Slashdot Mirror
New Lithium-Air Battery Delivers 10 Times the Energy Density
Al writes "A company called PolyPlus has developed lithium metal-air batteries that have 10 times the energy density of regular lithium-ion batteries. The anode is made up entirely of lithium metal, and the surrounding air acts as the cathode, making the batteries incredibly energy dense. Previous efforts to make lithium metal batteries have been stymied by the sensitivity of lithium to water in the air. The new batteries use a sophisticated membrane to protect the lithium anode and PolyPlus has even created a version that works underwater, by drawing oxygen through the membrane. Lithium metal-air batteries could be light-weight power sources for demand for plug-in hybrid vehicles and consumer electronics; IBM also recently announced that it would develop lithium metal-air batteries for the energy grid and for transportation."
I'm no battery scientist, but I wonder if these batteries will be more or less safe compared to the lithium-ion batteries. I guess I could go read the article but...
"it expects these batteries to be on the market within a few years"
Just like those ultra efficient, cheap, solar panels we've been promised 'next year' each year for the last decade.
It would be intersting to see what happens during a car crash in the rain when one of the cars is equiped with those batteries.
-- Cheers!
I suspect primary.
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Energy density is a double edged sword. Yes, I would love to have ten times the runtime of my laptop. But there are inherent dangers. The current Lithium-Ion batteries are pretty dangerous when they are mistreated. Having ten times the energy stored in a battery? I'm not sure that is a blessing or a curse. Burning down your house isn't worth having a longer lasting laptop;
If it really did happen, it would surely be God's wrath. That last Indiana Jones movie offended the mighty Poseidon.
Unfortunately, you are just using an old troll.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'll believe it when I can use my laptop for 30 hours instead of 3.
Would be bad to have a crash penetrate the membrane in a rainstorm. Would make quite a vigorous reaction to be sure.
Anything that breaks the membrane and allows moisture to come into contact with the anode will start a nice fire. Or you can microwave them. Or blend them.
First they came for boxcutters, but I wasn't a terr'rist, so I didn't say anything.
Then they came for hammers, but I wasn't a terr'rist, so I didn't say anything.
Then they came for screwdrivers, but I wasn't a terr'rist, so I didn't say anything.
Then they came for microwaves, but I wasn't a terr'rist, so I didn't say anything.
Then they came for blenders, but I wasn't a terr'rist, so I didn't say anything.
Then they came for can-openers, but I wasn't a terr'rist, so I didn't say anything.
So here I sit starving, unable to open this frigging can of food, and even if I could, I'd have to eat it cold because I can't nuke it and without tools I can't fix the furnace. Now if only I could find a rock and a lithium battery, I'd be able to cook it!
Completely unlike the Lithium Air battery on /. a month ago: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/21/1237231
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I have a question for the makers of this techL When lithium metal reacts with oxygen, it creates lithium oxide as a byproduct, which is inert to oxygen. If this battery is using solid metal that is covered by a membrane, wouldn't the lithium oxide block oxygen from getting to the lithium after a fairly short while? I would think this is a problem with using lithium metal in general.
There's no here here. They don't have any real batteries in production. Its still in real-world testing. Or to put it in more slashdot-centric way of thinking... they don't even have 2/4 steps for profit 1) Announce untested idea for new battery 2) ?????? 3) ?????? 4) Profit!
I wonder if load could cause them to explode? If you short circuit this thing, will the heat eventually rupture the membrane?
Batteries suck. There have been many times when batteries would be "10 times" more better than some previous generation. But they never are. Batteries would only be good if cellular phone could run at least a MONTH on them. Or a halogen flashlight could SHINE for that long. But no, they're always still the same sucky thing as in the 1800s, and not the 10 times more powerful than should be if all the times someone claimed they were "10 times better" would be true.
Both articles pointed to by the original post note that rechargeable lithium-air batteries are in "early development". It may be worth noting that zinc-air batteries (fuel cells, more accurately, as these lithium devices are currently) have been available for some years now. The problem is the recharging step, ie, making it a battery instead of a fuel cell. Splitting zinc oxide to get relatively pure zinc back, all within the original container, remains an unsolved problem, in practice. These lithium devices will face the same problem: how do you use electricity to efficiently split lithium oxides to get lithium and oxygen again? If they have indeed solved that problem, and can apply it to other metals, zinc may be a better solution overall, even with somewhat lower energy density. The global mineral reserves are much larger and the problem with water goes away.
