Slashdot Mirror
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?
No - It's lithium.
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.
"Anyone else think snake oil?"
Someone's trying not to look so stupid this time around...
Maybe it uses cold-fusion?
"This is totally insecure, but very convenient."
If true, pure battery-electric vehicles will totally own all ICE vehicles. Although they do quite well already with "common" li-ions.
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When did Slashdot start posting messages from stock pumpers?
Mirror:9 4a874986d9cdd32/index.html
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/2807875cb6676ed0
I RTFA and couldn't figure out the precise technique that Altair Nanotechnologies used to breed this super-Lion with 3x the power of a regular lion.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Someone needs to go back to math class. The article actually says the batteries will have "three times the power" of today's batteries. That amounts to 200% more power, not 300% more.
2 comments and already /.ed!
Or they have a power outage and their UPS batteries are flat...
A recharge time of 2 mins is about the same time it might take me to refill my car, So this makes it quite viable as an alternative 'fuel'.... However, the cables from the 'pump' would have to be hugely thick to carry that sort of power.
its probably fake, but wouldn't it be so nice if it was real? Maybe, just maybe, Moore's law has caught up with batteries?
We don't need this crap, we have BatMax!
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
According to the article, they use a Lithium titanium oxide nanomaterial. Best gues, the nanocrystals typically have little or no stress and a low defect density, as well as an extremely high surface to volume ratio. All of these should improve the efficiency and speed of the battery operation. This might also increase the speed that the battery can discharge. Of course, I am not a battery specialist. Just in nanomaterials development. Might not be snake oil. Assuming all the accolades are true... well, Altair doesn't have a reputation for falsifying data. I look forward to seeing this develop.
This bodes well for everything that runs on batteries that can take advantage of this.. with some exceptions like Lead Acid batteries of cars and such. Just think.... my iBook and Powerbook laptops last much longer on a fresh battery than a comparably equipped Intel Mobile Pentium based laptop or even more energy conservative chips... point being... the 5 hours my iBook can get could be well past 10 with intensive use and energry saving stuff set to a minimum. This will bode well for all. Now my PCs can run over 2-3 hours max of use when not using a DVD. Whoo hoo. Plus maybe now electric cars can get a full 300-500 miles of city driving or such, and hybrids will benefit as for smaller batteries with a similar range/capacity. Now if improvements in technology like this could spur other improvements to make life easier and more affordable for all.
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.
As long as this is NOT some sticker that creates a magnetic flux in the battery via the Hotzman effect, then I will be willing to say it might not be snakeoil.
Read and judge for yourself
They should add a warning label: "May require personal nuclear reactor, shrapnel shields and additional fire insurance payments."
Does everything include nothing?
I think I'm running low on pow
It's only a 'press release' so I'm not convinced...
But if it's not vaporware, this would be a huge breakthrough in many fields.
Maybe you just think about cell phones or laptops or even electric cars, but when I read this I see a huge advance for renewable energy production.
That's one huge problem for solar cells since they need to store energy for use during the night. The same can be said about the wind farms.
Actually that's the big advantage of the dams, they can store water and produce energy only when needed.
I have been waiting for such an announcement for years. But I remain skeptical, as the news doesn't come from a reliable source.
Does anyone have a better link?
Iraq: war to save the U
I don't want more power, I want more charge supplied at the same power.
Perhaps that's what they mean.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
"Anyone else think snake oil?"
Doesn't that sort of skew perceptions a bit much? I mean, leave we dotters to trash the article, the company, the product and explain why if it ran Linux the world would be a better place. But to come right out and abjectly claim snake oil seems a bit much to me.
Next, you'll be telling me that you can't fit a GB of data on a 1 in. HHD, or that the Flood is not visiting SoCal (the Biblical Flood, not Halo2).
Assuming you're right with the snake oil. At least they're only hurting stock holders and not the Open Source community by suing IBM. Stock holders by the nature of buying stock assume the risk. If this is a press release to induce a pump-and-dump, as seems to be hinted, then the SEC will be looking for them.
