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Research Promises Drastically Increased LiOn Capacity

Posted by Unknown on from the phones-that-last-more-than-five-minutes dept.

daem0n1x writes "Could this be the breakthrough we've all been expecting that will finally make the electric car a reality? Researchers of Northwestern University USA discovered a new way to build lithium-ion batteries that changes dramatically both the charge time and capacity [original paper, paywalled]. Guess what it involves? That's right, graphene."

24 of 378 comments (clear)

  1. The magical ingredient by JDG1980 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Graphene. Is there anything it can't do?

    1. Re:The magical ingredient by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yo mama!

      --


      "Lame" - Galaxar
    2. Re:The magical ingredient by Halo1 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, if you read the university press release, you'll see the magical ingredient is silicon. Current lithium-ion batteries already contain graphene sheets. What they did was

      • sandwich silicon between the graphene sheets, because silicon can bind many more ions than carbon (the downside is that it fragments, and that's what they addressed with their sandwiching process) -> more capacity
      • make minuscule holes in the graphene sheets to offer shortcuts to ions traveling from one side of the sheet to the other side (-> faster charging)
      --
      Donate free food here
    3. Re:The magical ingredient by timmy.cl · · Score: 5, Informative

      "graphene" is single-atom-thick carbon.

    4. Re:The magical ingredient by oakgrove · · Score: 5, Funny

      I just sprinkled bacon bits on a stack of hundred dollar bills. I am so excited!!

      --
      The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
    5. Re:The magical ingredient by cellocgw · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yep, it can do anything. In fact Texas Instruments is using it in their next-gen calculators. You'll soon be able to buy a ....
      .
      .
      .
      wait....
      Graphene Calculator!

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    6. Re:The magical ingredient by darksabre · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Graphite is the form of carbon used in pencils. Anyway, my pencil is a lot more than a single atom thick ;-)

    7. Re:The magical ingredient by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'll bet you say that to all the girls...

    8. Re:The magical ingredient by adonoman · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, in this case, "10 times" had nothing to do with multiplication. It's simply a statement of the number of instances on which they reduced the recharge time. "On last tuesday, we reduced the the recharge time by 1%. On wednesday, we got an extra 1%. We did that up to 8 more times (we lost count, but that's the upper bound)"

  2. Increased lion capacity! by biodata · · Score: 5, Funny

    Stay in the car!

    --
    Korma: Good
    1. Re:Increased lion capacity! by delinear · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not only are they increasing the capacity, they're increasing the charge speed. That's all we need, millions of super fast lions :(

    2. Re:Increased lion capacity! by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not only are they increasing the capacity, they're increasing the charge speed. That's all we need, millions of super fast lions :(

      If Marlin Perkins were here he'd have to rebadge the show EXTREME Wild Kingdom

      ... as Jim approaches the lions ... oh my, they are fast! Good thing his surviving family is covered by Mutual of Omaha.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  3. Better Place by Enderandrew · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is a must read article on the subject. Electric cars fail because batteries are too expensive, and because they required infrastructure of charging stations. This company however solves both these problems. You make an electric car without the battery, which is cheaper than a standard car and more reliable to boot. Then this company leases you a battery, which costs less per month than gas. And they handle the infrastructure, which includes stations that swap your battery out for a fully charged one. You never wait to charge your battery, and they can swap it out since you don't own it.

    http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi?currentPage=all

    Part of this model is the assumption that battery technology still moves along rapidly. So the company can phase in newer, better batteries and you aren't tied to a battery you purchased when you bought your car.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    1. Re:Better Place by scamper_22 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Managing that battery inventory is going to be a huge problem. How are you going to make sure each 'gas station' has enough batteries on hand. Since they're not cheap, it's a huge cost. This might not be a huge problem in the city, but that's not where people have a fear of running out of battery. Heck, a simple EV you charge at home would suffice if you simply traveled in the city.

      It's the spaces in the cities or commuters.
      The roll out and management of this is a huge problem.

