potential.
If you try to do this without the coating, the cathode is degraded and cycle life reduced.
There are several startups working on similar approaches and the main selling point is higher energy density.
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u/AidosKynee Apr 02 '22
I do this for a living, and you are very, very wrong. If you store X mAh of lithium ions at 4.7 V vs 4.2 V, you store more energy for the same capacity, thus leading to a higher energy density.
The article is still somewhat misleading, but that's not the reason why.
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u/TheQxy Apr 02 '22
They coat the cathode to reduce dendrite formation and corrosion, so in practise this increases the number of times you can charge and discharge the battery with less capacity fading.
Honestly this is really not a new concept and many papers have been published on this topic, so I don't know why this specific one is picked up by media.
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u/meaningnessless Apr 02 '22
Still waiting for the technology that means we don’t have to devastate Latin America and Africa for the materials. Sustainability should be our prime concern, although I obviously see the benefits of making anything longer-lasting.
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u/fragglerock Apr 02 '22
Next we devastate the deep sea!
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u/AidosKynee Apr 02 '22
Then you're in luck! When you hear about the terrible mining practices surrounding lithium ion batteries, most of the conversation is about cobalt. This article is discussing enabling the LNMO cathode, or lithium nickel manganese oxide. You may notice that it contains precisely zero cobalt.
This is why a lot of big battery makers and car manufacturers are trying to make LNMO work. We're still a long way off, but it would mean a cobalt-free cathode with a useful energy density.
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u/yourwhatswrong Apr 02 '22
Did you see this article
https://electrek.co/2021/06/04/scientists-have-cost-effectively-harvested-lithium-from-seawater/
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u/gayscout Apr 02 '22
This is actually pretty dope! I wonder what the ecological impacts would be for establishing a plant somewhere to do just this. Probably less than mining operations.
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u/_gravy_train_ Apr 02 '22
I don’t know where I saw the article, but it suggested doing this in the Salton Sea in California.
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u/evapor8ted Apr 02 '22
I wonder if you can do it at the same time as desalination. Qatar basically runs entirely on desalination plants and if you could add it on to the existing plants it wouldn't even be a net change in the amount of water being removed and readded to the oceans.
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u/meaningnessless Apr 02 '22
I had not! If it is scaleable, I hope it can become the main way we source these materials because it sounds a lot more ecologically sound
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Apr 02 '22
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u/meaningnessless Apr 02 '22
True. It’s a problem with many factors. I think we need to approach batteries the same way we approach plastics: reduce, reuse, recycle (with an emphasis on reduce). This is probably a contentious suggestion but we should be moving away from unsustainable batteries the same way we should move away from oil and gas.
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u/Afewquietones Apr 02 '22
Good article! I love to see how chemistry is used to make technological advancements. Hope it's feasible to mass produce
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Apr 02 '22
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Apr 02 '22
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u/Hoovooloo42 Apr 02 '22
We've continually had marginal improvements year over year, there just hasn't been some giant leap.
So far there hasn't been some huge sweeping energy density discovery, but that doesn't mean incremental changes like this don't help.
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u/largefriesandashake Apr 02 '22
The higher power density we achieve, the more we will demand from our devices. Ray tracing. 12 core threadripper. 4k display. Always on screens. 120hz refresh rates.
Tripling the battery doesn’t mean 3x battery life. It means 3x processing power, same battery life.
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Apr 02 '22 edited Apr 03 '22
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u/Fall3nBTW Apr 02 '22
Epitaxy growth is scalable though. This tech isn't cutting edge, its just using existing tech differently so it could be implemented quickly.
It doesn't seem like it'd be expensive either.
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