But, if they can get faster charging, higher capacity battries, then maybe my laptop can weigh less. I mean, if most car's MPG and tank capacity give them roughly 300 miles of range, why should the industry let you get away with using your laptop unplugged for more than 2 hours?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
For those that don't want to take the time to look at the article (and before it gets /.'ed), here is the meat:
Sounds promising (though if I hear the nano prefix again it'll make me barf). So no, it's not a new way to recharge batteries Li-Ion batteries, it's new batteries that can be recharged faster.
Let's hope that they can manage the lawsuits after the first batch starts to catch fire.
More detail and not yet Slashdotted; http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/050210/080729.html
They do have pending patents on things like that all over the world, but of course that doesn't really mean anything (anyone can have a patent pending on pretty much everything, and even if granted that doesn't really mean all that much...)
Donate free food here
The real problem with new fangled almost-magic batteries is going to be the liability from ISD (Instantanious Spontanious Discharge). I've seen a video of a test with a lab rat, and all I can say is you'll want to keep these things out of reach of rodents! (And that I'm glad I wasn't there to watch it in person!)
--MarkusQ
The site is already down. And it doesn't look like another hype(at least to me). It seems that those guys have actually done something. Read on :
RENO, NV--(MARKET WIRE)--Feb 10, 2005 -- Altair Nanotechnologies, Inc. (NasdaqSC:ALTI - News) announced today that it has achieved a breakthrough in Lithium Ion battery electrode materials, which will enable a new generation of rechargeable battery to be introduced into the marketplace, as well as create new markets for rechargeable batteries. These new materials allow rechargeable batteries to be manufactured that have three times the power of existing Lithium Ion batteries at the same price and with recharge times measured in a few minutes rather than hours.
The technical achievements are being praised by the battery community as truly remarkable and will likely enable a new generation of rechargeable battery to be produced. Altair has confidentiality agreements in place with some of the world's leading battery development companies to evaluate and commercialize these battery electrode materials.
Altair's research and development efforts were allowed two new patents (announced on January 7th and 14th, 2005) and a National Science Foundation grant was successfully completed in January, 2005, by Altair. New markets for fast charging batteries will include the handheld power tools market increasing the productivity of, for example, construction workers while lowering their overhead costs. Other markets include hybrid electric vehicles, portable electronics and medical surgery tools -- solving the problem of electrical wires all over the operating room floor.
Rest of article can be found here
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/050210/080729.html
Here's the press release on a different site:. html
http://press.arrivenet.com/aut/article.php/584418
Feel free to rip this server a new asshole as well.
Slashdot better not be teasing me with vaporware again! I get angry when teased!
--
Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County comes out to play
Yeah, but it gets a bit compicated when you want to insta-charge your tZero, Venturi Fetish or simply have a Tango
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If their improvement is a matter of increasing the surface area of the lithium particles, then the claims aren't at all unreasonable. We've seen many instances in the last few years of materials improvements increasing performance.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Perhaps they should get together with the battery life extender nanotech guys8 /03192 39&tid=126&tid=100&tid=137&tid=1) and make a battery that you charge up once for two minutes and it runs for the lifetime of the battery or yourself (which ever is longer)...
(http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/2
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
The only article I could get to said that the technology "will allow a tripling of battery life." That would seem to indicate that it will make the batteries last for three times as long rather than hold 3x more power at once. It would be nice to have a battery that held 3x the power, but a battery that needed replacing every ~3 years vice every year would be great as well.
Any one else interpret it the same way?
Cheers,the_crowbar
Have you read the Moderator Guidelines
Can't RTFA because it's /.ed, but it looks to me like they have increased the power capability by increasing the surface area within a given volume so that it can produce a larger current, much in the same way that the lungs can produce a large exchange of O2 and CO2 due to their large surface area.
This has nothing to do with capacity, which presumably is unchanged from more conventional technology.
Not a bad thing in itself of course, if it expands the market for which LiIon is suitable.
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
a) ==== dollars going out for expenses ====>
b>
As soon as (b) overtook (a) by a large enough margin.