A few years for this product on the market is too long, I know through reading through some patents that they are currently working on different types of polymer batteries which are actually lighter than lithium polymer batteries. If one of these polymers hits the market before or at the same time as these batteries then it will be no competition on which will dominate the market. If they want to make money they need to get these on the market faster than a few years.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Finally they have something to efficiently store all of that free Orbo energy!
I have a couple of questions about Lithium Ion, as a raw material:
1) What rate of extraction is sustainable? Is it enough to supply all the transportation of electronic devices of the world if petroleum-powered vehicles are replaced, or will production fall short of those needs?
2) What is the environmental impact of extraction, production and disposal?
Until these questions and resolved satisfactorily, I have my doubts.
This space left intentionally blank.
If these batteries really can store 10 times the energy of current batteries, they could be revolutionary. They could make the electric car more practical than using gasoline.
However, the big catch is that we can't really produce enough Lithium to make all those batteries. There is a plentiful supply in the water: "Seawater contains an estimated 230 billion tons of lithium, though at a low concentration of 0.1 to 0.2 ppm." But there's probably no practical way to extract it.
It seems like this is the holy grail for electric vehicles, and we can finally stop burning dinosaur juice in our little bitty engines and realize the economies of scale of burning dinosaur farts in really big and efficient prime movers. This is all well and good, but how plentiful is lithium, and can it be recycled easily (I suspect yes)? -Michael
Actually, from the very edge of the 1800's. Development didn't complete until 1901.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-iron_battery
Nickel-Iron (NiFe) batteries don't appreciably degrade from discharge. There is some wear, but they can last for 50 years if you change the electrolyte. Power and current densities are low, but they are ideal for photovoltaic installations. Battery wear from deep discharge is one of the biggest economic factors of solar power cost.
You can buy them, but currently only from manufacturers in India and China.
Blocked by the panasonic firmware?
The company also has rechargeable lithium metal-air batteries in the early stages of development that could eventually power electric vehicles that can go for longer in between charges.
I was warned that car batteries can explode if you short-circuit them in this way.
Then you roll it up to make it convenient. It isn't a block of metal. What interest me is the volume and mass are going to change as the oxygen is absorbed. Oxygen is almost 2 times the mass of Lithium, only about half the volume but it'll form a crystaline structure with the Li which will hugely increase the volume of the oxide over that of the metal.
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Unless they are in the store at an affordable price it doesn't matter to me. Seriously if a battery that is lighter than air and can go on for 12 months straight without recharge but cost 1 billion dollar do you think you will have one in your ipod tomorrow? These promises of great technologies are nice and all... but it's just R&D until it's feasible in the market.
*groan* (yknow, being made of air and whatnot)
A lot of people are raising concerns about the risk associated with increasing the energy density of the battery.
I would like to point out that it's difficult to directly compare the risks of two fuel sources without knowing how quickly the energy can be released, and under what conditions it can happen.
For instance, I enjoy working with motorcycles, which typically carry 2 major energy sources: A battery, which supplies starting and auxiliary power, and gasoline, which supplies primary power (including the power required to charge the battery.)
The gasoline in the tank has a far greater energy density and far higher energy potential than the battery, but of the two, the battery poses the greatest risk of injury and explosion.
The gasoline can certainly burn, but will only explode under very specific conditions. The conditions required to set it burning are also very easily removed. In fact, I'm far more concerned about the chemical damaged caused by exposing fuel to skin than I am about the risk of fire or explosion.
On the other hand, I work around the battery with wrenches that are typically grounded against the frame while in use. Even with a disconnected battery, I've had cases (while working on a car) where the wrench contacts the positive terminal of the disconnected battery, creating very heavy gauge short circuit between the terminals. The resulting release of energy will cut through metal and cause severe burns. Likewise, if overdrawn, the battery can release hydrogen which can either vent and ignite, or build internal pressure causing the battery to explode.
