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Researchers Accidentally Make Batteries That Could Last A Lifetime (computerworld.com)

Posted by msmash on from the serendipitous-discovery dept.

Reader Socguy writes: A typical Lithium-ion battery breaks down badly between 5000-7000 cycles. Researchers at the University of California may have discovered a simple way to build a Lithium battery that can withstand 100,000+ cycles. This was a serendipitous discovery as the researcher was playing around with the battery and coated it in a thin gel layer. The researchers believe the gel plasticizes the metal oxide in the battery and gives it flexibility, preventing cracking.Dave Gershgorn, reporting for Popular Science: Instead of lithium, researchers at UC Irvine have used gold nanowires to store electricity, and have found that their system is able to far outlast traditional lithium battery construction. The Irvine team's system cycled through 200,000 recharges without significant corrosion or decline. However, they don't exactly know why. "We started to cycle the devices, and then realized that they weren't going to die," said Reginald Penner, a lead author of the paper. "We don't understand the mechanism of that yet." The Irvine battery technology uses a gold nanowire, no thicker than a bacterium, coated in manganese oxide and then protected by a layer of electrolyte gel. The gel interacts with the metal oxide coating to prevent corrosion. The longer the wire, the more surface area, and the more charge it can hold. Other researchers have been experimenting with nanowires for years, but the introduction of the protective gel separates UC Irvine's work from other research.Also from the report, "Penner suggests that a more common metal, like nickel, could replace the gold if the technology catches on."

47 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's not like this technology will ever make its way into my devices. Greedy bastards will patent it and demand huge fees to license the technology. It's also not good for the greedy bastards running businesses. The batteries won't break, which means they can't compel people to buy new stuff. Greedy fuckers will make sure this never makes its way into anything I own.

    1. Re:Who cares? by Archtech · · Score: 2, Informative

      An understandable reaction, but it's not likely things will work out that way. Makers of current battery types will have to shift quickly; but just think of all the devices that use batteries, and that can now be made so very much better!

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    2. Re:Who cares? by known_coward_69 · · Score: 4, Informative

      you should invent your own slightly different version and give it away for free

    3. Re:Who cares? by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The thing is... greed doesn't work that way.

      Yes, they may try and hold it as long as possible to increase value, but note that something that sits in your vault, unused, doesn't make any money. And if they patent it, the patent does run out eventually. They need to do *something* with it.

      More likely, it becomes used in very, very expensive applications where they can charge an arm and a leg for it. I'm thinking military equipment as a good target.

      Eventually, though, unless it is uneconomical to mass produce, it will make its way into other things. Those who are greedy may well try and use older tech to keep it breaking, but someone who wants to break into the market, or someone even greedier is going to use it to differentiate their product in order to eat the lunch of the people using the inferior tech.

      Note that it is possible for the better tech to be stopped, possibly through suggesting it is not safe (FUD) or some sort of paid-for government regulation, but greed by itself, won't stop this.

    4. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      In case people don't spot the sarcasm, decades ago researchers discovered out how to make cheap lightbulbs that last forever, but makers collectively realized that it would kill their business and decided not to make them.

    5. Re:Who cares? by sims+2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well If I happen to own a massive industry that sells batteries that go bad and have to be replaced every 5 years.....and someone comes up with a battery that doesn't need to be replaced it would most definitely make me a lot of money to buy the patent for a few million dollars and sit on it until it ran out and keep selling the batteries that have to be replaced.

      This is just one of the reasons that patents really ought to be use it or lose it.

      --
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    6. Re:Who cares? by Barsteward · · Score: 2

      that might only happen if they manage to create a battery where a single charge lasts a life time. It might physically last a life time regarding charge cycles but i doubt they've got it to hold its charge for much longer than current timescales

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
    7. Re:Who cares? by NatasRevol · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On the plus side, China doesn't really respect patents.

      That has good and bad consequences, so let's play both sides.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    8. Re:Who cares? by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Informative

      Everybody knows how to make bulbs that are cheap and last forever. What's hard is making them so that they are simultaneously bright and energy-efficient and still last forever. If you make them brighter by making the filament thinner so that they burn hotter, it makes them more fragile. If you make them brighter by adding more filaments in parallel, they use more power. Bright, energy-efficient, robust—choose (at most) two.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    9. Re: Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The patent is very irrelevant to the Chinese. They will likely copy it and flood the market with them. Even if you are the copyright owner, you will need a lot of money to sue them and it is highly unlikely to win the trial.