      But even assuming you could manage that well enough, there is another minor problem.

      Maybe I'm just paranoid coming from Africa where people will steal anything making infrastructure hard to build out... but you're talking about an expensive batter than can be 'easily swapped out'. Something tells me that makes it 'easy to steal'.

  4. Re:/. is an empty shell of what it once was. by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't even comment on /. anymore.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  5. Re:Reality by sgt+scrub · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Flying cars are already a reality. They are just expensive and inefficient.

    --
    Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
  6. Re:Reality by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Interstellar travel is already a reality. It is just expensive and inefficient.

    --
    "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
  7. New battery stories by P-niiice · · Score: 5, Funny

    If we could combine all the tech from all of the battery stories we've read in the past year, we could power an interstallar craft for a year with a single AAA battery and recharge it by rubbing it on a fluffy shirt for a few seconds.

  8. Don't confuse Duration with Capacity by DumbSwede · · Score: 5, Informative

    Having read the article (*gasp*) as well as a few others it seems these batteries do NOT hold 10x more power. They degrade 10x slower on on drain/recharge cycles and can be charged 10x faster. BUT this is not the same as having 10x more POWER per cycle. Gonna have to wait some more before you get an cheap electric car that can go 500 miles before charging (though charging 10x faster is nice).

    --
    Letter To Iran
    1. Re:Don't confuse Duration with Capacity by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 5, Informative

      They do have more capacity - this isn't the traditional carbon electrode, this is a graphene-stabilised silicon anode, and silicon holds more charge.

      They also have more power, as well as more capacity. If the internal resistance is low enough to charge it in 15 minutes, it's low enough to discharge it that fast as well.

      Alas, the missing bit is similar innovations in cathode technology.

  9. And when they finally hit the market... by Guspaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... they'll fit right into the steady curve of slowly but steadily increasing battery capacity. People assume that all these battery advancements we keep hearing about never pan out. Well, some of them do, but once the researchers silly claims are brought down to be a bit more realistic, and after the years go by before they actually hit the market, they're just incremental improvements on what was available before they came out.

    There's nothing wrong with that.

  10. Re:Better battery life is always a year away by necro81 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Although it is subtle, battery technology has improve energy density steadily over the years. For lithium-ion, the trend has been about 5-10% / year for over a decade now. The battery pack from my ten-year old laptop (yeah, it's sittin' in a box somewhere) has just over half the nominal capacity of a battery of similar volume today. It's not Moore's Law, but it is there.

    On the other hand, with the exponential increase in transistor count / computing power has some a corollary effect of decreasing energy needed to do that computation: Koomey's Law. So if I take a look at the battery pack from my 5-y.o. flip phone and compare it to what's in an iPhone, they are roughly the same volume. But the newer battery has more capacity, and the newer phone does jumping jacks around my old feature phone, and has about the same amount of talk time / standby time, if not more.

    Call me an optimist, but I think that in this regard we're still coming out ahead.

  11. Re:Where was this reasearch done? by dokebi · · Score: 5, Informative

    The confusion is because the paper linked in the summary is incorrect.

    The Northwestern paper is titled "In-Plane Vacancy-Enabled High-Power Si–Graphene Composite Electrode for Lithium-Ion Batteries (pages 1079–1084)" and the summary linked paper is titled "In Situ Generation of Few-Layer Graphene Coatings on SnO2-SiC Core-Shell Nanoparticles for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Storage".

    Can people mod me up or have the summary corrected?

    --
    In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
  12. Wrong article linked in summary by dokebi · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Northwestern paper is titled "In-Plane Vacancy-Enabled High-Power Si–Graphene Composite Electrode for Lithium-Ion Batteries (pages 1079–1084)". The article linked in the summary is titled "In Situ Generation of Few-Layer Graphene Coatings on SnO2-SiC Core-Shell Nanoparticles for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Storage".

    Can people mod me up or have the summary corrected?

    --
    In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!