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New Manufacturing Technique Halves Cost of Lithium-Ion Batteries

Posted by Soulskill on from the current-events dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Experts in materials science at MIT have developed a new process for creating lithium-ion batteries that will drop the associated production costs by half. The researchers say fundamental battery construction techniques have been refined over the past two decades, but not re-thought. "The new battery design is a hybrid between flow batteries and conventional solid ones: In this version, while the electrode material does not flow, it is composed of a similar semisolid, colloidal suspension of particles. Chiang and Carter refer to this as a 'semisolid battery.' This approach greatly simplifies manufacturing, and also makes batteries that are flexible and resistant to damage, says Chiang. ... Instead of the standard method of applying liquid coatings to a roll of backing material, and then having to wait for that material to dry before it can move to the next manufacturing step, the new process keeps the electrode material in a liquid state and requires no drying stage at all. Using fewer, thicker electrodes, the system reduces the conventional battery architecture's number of distinct layers, as well as the amount of nonfunctional material in the structure, by 80 percent."

19 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Ahm Mo Call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm going to call Bullshit on the price claims.

    Reality... Experts at MIT have developed an idea that looks very promising as a source for funding dollars.

    1. Re:Ahm Mo Call by shaitand · · Score: 4, Informative

      They DID spin off a company and start filing patents.

      "The process has received eight patents and has 75 additional patents under review; 24M has raised $50 million in financing from venture capital firms and a U.S. Department of Energy grant."

    2. Re:Ahm Mo Call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Exactly. If it was this great, they would have already spun off a company

      Wow...couldn't even be bothered to read the FIRST SENTENCE of the TFA before spouting off, could you:

      "An advanced manufacturing approach for lithium-ion batteries, developed by researchers at MIT and at a spinoff company called 24M"

      and start filing patents, as MIT usually does.

      and about 3/4 of the way through the article:

      "The process has received eight patents and has 75 additional patents under review"

      Next "breakthrough" please.

      Why, so you can make some more "insightful" comments based on what you didn't even bother to read about them?

    3. Re:Ahm Mo Call by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, if this was somebody else, I would agree with you.
      BUT, this is Dr. chiang who has been fairly accurate with all that he publishes.
      As such, I would be willing to guess that he is a lot closer to 100 than others.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    4. Re:Ahm Mo Call by Moof123 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The explanation I got for why a single idea presented inside a company ended up with a dozen patents was they wanted a "picket fence" of patents for all conceivable variations of the idea that would allow a competitor to get most of the benefits without technically violating the actual patent. Because most of the filed patents are brainstormed ideas for every contingency, they can get fairly absurd and stupid looking.

    5. Re:Ahm Mo Call by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Informative

      At least do a little digging if you're going to call BS. From the article:

      The company has so far made about 10,000 batteries on its prototype assembly lines, most of which are undergoing testing by three industrial partners

      So, this isn't some "in 5-10 years" battery technology we'll never see. This is stuff that has already been coming off the assembly line by the thousands, meaning that they've been able to accurately gauge the actual costs involved in manufacturing. Moreover, their pedigree is pretty good. One of the co-founders for this company was a co-founder over at A123, which many of us already recognize as another player in this space. This isn't their first time getting up and running with battery manufacturing.

      Which is to say, these are people with a proven track record of research and manufacturing experience in this field, they already have an assembly line up and running, and they've already placed around 10,000 of their products in the field for testing. You're welcome to call BS, but I'm inclined to disagree.

    6. Re:Ahm Mo Call by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Interesting

      [...] why the hell would we expect "[e]xperts in materials science at MIT" to be able to accurately calculate the manufacturing and production costs (and thus savings) for a novel battery technology?

      Because, this isn't their first rodeo. When they weren't busy being experts in materials science at MIT, they were busy founding A123. A123 remains a successful company, but they sold it off, continued doing research at MIT, and now have something new that they'd like to make, so they're ramping up a new company to do it.

  2. The future is coming. by riverat1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If this pans out it probably means the end to the claims that solar PV and wind power can't affordably supply us with all of our electricity needs. It also makes electric cars all that much more affordable. Elon Musk may need to redesign his battery factory.

    1. Re:The future is coming. by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, it's like I paid $1000 for my first hard drive and it only held 100 MB so today's 2 TB drives for $100 are impossible.

    2. Re:The future is coming. by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That does bring up an interesting question. I wonder just how flexible Elon's new factory, or others for that matter, are with regards to adopting process improvements such as this when they arise.

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    3. Re:The future is coming. by bondsbw · · Score: 4, Informative

      You seem to be under the impression that lowering consumer costs and increasing profits are mutually exclusive.

      The reality is that advances in technology tend to do a little of both. Profits increase for a little while as an incentive to utilize the new technology. But competition eventually forces the prices lower until they stabilize, meaning lower costs.

      If you don't see lower costs, it's probably because either the market has decided to utilize the tech to make products better rather than cheaper, or because there is no real competition in the market.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    4. Re:The future is coming. by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You don't think a Nissan Leaf for $30K is affordable? Maybe not for everyone but it is for a lot of people.

      No, it isn't... You can buy a similar sized gas car for half the price...

