Battery Improvements Thread for Nerds

[Masquernom]

When I run across articles about improvements in battery technology, I'll post the information and hopefully a link to the articles here.

[Masquernom]

CATL in China announces condensed battery technology with double the power of current lithium ion batteries;

https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html

[Masquernom]

Article on general research ongoing on silicon anodes;

https://spectrum.ieee.org/silicon-anode-battery

[Masquernom]

South Korean university new binder material for silicon anodes. Ten times energy density over graphite anode batteries?

https://scitechdaily.com/10x-ev-rang...ry-technology/

[Masquernom]

Battery firm Sila Nanotechnologies commercializes silicon anode material to increase EV range us to 20%. Mercedes Benz plans to use the technology.

https://www.freethink.com/transportation/silicon-anode

[Masquernom]

Gravity battery installation for grid support. Two facilities being built.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...0d789d7d&ei=12

[CaptTom]

I'm skeptical about "news" of new battery technologies. It's all vaporware until someone brings it to market. And even then, I'll let the early adopters work out the bugs.

If I had to buy new a new house bank for my boat today, I'd probably stick with old-school flooded lead acid, probably a bank of 6V golf card batteries. LiFPo would be my go-to if I needed something a bit more energy-dense, or needed the faster charge profile.

That said, I still like to know what might be coming some day. So, keep 'em coming!

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptTom I'm skeptical about "news" of new battery technologies. .... That said, I still like to know what might be coming some day. So, keep 'em coming!

Yes, interesting thread topic, but I get weary of so many announcements that generally have so little substance.

I had been following a 'green' site for a while, interesting reading, but the over-hype just got to be too much. I got curious and dod a google search fro "breakthrough" on a couple of these sites, but set the time frame to something like 8 years ago. Got many, many "breakthroughs", couldn't find any follow up on any of them.

But of course, there are advancements being made, and it is good to keep up with the news, so I'll follow this thread. Somethings will come of it, eventually. But I'm highly skeptical of 'breakthroughs', because... "physics".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Masquernom Gravity battery installation for grid support. Two facilities being built. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...0d789d7d&ei=12

I highly, highly doubt anything will come of this. Pumped storage is flexible and efficient (though not practicality in very many places, due to geography), but even where it can be installed, it's just not all that powerful. It relies on gravity, and there is a reason that gravity is called "the weak force".

https://www.space.com/why-is-gravity-so-weak

Quote:

Even if it were a billion times stronger, it would still be the weakest force — by a factor of a billion billion.

Consider a steel washer on your desktop. Even with the entire gravitational force of the mass of the Earth working on it, you can easily have that washer jump up to a pencil eraser sized magnet.

Do the math... P.E. = mgh, where m is the mass in kilograms, g is the acceleration due to gravity (9.8 m / s2 at the surface of the earth) and h is the height in meters.

Takes a lot of weight, raised many meters to create a kWhr.

-ERD50

[Masquernom]

New method developed to separate the graphite from recycled EV batteries. Apparently, it wasn't possible to separate the graphite before this was developed.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/...5071725f&ei=41

[Masquernom]

As with a lot of new technologies, it will take a while for them to be commercialized. One of the stories above is about a way to add silicon to existing graphite anodes. They claim up to 20% power improvement. This method is designed to work with existing battery manufacturing plants. Because it's drop-in, Mercedes Benz plans to implement it very shortly. I suspect a lot of the other improvements may require retooling battery factories or something.

Having said that, it sounds like CATL is already starting commercial production of their new batteries claimed to have about double the energy of current lithium ion batteries. If those really hit the market within the next year, look out.

[Masquernom]

As far as gravity batteries are concerned, the facility they are building in China has 100 megawatt hours of power storage. That's a lot smaller than pumped hydro stations. Looks like those run up into the gigawatts of storage. I think the gravity unit in China is just dedicated to a single plant as backup. I assume they've done the math and the economics are there. Better than fighting the fires at the lithium ion grid storage facilities.

[Masquernom]

Looks like first cars with solid state batteries will debut in China this year.

https://electrek.co/2023/05/10/nio-g...-summer-china/

[Masquernom]

Sand batteries? Kind of off topic, a way to store heat.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/to...dc347e61&ei=94

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Masquernom Sand batteries? Kind of off topic, a way to store heat. https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/to...dc347e61&ei=94

That, and the linked BBC article are short on specifics. Nothing at all about efficiency, cost, space requirements, etc.

