Researcher Develops Explosion-Proof Lithium Metal Battery With 2X Power of Lithium-Ion (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: Tufts University professor and founder of Ionic Materials, Mike Zimmerman, hopes that his resilient ionic battery technology will finally replace Lithium Ion. The reason scientists and researchers pay so much attention to battery design is because today's lithium-ion technologies have several downsides, as we saw recently with Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 recall. If you were to take apart a lithium-ion battery, you'd find a positive electrode called the anode and a negatively charged electrode called the cathode. There's a thin separator that sits between the anode and cathode. Everything else is filled up with liquid, or electrolyte. Charging the battery causes positively charged ions to flow through the liquid from the negative side to the positive side. As you use the battery, the ions flow in the opposite direction. However, the electrolyte is extremely flammable and they can explode when pierced or overheated. Zimmerman's ionic battery trades the flammable liquid for a piece of plastic film to serve as the electrolyte. It isn't prone to overheating and catching fire. The same goes for piercing, cutting or otherwise destroying the battery. Also, unlike lithium-ion batteries, Zimmerman's ionic batteries use actual lithium-metal, which can store twice as much power. Lithium-ion batteries don't contain lithium-metal because they're even more prone to overheating and exploding than lithium-ion, but that risk is removed by Zimmerman swapping out the liquid electrolyte for a solid. Further reading: Yahoo News

Comments

Re:Illogical

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Harry Mudd will sort things out.

Thank you

[Osgeld]

Without half that summary being a 5th grade science lesson I would have no fucking clue how a battery works

Uh, thanks.

[fahrbot-bot]

If you were to take apart a lithium-ion battery, you'd find a positive electrode called the anode and a negatively charged electrode called the cathode. There's a thin separator that sits between the anode and cathode. Everything else is filled up with liquid, or electrolyte. Charging the battery causes positively charged ions to flow through the liquid from the negative side to the positive side. As you use the battery, the ions flow in the opposite direction.

Dear Editors, Thanks for explaining, on a tech site, how, basically, every battery works.

Re:Uh, thanks.

[JoshuaZ]

While I do know this already, I don't think this is by itself bad. Estimating exactly which knowledge should be taken for granted can be difficult to estimate; for example, a while ago there was an article here about P != NP (the biggest open problem in theoretical computer science) and there were a whole host of comments that essentially amounted to people declaring that they had no idea what the article was talking about.

Re: Uh, thanks.

[Entrope]

I think it's safe to say that B != NB, that is, a battery is not the same thing as a not-battery.

Re:Uh, thanks.

[rtb61]

Perhaps this is better, "Li-ion batteries use an intercalated lithium compound as one electrode material, compared to the metallic lithium used in a non-rechargeable lithium battery."(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery), even referenced. - and just in case - "In chemistry, intercalation is the reversible inclusion or insertion of a molecule (or ion) into compounds with layered structures. Examples are found in graphite and transition metal dichalcogenides." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercalation_(chemistry)) - oh bugger - "Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayers are atomically thin semiconductors of the type MX2, with M a transition metal atom (Mo, W, etc.) and X a chalcogen atom (S, Se, or Te.). One layer of M atoms is sandwiched between two layers of X atoms. A MoS2 monolayer is 6.5 Ã... thick."(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_metal_dichalcogenide_monolayers) - when will it end - The chalcogens (/ËkælkÉ(TM)dÊ'ánz/) are the chemical elements in group 16 of the periodic table. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcogen) ;D.

Re:Uh, thanks.

[Greystripe]

They put you inside, shut the door, and then they lock the door. If you are lucky it is a padded, single occupant cell, if not well I'm sure others can fill you in on what that's like.

Battery meet science experiment.

[fahrbot-bot]

Zimmerman's ionic batteries use actual lithium-metal, ...

Just don't drop it in water if it ever gets damaged.

Re:Battery meet science experiment.

[Nkwe]

Zimmerman's ionic batteries use actual lithium-metal, ...

Just don't drop it in water if it ever gets damaged.

Or feed it after midnight

ICE

[backslashdot]

The thing that is preventing 600 mile range electric cars is not the limited capacity of lithium ion, it's the cost. I mean, 750 kilograms of lithium ion battery is the equivalent of a 15 gallons of gasoline in a regular car. A Tesla 85D carries a 540 kg battery and gets 270 miles range. You can easily make a vehicle that can carry 1200 kg of battery. A Tesla with 1000 kg of battery would weigh about 3000 kilograms -- but even accounting for the increased weight, it get well over 600 miles of range (that's enough to comfortably drive between any two big towns in most if not all of the US). The problem is that 1200 kilograms of lithium ion battery costs a shit-ton of money. That's the whole point of the gigafactory. What I am saying is that if we had zero new advances in battery technology other that making it much cheaper than it costs today .. we could have electric cars that outperform gasoline cars in miles travelled before refilling.

So if there is an advance in batteries I want to know, what will it cost in the medium term?

Re:ICE

[Anonymous Coward]

The other problem is charge time and charge station availability.