An interesting example of a substance that is explosive, has a high energy density, and is safe is C4, which can actually be used to cook food if burned, but will not explode without a blasting cap.
So... Are these batteries a risk? Perhaps. We should look into that. But it's best not to cry about the sky falling without first investigating the matter.
Use Sodium instead. There's even more of it in seawater. Sure it's a bit heavier, a bit bigger but a tiny fraction of the cost, and cost is a huge problem with batteries.
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If they last a month in my laptop, are cheap to replace, and can be conveniently dropped into a recycling bin where I pick up my new batteries, then I don't care so much. It's the logistics that matter as much as anything. It's usually the logistics that are overlooked.
If you lived, worked, and shopped within a few blocks, you wouldn't even worry about your car most days. That's logistics.
If you could replace gasoline with hydrogen, that'd be great. However, you'd also have to replace gasoline with hydrogen in all those gasoline stations. Yet you can't get rid of the gasoline at the stations until everyone else's car stops running on gasoline, too.
Electric cars are great, but most of them need to be recharged overnight. If you build a car than can recharge for a 200-mile trip in 5 minutes, you still need to have recharging stations that can deliver that amount of power that are easily accessible. See? Logistics.
Ten times the energy density of LiIon would be great, but LiS currently (as in, in products that actually exist) gives four times the energy density of LiIon. My laptop's battery lasts 3-4 hours now. Four times that is enough for me to use it all day on battery and just charge it in the evening. The problem is that they currently only last for about 30 discharge cycles, while LiIon is typically rated at 300. This seems like more promising technology for the next few years. LiS is mainly used in military applications at the moment (if you're paying a few hundred thousand dollars for a UAV that may be shot down any time you fly it, replacing the battery after 30 successful flights isn't such a problem), so it's not a technology short on R&D money.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Am I reading this wrong. If not, something tells me there is a lot more energy going into harvesting and purifying the Lithium than it is worth. If there is a need for an alternative I'd start here.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
You make it sound like burning "dinosaur juice" is somehow a bad thing.
Let me guess. You're one of those people who have yet to figure out that "environmentalists" and "climatology" are all part of a vast international conspiracy against oil companies. You probably believe everything Al Gore says and think Ross McKitrick is a quack. Maybe if you stopped letting other people do the thinking for you and learned to think for yourself, you wouldn't have fallen for this global conspiracy.[/CONSERVATIVESTRAWMAN]
This thing 'theoretically' has more than 5kW-hr/kg, which is a big deal considering gasoline has an energy density of 46.9Mj/kg or 12.9kW-hr/kg. Coupling this new battery, when it exists, to a decent brushless DC motors, which are upto 90% efficient, then you'll have a purely electric car that can rival a gasoline powered cars in terms of power and range since IC engines are only 40% efficient (minus more energy that is absorbed in the transmission, etc). And I have a hunch that lithium is more abundant than crude oil. Downside is obviously with the higher energy density, the potential for fire/explosion is bigger. I don't know about you guys, but watching a shorted lithium polymer battery pack is very entertaining and dangerous.
When I can buy one. Same sort of "good news" 2 years ago from Stanford when the "nanowire battery" was announced to be capable of 10X a regular lithium cell due to the nanowire construction of the anode. No mention that they also needed a cathode breakthru to achieve the 10X. Without a cathode breakthru, you get 3X. Big whoop. Good, but no cigar. An electric car needs the whole 10X. But guess what - where is that battery now? It's being "developed" by the researchers in question not at Stanford but at a university in Saudi Arabia. Does Saudi Arabia have an interest in bringing to market a device that would preclude the need for their chief export? Not hardly. I wouldn't be either of those guys for all the tea in China. They're likely as not to have a beheading "accident" before this research is done, with the very least that could happen being a sabotaging of the product. We'll see how this new battery goes - or if it goes to Saudi Arabia too.
Any time chemicals interact with air, it strikes me there is the potential for air pollution.
Is that the case here? I mean, in theory the chemistry may not result in pollution, but in the real world it only takes a fraction of a percent of the chemistry to take an alternate reactive path to result in unexpected or unwanted impurities...