I already bought one of these on eBay. You just stick it on the back of your battery, and you get 300% more life, 500% better reception, and it blocks the gamma rays from giving you skull cancer. And the best part, it was FREE!!!!L@@K!!!W@W!!!!!NIBMOMC!!1111!!A+++PWRSELLE R with the charger I bought.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
186 Mph is great and all that, but that is on a 1 hour charge. They need to extend that to at leat 4 hours (and preferably 6 or 7 or more) in order to compete with Gas/Diesel on long distance drives. And to 4 hours at a minimum for daily commuters (rush hour sucks in some places). This may help extend Electric to the daily commuters, but it won't do for the long distance driver. Also, the long distance drivers will require a quick (less than 20 min) charging time total. The commuters can recharge their car overnight in the garage.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I don't belive that the claim is that thier new batteries have three times the capacity of a current Li-ion battery. They are claiming three times the power, which I read as meaning that the peak discharge power is three times greater.
This is a lot more reasonable, from my understanding of Li-ion batteries. The theoretical energy capacity isn't three times current batteries, IIRC, so trippling that is unreasonable. But three times the discharge rate is not impossible, and brings them into the range of NiMH batteries, maybe even Lead-Acid. Coupled with the superior energy density of Li-ion, that's very very nice.
This matches well with the claim of faster charging - the limiting factors for charging and dischargeing are related in batteries.
So, your sums become 4Ah in 5 minutes, or a much more reasonable 48 amps. A lot, yes, but not beyond what's currently done with medium current applications.
Reading the press relase as I did above imedialty makes is much more reasonable, although I'd love to get more details. There's a lot hingeing on the word 'power', depending whether you read it in a technical or common definition, so much so that I wouldn't want to depend on it.
Heres the kicker: It says 3 times the power at the same PRICE. Not the same weight or volume They've basically found new materials that allow them to produce 3 batteries for every 1 they used to produce, and these batteries have fast recharge capabilities. Nothing to see here, move along...
How come I cannot find anything on the two guys mentioned above? Very very little that doesn't relate directly to the press release. I found a little on Dr. Kerimidas at http://www.valence.com/BoardMembers.asp but hardly anything on the other. If they are so eminent, why aren't there any papers? Citation?
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Will the battery lifetime drop to 6 mos?
I'm not so keen on my iPod dying quicker..
what they DON'T tell you is that it only works in a zero gravity 932K environment at 40.001 KPa!!
Note: This sig contains nine S's, nine I's and five O's which... means absolutely nothing.
How does these batteries compare to Lithium Polymer Batteries?
From the abstract, his analysis finds Li4Ti5O12 to be a high-surface area material with a very large ability to hold a charge.
One word of caution, I notice the phrase "Dr. Kavan employed scientifically sound experimental procedures and test protocols to study these materials", which sounds a little self-promoting. I guess that's what peer review is for!
Critical Review in PDF
Enjoy the light reading!
I don't fear computers, I fear the lack of them. -I. Asimov
The problem is the more densely used lithium is, the more dangerous it is. And normal LiIon batteries are really pushing the extremes of safety now.
Of course if your only other option is nuclear laptop batteries then maybe they're not so bad.
that goes on the back of the phone and you will get... well 300% the battery life of a normal Li-Ion battery.
Never mind charging faster, giving them a longer life is what appeals to me. My ipod's battery is getting old...
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Current Li batteries are very limited in their max current. This make them poor choices for high current applications, like electric motors. It won't make your laptop run any longer, but you'll be able to charge it 3x faster.
Like every 5th word in the press release is "nanotechnology." Back in the day, when you mixed a bunch of chemicals up in a lab, it was called "Chemistry". Does anyone else smell a new dot bomb cycle coming? Are venture capitalists going to start pouring their money in every company with "nanotechnology" in their name? Guess I should wait a few weeks and start selling short.
I'll wait for Apple to introduce their version.
Nobody writes a phrase like that unless they're bogus. That's the kind of language you get in endorsements for the latest diet fad or transcendental meditation technique.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Aren't cell phones doing enough damage already?
We're all going to die from caner before 40!!!
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Take note: The Senior VP of Sales owns 100,000 stock options as of 2005-01-07.
-- 20,000 vested 2005-01-07.
-- 40,000 vest if the stock price is at least $4.50 for 15 consecutive trading days.
-- 40,000 vest if the stock price is at least $5.50 for 15 consecutive trading days.
Source: Edgar.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
The Power$ that be will not allow dense energy storage devices to exist. The only way a product like this can be created is by a lone inventor, slaving in their basement.