      You can buy a MUCH nicer car for the same price...

      The Leaf is really, really expensive for the size and utility of what it is...

    5. Re:The future is coming. by nine-times · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The summary highlights price, but also says, "Using fewer, thicker electrodes, the system reduces the conventional battery architecture's number of distinct layers, as well as the amount of nonfunctional material in the structure, by 80 percent." So I'm left wondering, does this also have a substantial improvement in terms of size/weight of the batteries?

      Because from what I remember reading, a big part of the difficulty in engineering electric cars is that batteries are big and heavy. When you add enough batteries to power the car, you've also added a bunch of weight, which means that you now need to add even more batteries to compensate for the energy needed to move the weight of all the batteries you've added.

    6. Re:The future is coming. by Firethorn · · Score: 3, Informative

      You're failing to factor in total cost of ownership.

      Let's say that the alternative is a 30mpg car. I'm being a little mean and not using 40mph because I'm figuring that the buyer is a city driver.

      National average mileage is 15k miles, but I'll use 12k. I'll also be 'crazy' and say the buyer is not doing their own oil changes or other maintenance beyond keeping the windshield washer fluid topped off, that he can charge for free at work, and that both cars will last 10 years.

      This means that the Leaf will cost roughly $3k/year, and the 'similar gas car' is $1.5k.

      $3/gallon gasoline: 400 gallons a year avoided, $1200/year avoided there.
      4 oil changes/year: ~$200
      Other avoided maintenance: roughly $100-200/year. Includes things like: antifreeze, brakes, belts, etc...

      Oh, and a leaf is going to be more luxurious than a $15k car, even new.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    7. Re:The future is coming. by Firethorn · · Score: 4, Informative

      Because from what I remember reading, a big part of the difficulty in engineering electric cars is that batteries are big and heavy.

      This was what I'd call a 'critical deal-breaker' in the days of Lead-Acid, critical for NiMH, but while still an issue with LiIon, it's nowhere near as 'unmanageable'. This is how Tesla can manage to build a car that can travel over 300 miles(with some hypermile driving, but still close to 300 even without) completely unrecharged.

      Lead Acid: .14 MJ/kg source wiki
      NiMH: .36 MJ/kg
      LiIon: .46 MJ/kg

      Wikipedia lists LiIon as 'expensive', but the price has been dropping significantly every year for years. So what happens if both this and Musk's battery factory work out and car sized LiIon batteries are now 25% of the cost they were, say, 5 years ago?

      Way back in the lead-acid days I said 'there's nothing wrong with electric cars that a battery that stores twice as much power for half the cost wouldn't fix'.

      Well, LiIon fixes the 'twice the power' part over lead-acid. It's just as bulky(generally) as lead-acid, but it weighs a feather compared to a lead-acid battery of the same volume, and space can be dealt with when you're designing a car to use the battery from the ground up. For example, Tesla's battery is basically a sled that screws into the bottom of the car.

      But back then it cost over twice as much as lead acid. Today we're finally reaching that 'magic' point.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    8. Re:The future is coming. by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And in 5yrs when the battery won't hold enough charge to get down the block?

      We've already seen daily-driven Prii last longer than 10 years on a battery pack. Meanwhile, even if the battery pack on the i3 did only last 5 years (10 is more likely) the pack prices will drop significantly in five years.

      As well, even at current prices, even if they only last five years, you'll break even if you do any significant amount of driving. And if you're the kind of person who also complains about range anxiety, then presumably you would be using those miles up, right?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:The future is coming. by AndyMoney · · Score: 3, Informative

      All of this info can be read over at the battery university website. It's actually a very interesting site if you are into battery technology.

      Why laptop battery life has very little relation to life of an EV battery:::
      1) Laptop batteries have no active cooling. The battery will disable itself right before it gets hot enough to blow up. As a battery goes over 100 degrees F, it's life span starts to plummit.
      2) Laptop batteries have warranties that last only a few months (instead of 10 years), so are over-driven/abused in order to inflate the laptop's run time. Draining the battery below 40% and charging above 90% can cut battery life by more than 50% (Depending on how often and how much this is done). If the laptop battery dies in a year due to the abuse, oh well. We can just buy a new one for $50.

      Why an EV battery will last 2-3 times longer than a laptop battery:::
      1) Many states require a 10 year warranty on the EV battery. If the capacity drops below a threshold (I think 70%), it is considered faulty and replaced for free. Manufacturers thus engineer the battery management system to baby the EV battery.
      2) An EV battery is designed to work in frigid cold and extreme heat without killing itself. They are engineered to be very robust and will be actively cooled if they get warm.

  3. Wrong headline.. by Dutchmaan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "New Manufacturing Technique Doubles Profit of Lithium-Ion Batteries"

    There, now it feels right.

  4. Spin off company has $50 million in financing by hamjudo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also from TFA, they have made 10,000 samples on their production line. They are initially aiming at the power company market, thus huge batteries with huge price tags. They are targeting $100 per kilowatt hour by 2020. One of the co-founders also co-founded A123. So there is some experience at bringing batteries to market.

    Lots of companies fail for reasons besides their technology. I won't be surprised if this one fails too. On the other hand, it is more real than most such slashdot stories.