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Li-Ion With 300% More Power, Minutes to Recharge
Battery Nut writes "Altair Nanotechnologies claims to have found a way to reduce Li-Ion recharge time to minutes, as well as increase battery power by 300%, according to this press release.
Seems they have received some good feedback by certain experts about thier work: "Two eminent experts in battery technology, Dr. K. M. Abraham and Dr. Vassilis G. Keramidas, have expressed strong support for Altair's work. "
So is it a new revolution in battery technology, or hopeful hype? Stay tuned, their quarterly conference call is Thursday Feb 24th at 11AM." Anyone else think snake oil?
Not everybody thinks so. Altair's stock has gone from $2 to $4+ this past week. It topped out at over $6 last Friday. Their average volume is at 6.6 Million. Yesterday, they doubled it.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Given the current state of battery life, I'm inclined to think this technology might bring along other trade-offs. Current Lithium batteries tend to lose their full charge capacity after using them for a while. If these batteries charge faster and retain more power, what's to stop them from losing that capacity just as quickly?
Personally, I'd be happy not having to replace a battery because it becomes useless after a while. They aren't cheap, and they lose their life too quickly. I guess 2 out of 3 wouldn't be bad, though.
This all sounds like BS to me. Our lab is part of a nation-wide program to develop new battery technologies and I have no idea why they claim lattice strain as the main cause for eletrode fatigue... The problem with ANY battery is that ions have to move as the battery is charged/discharged. These ions are all lithium in lithium-ion batteries (AKA lithium rocking chair or rocker batteries). The material between the electrode compartments has to be a insulator able to transport Li+ reliably. Since liquids in batteries are not such a good thing they use various gel mixtures for this medium (and the rate of ion diffusion is inversly related to viscosity). Every charge/discharge cycle more an more ions get stuck and hence lower the capacity of the battery over time.
The "problem" electrode as far as I know is actually the graphite (like the stuff in pencils) end which get's reduced and forms a lithium salt. When you hook up battery the graphite re-oxidizes, sending the electrons through the circuit and Li+ through the insulating medium. Most "nanomaterials" focus on increasing the surface area of this electrode to allow for more efficient (and rapid) charge storage/discharge. At the other electrode is some (probably cystalline) inorganic oxidant which does break down over time. My guess is that they just found some new inorganic electrode material that is slightly better and they, like EVERY other lab, are claiming they've "solved" the Li-ion battery problem. I've seen way too many talks from people claiming essentially the same thing to put my grains of salt away just yet.
But hey, I'm not on the nanobattery (did you barf?) project and am by no means an expert, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong... FYI "nano" makes me want to puke too. Every week there is some jack-ass giving a talk about "nanomaterials" that are MICROns in size and characterized with MICROscopy. In chemistry land (where I live) a nanometer might as well be a mile (except electrons tunnel more frequently) 'cause atoms are really freaking tiny and that's what we've been using to build our materials for over 200 years : )
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.