Why would would the oxygen remain in a reduced state with plenty of Li around?
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If they last a month in my laptop, are cheap to replace, and can be conveniently dropped into a recycling bin where I pick up my new batteries, then I don't care so much.
If you consider a standard laptop run time of 3 hours, which is probably on the longer end of an average run time, then 10x the energy density and the same battery size would yield 30 hours. That wouldn't carry the average person a month - and the average slashdotter would probably have only a few days worth of use.
Given 10x energy density it is only fair to say you would need 1 new spare primary battery for each 10 charges of a lithium battery today. For an average laptop lithium battery, 500 charges is not out of the question. How green is it to dispose of 50 batteries when you can recharge a single one? In terms of enviormental impact, everything from the shipping costs of the batteries and materials to make them, plus the recycling costs would be almost two orders of magnidude more.
At this point the challenges are such that its more of a lithium metal vaporware battery.
With the cost of global warming and enviornment change so devistating to the world, it is odd how we spend more on one year of the women's shoe market than all of global warming research ever undertaken - for all time. So much remains to be understood - and the penality for acting without understanding is very high.
Is energy density really a top requirement for submarine use? It seems to me most submersibles contain thousands of pounds of ballast anyway -- might as well carry heavy batteries. Plus "reacts violently to any contact with water" doesn't really sound like a property I would want in my submersible battery. Unless these are significantly cheaper or more reliable than li-ion, they don't sound like a win underwater. In cell phones and laptops, however, weight and volume are king, and any technology that stores more energy in less weight or volume will be an economic success.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
If these are cheap to make and then I'd like to be able to pick one up on the way home from work and plug it in to my pool heater when I get home. Imagine heating your pool to 85F for the weekend for about $5.
If it's a simple matter to reprocess them locally, then the environmental impact isn't very high. My laptop batteries range from two hours use to 10 hours use. If I could get 100 hours out of my smaller, thinner laptops I'd be pretty damn pleased with that. For most of what I do on a laptop, my Psion series 5mx lasted all week on two AA batteries. If we end up with 10x as powerful batteries and 4x as efficient laptops, then you're looking at 400 hours usage -- nearly all the waking hours in a month.
"News" from the same people who brought you this story? Indeed.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Or even this. (The form only allows two names, but the URL seems to let you have as many as you want).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Batteries suck. There have been many times when batteries would be "10 times" more better than some previous generation. But they never are. Batteries would only be good if cellular phone could run at least a MONTH on them.
Seriously? A month? How about a solar cell that makes you not have to plug in your cell phone ever, or a motion generator that uses your movement to charge the phone?
Part of the battery life problem isn't the battery - it's the efficiency of the device being powered. If we can reduce the current/power consumption of phones by a factor of 3, and improve the capacity of the battery by a factor of 3 then we have a 9 times better story. That's realistic to expect by 2020.
Devices like the Amazon Kindle have huge power savings compared to laptops because the screen device isn't active. Once we get write ability (like a magnetic pen or maybe capacative touch) added to that kind of device, we will be well on the way to achieving "paper" computers. The prices on these new technologies will drop as they mature and economies of scale kick in. You can bet that the competition in the market place for cheaper and lower powered devices will bear fruit.
I'm currently developing a methane-air battery. Unfortunately, it only works when I sit on it after eating a couple of bowls of chili ...
I needed some batteries for the life support systems on my spacesuit, so i went and bought some of these new fangled Lithium-Air Batteries and they don't work worth a crap. They worked fine in the airlock but as soon as I stepped out on my space walk I was gasping for air as my life support system inexplicably shutdown.
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These Batteries are Horrible, just Horrible!!!! I have to trust my life to batteries for supplying me with Oxygen and keeping my temperature constant.
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Two space gloved thumbs down!
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Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Is it just me, is isn't this such a good idea ?:
There are widespread hopes of using lithium ion batteries in electric vehicles, but one study concluded that "realistically achievable lithium carbonate production will be sufficient for only a small fraction of future PHEV and EV global market requirements", that "demand from the portable electronics sector will absorb much of the planned production increases in the next decade", and that "mass production of lithium carbonate is not environmentally sound, it will cause irreparable ecological damage to ecosystems that should be protected and that LiIon propulsion is incompatible with the notion of the 'Green Car'".
