Nanobatteries — Safer By Design

Iddo Genuth writes "Conventional Li-Ion batteries have been known to catch fire and explode. A new, safer type of Li-Ion nanobattery that might help prevent such mishaps has been developed by researchers at Tel Aviv University. These nanobatteries should prove useful for various micro devices used for medical, military, and a range of other applications. They are 2-4 years from commercial availability."

Comments

So...

[make dev]

We'll have 2-4 more years of exploding laptops?

Micro devices and Explosions

[Salvance]

Is there really that much of an explosion/fire risk for very small and microbatteries? Sure, these nanobatteries would be fantastic for small robots, but I'd guess we're well over 4 years away from being able to make large batteries (e.g. laptop batteries) utilizing nanofabrication techniques that could also reduce fire/explosion risks.

Why Wait?

[WindBourne]

http://www.mrs.org/s_mrs/sec_subscribe.asp?CID=255 3&DID=117686&action=detail">You can buy the better ones in Colorado.
Of course, you will have to compete with Uncle Sam, specifically, NSA and CIA.

Yawn . . . .

[dmadzak]

Another story about a breakthrough battery technology 2-4 years away. Wake me up when one of these breakthroughs becomes a reality the readers of Slashdot can afford and use.

Hardly a nanobattery

[Xeth]

FTFA:

Using a silicon or glass substrate, the team from TAU created a matrix of tiny holes each 50 microns in diameter and 500 micron deep.

Atoms are on the order of a nanometer in diameter. These batteries are hundreds of thousands of times larger. Hell, you could probably hook these up with current chip lithography techniques (they're doing tens of microns now). Interesting microbattery, but let's keep the nanotech hype out of it.

Re:Hardly a nanobattery

[evanbd]

You're off by a bit there :) Atoms have diameters measured in picometers; bond lengths tend to be tends to a hundred or so picometers. Current high end chips are made on 65nm processes these days, with 45 and 30 (iirc) not too far off -- but the point is silicon litho techniques do tens of nanometers, not microns. You can get micron level precision with machine tools, even -- very expensive ones, granted, but still :)

I agree completely though, calling this nanotech is a little iffy when you can see the things with merely a strong magnifying glass and resolve details with a decent optical microscope.

Yeah? Cos altairnano have lion-titanate batteries

[Colin Smith]

And it's on the market now. 10,000-15,000 cycles with little or no degradation, double the energy density of current li-ions. Ideal for automotive stuff, they're already shipping to customers.

http://www.altairnano.com/

Safer?

[rowama]

So they won't explode or catch fire. How long will it be before some dreaded danger arises that we haven't imagined? It is nanotechnology, after all.

mood/pessimistic (yeah, I read the myspace post.)

Re:Safer?

[Hittite Creosote]

There have always been nanoscale particles in the atmosphere, even more so since the Industrial Revolution started. We've been living with nanoparticles ever since we learnt to make fire. Some materials get *safer* as they get smaller - one reason asbestos fibres are dangerous is not because they are so narrow but because they are (relatively) so long - nano width, but micro length. The body can't get rid of them, so forms scarring in the lungs instead. Something that is nano in all directions is more easily got rid of by the body's immune system (I'm more concerned by nanotubes, some of which can be very long, than by nanoparticles smaller in all dimensions than a human white blood cell). Asbestos is also dangerous because of the ease with which it gets into the air when in a friable form. Nanoparticles firmly bonded into a matrix aren't that much of a danger. So the reality is that they're not harmless, they're not incredibly deadly, they're somewhere in between. Where exactly we don't know yet.

wow!

[Lord Ender]

Nano batteries for micro devices? I'm pico excited about this!

Non-commital language

[noidentity]

"...that might help prevent such mishaps..."

I might possibly be pushed more towards apparent annoyance by this non-commital language. Let's start with the unqualified version, then add the qualifiers one by one:

...that prevents such mishaps... (good, a solution!)

...that helps prevent such mishaps... (so they will still happen, they'll just be reduced)

...that might help prevent such mishaps... (so it might not even do anything?)

'Nano' is routinely abused here

[caitsith01]

I would have thought that a correct use of the prefix 'nano' would involve an object, device or effect, the WHOLE of which is on a nanometre scale. So for example, a 'nanobattery' would be a battery the WHOLE of which is on a nanometre scale.

I'm obviously not alone is being heartily sick of anything involving components parts which are on an atomic scale (e.g.... uh, CHEMICALS) being referred to as 'nano'-whatever. For instance a while back we had this idiotic story about 'lead compounds' producing 'nanocrystals' and being used by the ancient Egyptians.

Next on slashdot: scientists develop nanobreathing technology using a nanogas mixture containing nanoparticles only an few atoms wide! Revolutionary nanopower technique delivers charged nanoparticles to electrical devices through ordinary wire! Nanolightbulbs emitting nanophotons found to have been in use since the 18th century! Nanocar constructed entirely from nanoparticles of metal, plastic and glass runs entirely on nano-fuel only a few carbon atoms long!

No vaporware tag?

[Ninjaesque One]

Come on, you all know that in tech, 2-4 years has a 50% chance of equalling never.

Fundamental flaw in logic.

[Short Circuit]

From TFA:

Since each nanobattery is comprised of thousands of small batteries, even if one of these small batteries has a short circuit and fails, the entire battery can keep functioning, lossing only a very small amount of power. Similar damage to a conventional Li-Ion battery could result in substantial loss of power or a complete malfunction and in extreme cases even fire or explosion. So they're putting microcells in a series/parallel network, and claiming that, since each microcell contains minute quantities of energy, a short circuit would result in only minute consequences.

But, again, they've put the batteries in a series/parallel network. They don't mention that a short could take place in places in the network other than exactly across one cell. Let's say an impurity spec lands across a couple wires. Depending on which couple wires, you might have shorted just a few microcells, or you could be shorting out the whole battery.

The reason Li-Ion batteries are dangerous is the sheer energy density. Rearranging that energy with a different battery structure isn't going to negate the fact that, simplistically, you somewhere have two conductors across which is the entire potential of the battery. (Unless you divide the battery into segments and give each segment a unique load. However, that would require a fundamental re-thinking of how electronic devices are powered.)

scaling laws are unfavorable for nano batteries!

[caffeineboy]

Since power is proportional to volume (length^3), scaling laws for a nano-scale battery are VERY unfavorable. I'm not sure how they will get over this hurdle.

Just like nano-sized heat engines, nano sized batteries have a big problem in this department. There may be advantages in internal resistance or peak current, but the power density of such a battery, not to mention the cost, seem unfavorable.

Screw nano...

[painQuin]

I <3 Vim

omg

[Fist! Of! Death!]

I think I got Voltaic Piles while reading this article