    10. Re:Who cares? by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      Yeah, but notice how real patents expire, and "scammer guy whose followers claim was shut down by evil industry" lasts forever? Who cares if they buy the patent and slow it down, it is still a giant advancement and will still make it to market, even if the patent-holder sits on it.

      The reality is that battery tech is not developed by battery companies. The companies with their names on the batteries mostly are engineering and product development companies. The biggest name in battery technology is Panasonic, and it isn't the main thing they do. (hint: buy panasonic batteries, they have the best tech and they don't fluff the label value so they're lower priced than the "name brands" licensing the tech)

      I agree on use-it-or-lose-it, I just don't think the situation is that bad here without it. This isn't like software patents or something, these are real advancements that are the things that patents were intended to cover. 20 years isn't that bad a wait when you get the design details in public in exchange.

    11. Re:Who cares? by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      decades ago researchers discovered out how to make cheap lightbulbs that last forever, but makers collectively realized that it would kill their business and decided not to make them.

      That's dumb. It would be smarter to sell them at a hefty premium.

    12. Re:Who cares? by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      At $125 for a lifetime battery, there might even be a significant push for standardized sizes and sharing between devices. Like we had in the olden days!

    13. Re:Who cares? by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      it would most definitely make me a lot of money to buy the patent for a few million dollars and sit on it until it ran out and keep selling the batteries that have to be replaced.

      No, it doesn't make sense to do that. The patent only gives you protection for 15 years, while you keep selling batteries at existing volume, at a small margin, whereas the superior batteries would give you a much bigger market and much higher margin. Sure, after a while you may have to look for a different business, but with a few billion of profit in the bank, there's a lot of opportunities.

    14. Re:Who cares? by dgatwood · · Score: 2

      The main application of this would likely be automotive manufacturing. For almost everything else, you're going to replace the device after a few years anyway, so unless the batteries are removable (which is by far the exception rather than the rule for rechargeable batteries), there's no real benefit to having the batteries last forever.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    15. Re:Who cares? by Seraphim1982 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you're using the "firehouse" bulb as your definition of "robust" then many incandescents made in the last 50 years would meet that standard.
      Lifetime is approximately proportional to light output ^ -4.
      The firehouse bulb is a 4 Watt bulb.
      So if you took a 'normal' 40W bulb, and reduced the voltage to make it run at 4W, you'd end up with 10000x the 'normal' life of a 40W bulb (i.e. millions of hours).

    16. Re:Who cares? by rraylion · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In the early years of electricity light bulb makers realized how to make light bulbs last for up to 5 years or longer. However someone else quickly realized that this would mean people would only buy light bulbs every X years as replacements. So a light bulb standard was introduced and passed through congress that effectively limited the lifespan of the light bulb to 1 year. Thus guarantee that people would purchase the product many times.This is called planned obsolescence and exists to this day because of the Phoebus cartel.

      links to proof IEEE: http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-...
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      So about patent expiration and things that get bigger when someone does not hold the patent any longer : drugs. And lets pick My favorite drug to talk about Viagra. Viagra started as a possible high blood pressure treatment, but the side effects were amazing as we all know, its patent was scheduled to expire in 2012. So Pfizer sold it for what it did best. Then it became profitable and they increased the price to 60 a pill and a minimum or 8 pills costs someone 500 USD or so. But if Pfizer can show Viagra is a treatment for more than what it was originally marketed for, they can issue a whole new patent for the drug. This is what drug manufacturers do to keep control of a drug and its profits. This is par for the course. Lucky for you and me this drug seems to have only two good usages, luckily i have high blood pressure ;-) And Pfizer extended the patent for the second use case to 2020.

      So there is literally a market waiting to explode based on a patent expiring.

      Case 2: cell phone modems. This technical patent expired around '99 and those companies selling beepers upgraded to selling cell phones.
      Case 3: K-cups
      Case 4: 3D printing - the entire industry kick started in 2013 once the patents expired , and then in 2014 when most of the rest expired
      Case 5: Kodak and the digital photography patent : (should be #1 but everyone studies this is college as one of the greatest mistakes )
      case 6: home telephones: At&t used to lease telephones to people who paid for a home phone - thats why we all grew up with a phone that all looked the same in the 40's 50's 60's 70's and 80's. In the 80's however they were sued that it was unfair to hold the patent and make people pay for the phone... then all these new shaped phones came out... and the cords got longer which was great.. then they got tangled ... which was bad.

      These are the top ones that come to mind in 5 minutes if I actually gave it some thought I could probably come up with some good ones.

    17. Re:Who cares? by kimvette · · Score: 2

      > Of course by the time the patent ran out, NiMH batteries were already obsolete.

