Researchers Predict Next-Gen Batteries Will Last 10 Times Longer (newatlas.com)

Lithium-metal electrodes could increase the storage capacity of batteries 10-fold, predict researchers at the University of Michigan, allowing electric cars to drive from New York to Denver without recharging. Using a $100 piece of technology, the team is now peeking inside charging batteries to study the formation of "dendrites," which consume liquid electrolytes and reduce capacity. Slashdot reader Eloking quotes New Atlas: Battery cells are normally tested through cycles of charge and discharge, testing the capacity and flow potential of the cells before being dissected. Dasgupta and his team...added a window to a lithium cell so that they could film the dendrites forming and deforming during charge and discharge cycles.
In a video interview they're reporting that dendrites can actually help a battery if they form a small, even "carpet" inside of the battery which "can keep more lithium in play." According to the article, "The future of lithium-ion batteries is limited, says University of Michigan researcher Neil Dasgupta, because the chemistry cannot be pushed much further than it already has. Next-generation lithium cells will likely use lithium air and lithium sulfur chemistries."

Comments

Re:Progress!

[Rei]

Actually, that is a concern. Li-ion batteries don't have lithium metal in them unless something goes wrong. Lithium-air batteries always have lithium metal in them, by design.

In practice, you'll probably see a bit of the energy density given up in order to beef up the casing to prevent rupture/fire.

Thankfully, lithium-sulfur batteries don't use lithium metal, just lithium polysulfides. The max energy density isn't as high, but it's still quite good. They're already on the market, albeit in small quantities for applications that require the absolute highest rechargeable energy density (mainly aerospace).

Re:I say BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the smell of fresh crap on Slashdot on a Sunday afternoon:
"Inexpensive housing for the poor has existed since the first axe was used to chop wood and form walls and a roof."

And where, pray tell, do these resourceful Homeless and their shopping carts full of surplus building supplies, build their houses? Shanty towns have been around forever... until the Lords of the Land gets pissed off and levels them. Bulldozers do make it much easier these days, but in Ireland 170 years ago, special iron-tipped sticks were used to tumble the walls of the houses of the evicted, so that they couldn't return. Or perhaps you are more familiar with the thousands of "Hoovervilles" circa 1930. General Douglas MacArthur gained fame and good will by using Federal Troops to burn the ~15,000 Man "Bonus Army" Camp out of Washington, DC, with the able assistance of Patton and Eisenhower.
And then, by any chance did you see that movie with a young Hank Fonda made about a decade later, called "The Grapes Of Wrath"?. Those weren't Sets, that was a real Shanty Town, as was the Weedpatch Migrant Camp, which _was_ built by the Homeless, under Government Support. Damn commies.

"All that's left for that inexpensive housing is for the poor to do what humans with far less did thousands of years ago, and get their asses moving."

To where, you mushy turd of a Human Being? Your Backyard? The Parking Lot at where you work? Central Park in New York City... again? Or maybe you are thinking of some only slightly radioactive Nevada desert now surplus to Government needs, and only maybe fifty miles from the nearest Shopping, Schooling, and Employment? (Note: Even the Shoshone Tribes don't want that land back...) Or perhaps you are thinking of some place further away, where they can go with little chance of ever returning. Much of Quebec and Nova Scotia were settled by some suddenly Homeless; America's solution to the Loyalist Problem. But these days, Canada may object.