Tesla is almost deliberately misleading on their charge times. Now before you start madly typing hear me out. They say 'half charge in 20 mins at a superstation' That gets me ~150 miles. In my current ICE car that would take 4-5 gallons depending on how I drive it. I can get 5 gallons in 5 mins easy. Full tank in under 10 mins and that gets me regularly 400 miles range. For a tesla however the numbers are basically random from 20 mins to 52 hours depending on how you are charging it. Now assuming I only use super stations at *BEST* to get 300ish miles it will take me 40 mins. For 1000 mile trip you have probably added in nearly 2 hours extra travel time. Depending on how you do it. As I get older, money I have, time is more precious to me.

For commuting these things are just fine. Plug it in at work/home and you are probably fine. For a long trip they are not going to work any time soon. We still have ICE and hybrid for those cases. From where I sit for quite a long time.

Range anxiety that you point out is not the issue. It is charging time and charging availability anxiety. A bigger battery helps that somewhat but also makes the issue even worse. Once those issues are worked out this will be a silly conversation. For example if there was 1 gas station in my state I would not think 'man gas cars are amazing'. No, I would be thinking 'not going to buy that'.

Re:ICE

[backslashdot]

The charge time issue shouldn't be a problem once we get to 600+ mile ranges. That's enough time on the road to either into a hotel for the night, or at least have a relaxed dinner? I mean, travel (i wont say drive, because cars are less than a decade from level 5 autonomy) for 8 hours .. have dinner for 45 minutes. Then go a further 2 to 4 hours then check into a hotel for the overnight full charge ... is that unreasonable? How often do you need to drive faster than that in a hurry but couldn't take an airplane?

Re:ICE

[jabuzz]

The required charge time is a function of capacity. That is with sufficient capacity/range the time to charge becomes ever less relevant.

So for example if my car could go 700 miles on a charge it would not matter if it took 12 hours to charge the dam thing because at 70mph (maximum legal speed in the UK) I can only drive 647.5 miles in the 10 hours (during which I must at least 45 minutes of breaks) the Working Time directive classifies as the maximum safe time a professional driver is allowed to work. Exceeding these times for private driving would likely get you in hot water in the event of an accident so are a pretty good measure for all driving to go by.

Further I can only do that twice in any seven day rolling period too, otherwise I am limited to 9 hours with 30 minutes of break.

Now you could tag team drive to exceed these numbers but that is fantastically rare thing anyway. I can count on one had the number of times I have done that in over two decades on one hand.

As a further illustration, the longest journey you could manage in the UK without driving around in circles is probably Land's End to John O'Groats which Goggle tells me is 839 miles and would take 15 hours and 3 minutes. So a 900 mile range with say 8 hours charge time would cover every conceivable journey I could make in the UK.

Realistically a 600 mile range with a 15 hour charge time is good enough for any thing that 99.99% of what people would ever use a car for.

At 700 miles with 12 hour charge it's good enough for probably 99% of commercial journeys too.

Re:ICE

[tlhIngan]

Have you never taken a road trip with a friend or SO and drive in shifts?

Considering everyone in the car gets restless around the same time, no. Driving in shifts I understand, but perhaps that's a young person sport because I kind of enjoy my 1/2 hour breaks to get out and stretch legs every couple of hours, as does everyone else in the car.

Yes, it could be pushed, but really being able to unfold oneself and take rest stops turns a start of a vacation from a rush to a more relaxed experience. And yes, I've done the road trip in both a car and an RV, and it's still nicer to stop and walk.

And the dogs enjoyed the rest stops as well - they could just sleep through it, but it makes them visibly happier for them when we stop after a couple of hours of driving and give them a quick walk and a pee break.

Is it good for a thousand cycles?

[volvox_voxel]

Among battery researchers that I know, a key figure of merit is the amount of power you get after the thousandth charge-discharge cycle. There are plenty of great battery ideas out there, but they don't have the lifetimes to be commercially feasible. I wonder how this stacks up.

Store 2x as much ENERGY, not power

[haruchai]

C'mon, this is basic stuff for a News for Nerds site

No real questions answered

[locater16]

As usual, new battery announcement, with nonexistent details about real, practical questions that are highly relevant to practical implementation such as: Power density? Battery lifetime? Ease of manufacturing/cost? All of these need to be at least as good as current, top of the line li-on batteries, or it'll die the same death as the previous hundred or so "breakthrough" batteries that have been announced. None of them were so much as mentioned, instead saying (evasively) this uses "real!" lithium metal which "can store twice the power (energy density) of traditional li-on batteries". But can the battery itself store twice the energy density of li-on batteries? And which ones, today's top ones or like, some irrelevant comparison to li-ons from over a decade ago?

Re:No real questions answered

[phantomfive]

According to their website, the power density is significantly higher than lithium ion, and the cost is less than lithium ion. It says they haven't solved all the manufacturing problems, but expect them to be worked out in a year or so (they have funding).

Advice from Elon Musk

[mspohr]

“My top advice really for anyone who says they’ve got some breakthrough battery technology is please send us a sample cell, okay. Don’t send us PowerPoint, okay, just send us one cell that works with all appropriate caveats, that would be great. That sorts out the nonsense and the claims that aren’t actually true.”

Actual source:

[Gravis Zero]

This is the source of the information. It's part of PBS' "Search for the Super Battery" which airs today (February 1, 2017) at 9 pm on PBS.