      Far from obsolete. We don't see them in smartphones and tablets/PDAs or laptops any more because they do not match the power densitity of Li-Ion batteries (remember, power density is king!) but for consumer replaceble secondary (rechargable) cells they are only growing in popularity, especially now that self-discharge rates come close to matching Li-ion cells' charge retention and aren't too far off from primary cells in this regard for most practical purposes - they've advanced to the point where I trust NiMH cells for smoke and CO detectors.

      Why don't we see Li-Ion rechargable batteries from Enloop, Energizer, or (ugh) Ray-o-Vac, etc. but only Chinese vendors?

      Liability. Most would be irresponsible and use an alkaline (yes, alkaline secondary cells DO exist!)/Nicad/NiMH chargers and the Li-Ion batteries would explode - and unlike with NiMH or Alkaline "explosions" where they merely burst and maybe leak, the Li-ion is liable to catch fire. Li-ion cells require constant monitoring and voltage adjustments throughout the entire recharge process, and the maintenance charge is even more critical - something which even integrated chargers in devices tend to not manage well (for example, keep your laptop or "personal vaporizer" charging continually long-term) and the electrolyte will degrade and crack, resulting in near total inability to provide any appreciable current capacity.

      --
      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    18. Re: Who cares? by omnichad · · Score: 2

      I don't think Google's behind it.

    19. Re:Who cares? by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2

      As MightyYar said, the reason we don't have Li-ion rechargeable AA/AAA/C/D/9v batteries is because the voltages would be wrong simply due to the chemistry differences. Alkaline cells are 1.5V and lithium cells are 3.6V so the two will never align nicely for any combination of batteries you're likely to see in a consumer device.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    20. Re:Who cares? by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Informative

      The lightbulbs cartel has nothing to do with patents, and everything to do with economies of scale and businesses colluding.

      Case 2: cell phone modems. This technical patent expired around '99 and those companies selling beepers upgraded to selling cell phones.

      Nope. There wasn't some big move to use data over analog networks in 1999, if ever. Indeed, in the very late nineties and early 21st Century the digital standards started to take over in the US making analog devices obsolete and making data services widely available. Companies making beepers moved over to other markets because beepers, in a world of SMS messaging, were obsolete. They never, to my knowledge, started making mobile modems.

      In Europe, where GSM had been standard for a while, most mobile manufacturers were making phones that supported data and messaging since about 1995. Again, beepers became pretty much non-existent at that time.

      Case 3: K-cups

      Keurig is hardly sitting on the technology. In addition to building K-Cup coffee machines themselves they've been aggressively licensing the technology too.

      Case 4: 3D printing - the entire industry kick started in 2013 once the patents expired , and then in 2014 when most of the rest expired

      Possible, I don't know enough about 3D printing.

      Case 5: Kodak and the digital photography patent

      Any evidence that they sat on this? Kodak was an early pioneer of digital photography, producing some of the first mass market digital cameras - starting in the mid-1990s which was about the time digital photography could become mass market (eg true-color computer monitors and hard drives had finally become de-facto standards on most personal computers.) Their problem with the technology wasn't that they didn't adopt it or tried to suppress it, it was that they couldn't adapt to it - that is, Kodak couldn't find a business model for digital photography while their chemical business declined to (near) irrelevency..

      case 6: home telephones: At&t used to lease telephones to people who paid for a home phone - thats why we all grew up with a phone that all looked the same in the 40's 50's 60's 70's and 80's. In the 80's however they were sued that it was unfair to hold the patent and make people pay for the phone... then all these new shaped phones came out... and the cords got longer which was great.. then they got tangled ... which was bad

      Absolutely nothing to do with patents. Also the rules requiring AT&T open up their networks to third party devices came in the 1960s, not 1980s. Most people still rented the phones because of ease (and the fact the phones were built like tanks), not because of "patents".

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    21. Re:Who cares? by painandgreed · · Score: 2

      If you don't intend to replace them, why bother with standardized sizes? Design one to perfectly fit your phone/tablet/laptop and glue it stuck, really if batteries didn't lose capacity and fail after a few years it wouldn't be an issue.

      We're not planing to replace the battery, but the phone/tablet/laptop. When a better appliance comes out, you pull your lifetime battery out of your old device and put it in your new device.

    22. Re:Who cares? by rbrander · · Score: 2

      The "lighting circuits at 12V DC" sounds like a terrific idea. Outside the entertainment unit and the kitchen, there isn't a whole lot of business for 110V throughout most of a house these days. Lighting would be *better* with 12V plugs, as you note. What else do bedrooms and so forth need? Alarm clocks and radios? 12V is fine.