Can you imagine the uproar that would occur if someone announced they made a "battery" with a storage in the kW range? If it could be provided with a large solar cell input and in a few weeks of charging would power a house? The inventor would quietly disappear.
Someone put a paranoia filter on news blurbs like this.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Any one else interpret it the same way?
The article says:
"three times the power of existing Lithium Ion batteries at the same price"
Which could just mean that they cost a third to produce compared to older batteries, which isn't quite as exciting as 3x more oomph in the same package.
A witty
They carefully avoid the word "capacity" in the press release. This and the claim about faster charge makes me think that they somehow managed to reduce the internal resistance of the battery, but the capacity (measured in Ampere-hours) hasn't changed.
"3 times the power" probably means that the battery can yield 3 times higher current when discharged into a short circuit (before exploding). But the energy storage capacity is the same. I believe that battery technology is already pretty close to the theoretical limit here.
This new development may allow to replace NiCd batteries in very high current applications, which is good.
As somebody else suggested, your best bet is ripping to the hard drive first and then shutting down the DVD drive. This was enough to buy me an extra 15 minutes or so on my old machine.
In the longer run, my biggest gain came from moving from an old PIII laptop to a Pentium M machine-- I get battery life reliably over four hours, and sometimes over five. The battery doesn't have any significant capacity advantage over my old one (it's a hair bigger), and the screen is the same size (15.1"), but I get a staggering increase in battery life. If you're in the market for a new one, make sure to hunt around for a nice Pentium M machine. Mine's an IBM A30, for reference.
...a National Science Foundation grant was successfully completed in January 2005...
Maybe the translation of this is "we lost our grant money and now our only hope is to pump our stock prices by hyping stuff that doesn't really work"?
I think if that battery is practical, one place where it could be very useful is hybrid drivetrains.
Imagine with this new battery you could dramatically reduce the size of the battery pack, which means lower dead weight of the car and more interior space for the car.
What about reducing the chance of fires?
There's a lot of energy in a Li-Ion battery, and when it gets an internal short (or really overheated) it's usually bad for your homeowner's policy. Or pants, depending on the device.
Chip H.
The article talks about three times the battery Power (watts), not three times the capacity (Ampere*hr).
The technology basically seems to reduce the internal resistance by creating more stable electrodes.
If it works, it may very well do exactly what they claim.
This type of increase isn't orders of magnitude larger than the increases in storage media seen in the computer industry. If someone had said a few years ago that soon we would have tiny removable cards that could hold up to 4GB of data, I believe that many would have called this a snake oil claim. In 1995 at my office I had a hard drive with 300 MB capacity and thought that was pretty good.
BTW, instead of calling BS when they see a claim they feel is wrong, now slashdotters can call "snake oil."
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
Revolutionary new battery also doubles as hotplate for 36 second charging period.
Seriously. That's alot of wattage going to be tossed around to get it charged in under a minute.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, but my own personal opinion. I am not a financial advisor, I'm just an IT geek and web developer.
My two cents:
I'd sell before the conference call. In this case I would have already doubled my stake, it would be time for me to cash out. Stock is not money.
It's very very hard not to get caught up in the moment. I'd rather miss the next Google than suffer an Enron. If I'm going to speculate again, I'll do it wisely.
My rules:
Stick to your guns - if you're up by X percentage, sell. If you're down by Y percentage, sell.
Never, ever, *EVER* day trade with money you cannot afford to lose. Under *no circumstances* do you ever put all of your money into a single stock. Or even a single industry. Doing any of these is roulette, not speculative investment.
My personal opinion is that it's better to go with a stock market index fund and invest for the long term than it is to day trade. If long term investment is good enough for Warren Buffett, it's good enough for me. I don't have his savvy; hence an index fund.
In some cases, higher power is good too, specially in this case where it also means you can charge it quickly.
It would allow, for example, to make electric cars that you can charge in a couple of minutes while you're paying for the "gas" at the register.
Or would it be much of a stretch to include charging stations in conjunction with parking meters?