New things are always on the horizon
E = mc^2 is universal
Any energy contained in a system adds to the inertial and gravitational mass at the rate indicated, and any mass conversion to energy happens according to that equation. Light behaves as if it has mass because light has energy. (I would say light does have mass, but it's not rest mass. Rest mass is what we normally consider as the mass, because rest mass is the only thing we see in everyday circumstances that contains enough energy for the mass to be detectable.)
When a chemical reaction takes place that releases energy, the chemical byproduct is lighter by some minute amount of mass as given by E=mc^2. It's just that the amount is too tiny to measure under normal circumstances. In a normal U235 fission reaction, just under 1% of the mass is converted to energy.
Ok, that makes electric cars a whole lot more interesting. It might even make manned electric aircraft feasible.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well, right now you're driving around with maybe 60 pounds of gasoline, a substance with five times the energy density of TNT. Gasoline doesn't release its energy as quickly as TNT, but you can still get a respectable explosion, from it.
Not an expert, but I seem to recall that DC is not that good at producing big nasty sparks. Which is why Thomas Edison claimed that AC was too dangerous for consumer applications. Now we're surrounded by AC devices, each with more than enough juice to kill us.
And yet we get by. It's not the risks, it's how hard they are to manage.
In the recent case of United States v. Irizarry, a man in New York was arrested and charged with a felony weapons violation (under the switchblade laws) for having a Home Depot "Husky" brand folding utility knife clipped to his pocket.
In related news, the Department of Homeland Security has just issued a new ruling defining all knives that can be opened with one hand by way of thumbstud, ridge or hole -- which means most pocket knives made in the past 20 years -- as "switchblades" whether they have a spring or not. The huntin' and fishin' crowd are pretty much up in arms over that fact that most of them just became criminals. If you carry a recent Leatherman, you're committing a felony under the new rules.
And finally, a man last year was arrested for trying to enter a federal building with an old one-inch army surplus can opener attached to his keychain.
You meant your post as a joke and a satire, but it's already reality.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
So how does this work if one of the terminals (cathode) does not conduct electricity? Inquiring minds want to know how air can be a cathode.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Just not 'air' ones.
http://www.duracell.com/Procell/chemistries/lithium.asp
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
the surrounding air acts as the cathode
Hello, Tech Support?
I'm installing this new battery...
The (-) wire is soldered to the anode.
How do you solder the (+) wire to the cathode?
Will this finally be the stake that is driven through the heart of that ridiculous "Our future is in Hydrogen" talk?
.
- aqk
F U
BTW, the first line of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence is:
In physics, mass-energy equivalence is the concept that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content.
Is that a joke? Once you've been arrested, convicted and been forced to go to appeal, your life is already a smoldering ruins. The attorney fees alone will bankrupt you, and your employment prospects for jobs that don't require a hairnet and a polyester uniform are gone -- even after you've "won." As the court found, the handgun was entirely beside the point, as Irizarry was arrested based on the utility knife alone.
As for the DHS, have you worked with those wonderful people lately? The best thing I can say about those corrupt thugs is that I did manage to get them to back off their bribery solicitation the last time I had to deal with them. Their definitions will inform federal court decisions, and in turn state courts. As they saw in Texas last year, once some cop yells "switchblade," rational thought on the matter is at an end.
And while we're at it, the switchblade laws were passed in an attempt to suppress gang activity after the whole country had a panic attack after watching "West Side Story." How's that been working out? In the meantime, an entire class of incredibly useful tools have been denied me. I became a convert to one-handed knives that open quickly the day that I got tangled to hell and back while dangling off a ledge. Since one hand was busy, you know, hanging on for dear life, I got to open a swiss army knife with my teeth.
You try that 30 feet off the ground, and then come talk to me about how reasonable our knife laws are.
As for your Leatherman, do me a favor. Clip it to your pocket and walk around town with it the next time you're in New York or DC.
I promise, I'll head up the collection for your bail money.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."