      I can see a possibility coming where houses still have 110V, but a more limited number of plugs, maybe one per room...but a couple of 12V/USB plugs on every wall that would be low-level device power and a smart network for controlling them.

    23. Re:Who cares? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

      That's why I specified 12V DC for lighting circuits. They are supposed to be on separate circuits from plugs. So why not? They would make LED lighting much more sensible.

      220-240V AC is much more practical for power delivery than 110V. Ring mains are more robust and safer. But I don't see the US getting over its stupid electrical standards any time soon.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  2. Euphemisms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "This was a serendipitous discovery as the researcher was playing around with the battery and coated it in a thin gel layer."
    Translated: Scientist was watching porn at work, accidentally got some on the battery.

    1. Re:Euphemisms by MachineShedFred · · Score: 3, Funny

      He got some porn on the battery?

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    2. Re:Euphemisms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      She accidentally a battery. The researcher who was playing with the batteries was UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai, who made the batteries to last long time. (sorry, and congratulations)

  3. The right way to do research by Archtech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "This was a serendipitous discovery as the researcher was playing around with the battery and coated it in a thin gel layer".

    Just like Fleming's discovery of penicillin. In each case, something "just happened"; and the researcher was knowledgeable and alert enough to spot the significance of an apparently irrelevant event.

    We need a lot more of this kind of thing, and it is only likely to happen where researchers have an adequate amount of freedom to experiment and "play around". Perhaps Heinlein's "Long Range Foundation" was a bit extreme - funding only projects that are very ambitious, very far-out, and immensely expensive, and even then only on condition that no useful results are expect for a long time - but that's the true spirit of scientific research. "Cast your bread upon the waters..." Ironically, the greatest practical benefits come from research that does not aim for any practical benefits.

    --
    I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    1. Re:The right way to do research by ole_timer · · Score: 5, Informative

      I believe the relevant quote is "...chance favors the prepared mind..." Louis Pasteur

      --
      nothing to see here - move along
    2. Re:The right way to do research by ClickOnThis · · Score: 5, Informative

      The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny...”
      —Isaac Asimov

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    3. Re:The right way to do research by Archtech · · Score: 3

      Fleming, however, ran a few tests, decided it wouldn't work in a human body, and shelved it. 20 years later another guy hauled it back out and did the dirty work of purifying it and testing it.

      In fact Fleming established that penicillin was non-toxic to humans. He wasn't even the first person to publish on the subject: according to the Wikipedia entry,

      "In 1897 a French physician, Ernest Duchesne at École du Service de Santé Militaire in Lyon, published a medical thesis entitled Contribution à l'étude de la concurrence vitale chez les micro-organismes : antagonisme entre les moisissures et les microbes (Contribution to the study of the vital competition in micro-organisms: antagonism between molds and microbes) in which he specifically studied the interaction between Escherichia coli and Penicillium glaucum".

      All of this actually reinforces my main point, which is that scientists often stumble across unexpected properties that can be used to advantage. Precisely because the results are serendipitous, they usually don't take any decisive steps to make products or money out of their discoveries; nevertheless the discoveries have been made, and the door has been opened for someone more practically-minded (or money-minded) to follow up, then or later.

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
  4. Why am I so confused? by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why am I so confused about this story?

    Did they build a Lithium battery, or a gold battery?

    Is it holding charge or chemical energy? (If it holds charge, is it a supercapacitor?)

    The article linked in the OP isn't very clear either. They made a battery, not with an anode and a cathode, but with *two* cathodes.

    Okay, the article states "this isn't a true battery". And it's just a wire loop embedded in PMMA.

    WTF? Can I get those 10 minutes of my life back?

    1. Re:Why am I so confused? by mspohr · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, you can't get those 10 minutes back and you will spend even more time trying to sort this all out.
      One minute summary:
      It appears that they improved the wires that collect the electrons. (They tested this in a capacitor, not a battery)
      The breakthrough is that they were able to use nanowires which have a large surface area (more efficient) but are normally very fragile. They coated them with "gel" which kept them from breaking.
      This should lead to better batteries.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
  5. what type? by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the article is missing a lot of details.. lithium polymer? standard Lithium Ion? or the current best battery the LifePo4 that already has insane battery cycle life as well as extreme tolerance to being charged poorly so you don't need a special high cost charger.

    Read the article.....

    Ahh, this is not even a battery but a wire loop in acrylic.. Nothing to see here kids but hype.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:what type? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's a wire in a gel as an electrode. That is a pretty significant advancement. Lithium electrodes tend to degrade because they fracture apart as they charge and discharge (the effect looks like they form hairs over time) - stopping that process means infinite charge cycles (assuming the electrolyte doesn't break down, but that has been solved for some time.)