Both of these guys have publications (100+ a piece assuming that I have the right guys) and for the most part they appear to be Tier-I and II journals (peer reviewed materials). What strikes me is that Keramidas isnt a battery chemist, he's a thin film semiconductor/ferroelectric materials guy. Abraham is just what the article says, a electrochemical researcher with lots of publications in Li based materials.
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.
I've been wondering for some time, what will be the implications of battery technology becoming portable, cheap, and powerful by another couple orders of magnitude?
How long would it be before people start using "super batteries" to swipe energy from external A/C outlets that are ubiquitous everywhere?
Imagine people who swipe energy from a motel and then use it to power their home for a month.
Sounds like an interesting minor sub-topic for a science-fiction novel (if it's not already).
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
If so then it's only going to allow power to flow out of the battery 3 times faster, allowing a whole new generation of power-hungry athalon laptops (at 1/3rd of the current battery life)
However if it were 3 times the ENERGY then it'd make existing laptops run for 3 times longer.
"three times the power of existing Lithium Ion batteries at the same price and with recharge times measured in a few minutes rather than hour"
Isn't this just another form of condenser?
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.
How's that? AFAIK, you can't form salts with carbon (aka graphite). Only with things like halide ions.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Recharges in just 240 minutes!
If this is true, all apple needs to worry about now is trying to get the G5 to run a bit cooler, and improve the heatsink, and we might see shiny new G5 powerboooks...
*Drool*
Now, here is a little question I have, and correct me if I'm wrong: If this battery has the ability to store 200% more energy, then what makes you think that it will last 200% as long? Meaning if computers are running faster and fater, and consuming more power, than all this will do is either provide the computers of today a longer charge, or the computers of the next couple of years the same average lifespan we see today.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
Rip while on AC.
Then watch from the HD on battery.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
What kills Li-on is heat, current li-on are good at flat power output, but no good for high current like portable electric drills, in any event charging is worked out in "C"
e.g. a 2000 mAh cell charged at 2 ampere for 1 hour is charged at 1C, charge at 0.5 amperes and it's 0.25C
Li-on typically, irrespective of capacity, are constant current constant voltage charging, and 80% of the charging is done in the first hour, with up to two more hours to top off the remaining 20%
They don't say recharging to 80%, they say recharging, but we'll play in their favour and assume it's 80% charging they are talking about.
60 minutes normal charging time over 3 minutes claimed charging time = 60/3=20
one twentieth the time, add real world electrochemisty and physics and rule of thumb lets say 25 x the charging current is required, pushing that current is going to take some serious charging voltage, which will totally screw every li-on battery chemistry and more importantly li-on safety circuits won't allow those sorts of volatges.
Quite apart from the voltage aspect, charging currents of the order of 25 times greater than present = LOTS of heat and MUCH heavier duty kit (150 watt dell cmains brick replaced with a 3.5 Kw 3 phase charger) and heat = lithium death.
No, I think if there is any truth at all in this article is will apply only to a very specialised and small capacity cell, not a laptop sized device.
my 2c etc
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
/.ers typically fail in several arenas such as spelling, grammar, social skills, and healthy living.
However, they almost always excel in arenas such as Final Fantasy, sci-fi tv watching, obscure quotes, and criticizing.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
I'm much more inclined to believe the 3x current claim vs. a 3x capacity claim. In general, increasing current handling capability is simply a function of increasing electrode surface area. They've just figured out a way to significantly increase that surface area, which doesn't do much for capacity but will help current handling capability.
The one thing I wonder is what tradeoffs they might not be telling us about. Lead-acid battery manufacturers have used the same trick for years to make extremely high-discharge-rate batteries (think automotive starter motors...).
The thing is that electrodes with high surface area tend to be very thin, and as a result, degrade quickly (and permanently) if discharged too far. This is why you see lead-acid batteries specifically marketed as "deep cycle" - They have thicker electrodes, which reduces their current handling capacity, but increases their ability to survive deep discharging.
i.e. "deep cycle" batteries can reliably be cycled down to 50% of their capacity over and over again, while I believe automotive batteries take a small amount of permanent damage if cycled below even 90% of their capacity. They're designed not for energy storage capacity, but the ability to deliver short high-power bursts. (100+ amperes for a few seconds at most followed by minutes or even hours of charging.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
It's my industrial strength hair dryer. And I can't live without it!
End of line..