  6. Re:Doesn't surprise me at all by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gold doesn't corrode, and it conducts well. Thus making it really good, and can last for a long time.
    Copper will corrode, so after a few years of usage it could reduce in quality.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  7. Elon, please put this in Model 3 by linuxguy · · Score: 2

    I know it takes time from discovery to production. If this discovery is actually as good as it sounds, I hope Elon puts this in the batteries for Model 3. I placed an order for two of them and not expecting them until 2018. I wouldn't mind waiting a little longer if it meant that it came with improvements like this one.

  8. Gold nano-wires? by sjbe · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Gold nanowires"? They are saying they coat them so they don't corrode but isn't one of the main properties for which gold is valued the fact that it is highly non-reactive and doesn't typically corrode? Plus I've never heard of wires being used as an energy storage medium, nano or otherwise. I'm certainly no expert in chemistry but Popular Science isn't usually where I go to for reliable information about the latest in battery research. If this were real I'd expect to see the research come from some sort of peer reviewed source.

    1. Re:Gold nano-wires? by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      The article is light on the kind of information that would explain what's going on, but I'd guess that once you get just about anything down to the nano-scale it doesn't behave in quite the same way as it normally would in larger quantities. However, it sounds like it's the magnesium oxide coating over the gold nano-wire that's corroding as that's what the gel is coating is interacting with and given the last part of the summary that states the gold could be replaced with nickle makes me think it's not the gold that's the special sauce. Maybe it was just a matter of using gold resulted in the least corrosion for the magnesium oxide layer surrounding the gold nano-wire, but now that the gel is being used the gold isn't necessary.

  9. LED? by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 2

    I bought a set of $6 LED bulbs at Costco to replace the 6 can lights in my kitchen.

    These "75w" equivalent are so much brighter than the incandescents they replaced, we keep them dimmed all the time.

    Based on the ridiculous California electric rates, my ROI is something like 9 months (since my wife doesn't seem to know that the switch can be put in the off position...)

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    1. Re:LED? by olsmeister · · Score: 2

      wife doesn't seem to know that the switch can be put in the off position...

      I dunno, sounds like that might be a lot of wear and tear on the switch...

    2. Re:LED? by slipped_bit · · Score: 2

      Interesting. I was an early adopter of LED bulbs. I began switching to LED bulbs when they were $60 for a "60 watt equivalent", and over a few years switched to use them exclusively. That was several years ago and I have yet to have one fail. Mine are all Phillips brand.

    3. Re:LED? by GNious · · Score: 2

      I was moving a bit in the past - every time I moved into a new place, I replaced the bulbs with energy-efficient ones.
      Never replaced any of the energy efficient bulbs until I moved to my current place, where an underground metro line cause minute vibrations to shake the bulbs ever-so-slightly loose and get a bad connection momentarily (this also kill regular bulbs). Even then, only replaced 2 (and have 1 dead one, all cheap IKEA store-brand), while I have several others going fine for close to a decade.
      Past places I've lived between 3 months and 6 years. I've been using energy-saving bulbs since the late '90'ies.

      TL;DR: If you buy crap bulbs, or put them in inappropriate positions, they'll die early on. If you get decent ones, and don't mistreat them, they'll happily keep functioning.

  10. 100,000 cycles (at least) by Lucas123 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Divide that by one charge every day for 365 days and that's 275 years of battery life.

    Yes please.

  11. Researcher now mysteriously missing... by kimgkimg · · Score: 2

    A marching band drum playing rabbit was seen in the hours leading up to the disappearance...

  12. Univ of Calif - So licensing reasonable ... by perpenso · · Score: 4, Informative

    Greedy bastards will patent it and demand huge fees to license the technology ... Greedy fuckers will make sure this never makes its way into anything I own.

    Wrong and Wrong.

    As these researchers are part of the University of California system (UC), UC owns the patent. UC's policy for licensing considers the nature of the company seeking the license. Some preference is given to smaller local companies over large multinationals for instance. Also UC retains ownership, they only license. So there is no burying the technology problem.

  13. Industry can't buy and bury this one ... by perpenso · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My thought as well. We won't see this in our devices any time soon unless it comes from Elon Musk via Tesla.

    Not true. The University of California (UC) owns this patent. They don't allow their patents to be buried by licensees. They also favor smaller and more local licensees. UC has a pretty good system wide policy and a dedicated staff to handle everything for faculty and student researchers. Doing a social good is part of their mindset. These are the same people that gave you BSD Unix without any real strings attached.