How's that? AFAIK, you can't form salts with carbon (aka graphite). Only with things like halide ions.
I can guarentee you it is possible to form salts with basically every element on the periodic table. Halide salts are sometimes called "simple salts" or "mineral salts". You don't usually hear carbanions (or carbocations for that matter) referred to as "salts", but if you mix lithium metal and graphite (which is a carbon allotrope, but "carbon" and "graphite" are really not the same thing; graphite is a form of elemental carbon) you will in fact produce carbon anion / lithium cation ion pairs. Almost every commercial drug is packaged as a salt (usually an amine salt) to make it water soluble and boner pills are certianly not simple halogens : )
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
And think of what you could brew while charging, coffee, tea, hot chocolate. Heck, even soups would be nice and hot by the time you're done!
I don't read AC A human right
if I hear the nano prefix again it'll make me barf
Oh don't worry. Tomorrow Slashdot will be running a story on our new femptotechnology. I've got a new battery using a femptomaterial constuction and femptocrystal anodes for longer recharge life and a three dimensional femptofractal surface for greater energy density. The electron migration only occurs over femptodistances yeilding negligible resistive losses and can achive far higher current ratings. The outer casing has an embedded femptothickness BatMax layer producing a femptowavelength/femptotimescale femptofield effect that keeps the femptocrystals from becoming disordered.
My corporation name is Applied Femptotechnologies, stock symbol FMTO. Fempto, it's the next big thing!
You can look forward to a string of new product announcments from us in the coming days and weeks: cosmetics, catalytic converters, paint, solar cells, breast implants, medical test equipment, golf balls, microchips, condoms, everything from applesause to zeppelins!
We're on the bleeding edge and we don't need no stinking band-aids!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
"Eminent" reminds me of a headline I saw in my college newspaper once:
Bombing of Iraq Eminent
This was in 1997 or 1998. Yay for vocabulary!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I'ld mod you up if i had mod points.
I won't say whether this is real or not, as I obviously have no idea.
I will, however, say this: check out the TZero electric car, which has a range equivalent to my Nissan Sentra 1.8* and supercar-like performance using an onboard pack of Li-Ion laptop batteries.
Now reduce the number of batteries (and associated cost) by 2/3, and add the ability to charge it up in a few minutes. While still not practical for daily use (still no A/C or windows), you've now got something you could drive from LA to Las Vegas, play a single slot machine, "fill up" the batteries in a hurry, then drive back.
Less weight, long range, short recharging time -- those are the three things electric car manufacturers have been hoping for.
*Note that the TZero model on their front page, and currently for sale, does NOT have the Li-Ion batteries to my knowledge, and so has a shorter posted range (100mi); the model in the linked page above, however, carries Li-Ion batteries and traveled 245 miles to Vegas without stopping (and with some range left).
**Note: this post does not explicitly endorse the use of electric cars in any way, shape or form, and was written from the point of view of the technology only. No need to start a side war about electrics vs others.
Whoops-- you're right. The A30 was my previous laptop, the PIII model. The new one is an R40. Sorry for the mixup!
If cables are rated for current not power, why do I have a power strip and an extension cord labeled, "do not exceed a total of 1350 watts" ?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
They sold 5 million shares of their stock on the Monday following the press release, at a price double what they had been trading for. Lucky coincidence? Perhaps.
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
If this is for real, it does great things for the viability of electric cars.
And here is a technology that could produce even greater breakthroughs in battery storage capacity.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Is their capacity 8800 mAh ?
300% more power at the same voltage means 3 times the current. Since power dissipation goes as the current squared, this supposed battery would produce 9 times as much waste heat. Smells like bullshit to me.
So, it doesn't appear to be a true ionic salt, in the sense that something like lithium chloride would be. This sort of intercalation is a good demonstration of how while "chemical bond" usually conjures up an image of solid spheres connected by a rod, like in those plastic model sets, in actuality a bond can be delocalized. In particular, there is a fascinating group of substances known as the metallocenes which feature a metal ion sandwiched between planar carbon rings. Not bonded to a carbon, but instead complexed with the entire aromatic ring structure. Graphite consists of planes of these carbon ring systems fused together to form a planar sheet (graphene). While strong covalent bonds hold carbon atoms in a graphene plane together, far weaker forces hold the planes together, so that lithium ions can squeeze in between and take up residence. As such, lithium ion batteries are quite different from, say alkaline batteries in that rather than the production of current by a reduction/oxidation reaction between a pair of substances. In Li-ion batteries, the potential is provided by lithium ions themselves shuttling out of the graphite lattice- as the grandparent noted, they are sometimes referred to as "rocker" or "swing" batteries because of the back-and-forth movement of Li ions through use and recharge cycles.
In general, carbon has some rather limited and screwy ionic chemistry, owing to its place on the periodic table- there's a distinct preference for covalent rather than ionic bonding - even carbon halides are generally considered covalent. Carbocations and carbanions are both important species in organic chemistry reactions, but in most cases are not very stable- they tend to be transition states that end up as an uncharged final product. There are of course many known organic ion compounds- acetate ion, from acetic acid (vinegar) is a familar example- but generally it ends up being other atoms in the compound, usually oxygen or nitrogen, which can actually be said to carry the charge most of the time. Even in organometallic compounds, generally the metal-carbon bond has covalent character- there are some important exceptions though, usually brought about using very strong nonaqueous bases like sodium amide. Even "carbide" compounds are generally network solids, which is to say, covalent. Calcium carbide, CaC2, might qualify, though if you try to dissolve it in water, you do not get carbide ions in solution, but rather acetylene gas. You can of course make ionic compounds out of any element- just provide the
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
A year from now, would I (theoretically) be able to purchase one of these batteries and have it work in an existing laptop (provided they made the proper model battery, yadda yadda), or is the technology too fundamentally different? Maybe if I had an external charger?
It'd really be nice to increase the battery life of my thinkpad x30 from roughly 3 hours to 9 hours. That would remove the only barrier I see in laptops becoming true mobile computing devices.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, but my own personal opinion. I am not a financial advisor, I'm just an IT geek and web developer.
Right on, couldn't agree more - it may be well worth the risk to hang on to some stock but to recoup your initial investment to preserve capital in case it goes south. Buffett does an amazing amount of research into the companies he invests in and people who run it; he goes for the long haul. I like that.
The most important thing with day trading (and investing) is preservation of capital; things move so fast and you *never* hold a position overnight (you would be surprised how many people do this in day trading).
Keep a close eye on the volume. You can't afford losers; and like you I don't understand why folks hang on to stocks that are circling the drain with the forlorn hope things will get better. Just cut your losses when it downticks a couple of times and move on (in day trading; for long term it's all about fundamentals).
You have an excellent point about recouping your capital by selling 1/2 your position (if it doubled) or 3/4 of your position (for a smaller profit) on speculation that there will be good news from the conference call. Risky, as you point out; I'd get rid of at least 3/4 of the stock so I could lock in a small profit.
I tend to be conservative about this stuff, though it's easy to get caught up in the rush and excitement of day trading. And easy to get ulcers and have a heart attack.
My best friend (a level-headed guy) lost his entire stake. The stock went up-up-up, then crashed suddenly after expected news didn't materialize. All of his eggs in one basket, margin call, etc etc. He stayed in bed for a week after that.
Here's a weak analogy:
Everyone's trying to catch the big fish that will make them fat and happy forever. I prefer to go for the minnows and little fish; there are more of them and I'll catch my fill regularly. Sure, maybe a couple of folks will get lucky and feast long before me, others will go hungry and sometimes so will I, but in the long run I'll have eaten well for a lifetime.
The battery news is exciting, but the devil's in the details. I wouldn't put in a dime at this point; the day trading opportunity has come and gone for now. I would only take a long term position if the product was vetted by independent reviewers and the company had OEMs/distributors on board. I'd rather miss an opportunity for huge money and get in for small money than flush everything down the toilet on hype.
Day trading just ain't my thing anymore, I guess. Getting old; for me it's just too much stress.
The battery news is exciting and I hope it pans out.
Wow; what a great, informative post. Thanks!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Sure they last 3 times longer and charge in 10 minutes which are both great features but what about the size?
The single best resource I've found on the web is http://www.buchmann.ca/, formerly cadex.com (Buchmann is founder of Cadex, a battery technology company).
./ readers!
Read the "Batteries in a Portable World" section. A brief quote: "Li-ion batteries for defense applications are being produced that far exceed the energy density of the commercial equivalent. Unfortunately, these super-high capacity Li-ion batteries are deemed unsafe in the hands of the public. Neither would the general public be able to afford to buy them."
HA! What does he know about
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
If your input voltage is below battery voltage, current flows out of the battery and you discharge the battery. You don't want it (charging voltage) too much above the battery voltage, or bad things happen. Warped plates and cells drying out for lead acid batteries. Explosions and fires and such for other types. Hence the voltage regulator on your car.
I'll stick with golf cart batteries for now, thanks.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
My friend quotes some guy from Lockheed who is an LiIon battery engineer (I think) and says that LiIon batteries should be charged all the time because they have a set number of charge cycles (around 100?). i.e. do not let them drop below 70%, if you do it counts as charge a cycle. But your post contradicts this other methodology.
I have a Dell and I used to run the battery down all the way, and it has lasted for around 3 years. Several months ago I started to have the unit plugged in all the time with the battery installed. Now the battery is dead, but I cannot say for sure if it was due to me cycling the battery or of the recent change in usage pattern.
Can anyone with more qualifications comment?
I actually work as an engineer in the industry for what it's worth. A few things. As other posters have pointed out, their claims are careful and consistent- they seem to have a high power/current material.
s p/ 04- 060E/
First, this is very possible. Nearly ALL work in Li-ion right now is focused on two areas- lowering costs and increasing current. Capacity is kind of at a practical limit (safety concerns) right now and companies are looking elsewhere for development. Achieving higher currents (and thus power) in a li-ion cell is seen as a very achievable and profitable goal so every company is chasing it.
Actually, two new REAL high power cells were recently announced. This isn't just new cathode material, there are shipping product. See these press releases related stories:
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/jan05/292378.a
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200412
I can promise you that these cells are not vapour. They are shipping right now.
Lastly, a fantabulous material does not a cell make. If true, they've got about 1/10 the way to actually cranking out batteries. Making a li-ion cells is damn hard and the electrode materials are only a small part of the overall picture. The two battery companies mentioned in the press releases above achieved their high power designs through about 20% material innovation and 80% mechanical/physical design and configuration.
Long time reader, first time poster,
-JN
That it 300% more power, as in they can provide 3 Watts of power instead of just 1. Of course, this does not have any effect on the amount of energy which may be stored in the batteries. Running the batteries at three times the power would result in 1/3 the battery life (assuming the batteries were similar in other respects). Unless you have an Athlon 64 laptop (or some other high-wattage need) the main thing you'll like about these batteries is that they can charge much faster (because they can also absorb energy at an increased rate).
It doesn't sound like snake oil to me, but it does sound like an incremental advance.
Cold fusion is sufficiently real to the powers-that-be that the principal expert in the field was mysteriously murdered by a mugger in rural New Hampshire. Lot of violent muggings up there, let me tell you. Then the man accused of murdering him was murdered.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
My bullshit detector just exploded.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
"Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, but my own personal opinion. I am not a financial advisor"
Same here.
"If I'm going to speculate again, I'll do it wisely."
I am not sure this is possible - if you are going to speculate treat it as a trip to the casino - kiss your money goodbye before you go in, count yourself lucky if you get back enough to buy a meal, drinks and a cab fare home.
Nothing against your rules but I like rules simple enough to explain to manaegement.
1. You never go broke taking a profit
2. Hogs get slaughtered
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
You definitely have to be prepared to lose it all if you're going to speculate or invest.
There are already Li-Poly batteries on the market that support 20C discharge rates http://www.aeromicro.com/Catalog/kokam_super_high_ discharge_li-poly_340_mah_3-cell__11_1v__pack_2660 314.htm. NiMH typically only support 8C-10C discharge rates.
However, standard Li-Ion/Li-Poly batteries only support 3C-6C discharge. 3 times this is only 9C to 18C, so for a product that isn't on the market yet, this isn't that impressive, unless it can be scaled up to higher capacity cells than the current 20C batteries support. The recharge rate is impressive, though, since even the 20C cells require at least an hour to charge.