It's far from a 'new idea', I recall reading about storing heat from passive solar systems in chambers of rocks in the basement back in the 70's.

It could still be useful in some applications, but I doubt it approaches the claim that it "could solve green energy's big problem".


-ERD50

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 That, and the linked BBC article are short on specifics. Nothing at all about efficiency, cost, space requirements, etc. It's far from a 'new idea', I recall reading about storing heat from passive solar systems in chambers of rocks in the basement back in the 70's. It could still be useful in some applications, but I doubt it approaches the claim that it "could solve green energy's big problem". -ERD50

25 years ago, I toured a house in my home town which used a phase-change storage system to provide heat to a solar heated home after the sun went down. Excess heat in the day time melted a solution of Sodium Acetate (if my 25 year old memory is correct.) At night, the sodium acetate re "froze" (phase changed from liquid to solid) giving up it's stored heat. I thought it was very interesting but I have no idea how effective it was. The plastic containers that held the solution were probably 4 times the size of cooler bricks that you can buy for keeping drinks cold in a cooler. Of course, cooler bricks are essentially water/ice, not anything exotic.

I was impressed with the concept but have heard little about it since. The good news is that in a home, weight (within limits) is not a huge factor, so an attic full of sodium acetate solution bricks could hold a lot of heat. IIRC, the bricks were relatively expensive. Of course, I assume the expense was making them leak proof, not the sodium acetate itself.

Such "bricks" would be more expensive than sand, but they are MUCH more efficient in cycling heat into and out of the bricks because they involve a phase change which requires a lot of energy (going each direction.)

A side note (heh, heh, you know me) My first car in the Islands had a moon roof. At night, driving home with the roof open, I would feel a blast of stored heat from each overpass I drove under. Lots of heat storage there, though not too practical for anything.

Finally, I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, solar hot water heating in "the south" is a proven, century old technology that people have "forgotten" or ignored - but that's for another thread.

[skyking1]

I remember the eutectic salt storage system from back then.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...TES%20systems.

The one I remember was more of a flat unit made of plastic, with bumps cast into it to provide a gap between them.
They built a cabinet and then stacked these units. They insulated the cabinet and then sent the hot air from an active solar collector through it all day, and cool air from the house in the night.

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by skyking1 I remember the eutectic salt storage system from back then. https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...TES%20systems. The one I remember was more of a flat unit made of plastic, with bumps cast into it to provide a gap between them. They built a cabinet and then stacked these units. They insulated the cabinet and then sent the hot air from an active solar collector through it all day, and cool air from the house in the night.

The home I saw used a good chunk of the attic as the heat transfer area. It was highly insulated. The salt solution packs were orderly, but not in a specific cabinet. Each pack had lots of room for air circulation but the fan removing heat from the collectors didn't produce a huge amount of circulation.

[Masquernom]

For those with home battery storage, here's your new battery technology. 20 year guaranteed life. The company is building a production factory not far from where I live. It's based on battery tech used in satellites. The batteries are sealed inside pressure vessels.

https://enervenue.com/product/

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Masquernom For those with home battery storage, here's your new battery technology. 20 year guaranteed life. The company is building a production factory not far from where I live. It's based on battery tech used in satellites. The batteries are sealed inside pressure vessels. https://enervenue.com/product/

These posts would be more helpful with a balance of pros/cons.

Interesting technology, the link was vague, I found they are Metal-Hydrogen batteries. The pressure inside the vessel changes as they are charged/discharged, and pressure provides an accurate measure of state-of-charge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel...drogen_battery

The pressure vessel makes them large relative to energy stored, but not a major issue for grid storage. However:

Quote:

The cells have the disadvantage of relatively high self-discharge rate, i.e. chemical reduction of Ni(III) into Ni(II) in the cathode: NiOOH + 1 2 H 2 ↽ − − ⇀ Ni ( OH ) 2 ⋅ {\displaystyle {\ce {NiOOH + 1/2H2 <=> Ni(OH)2.}}} which is proportional to the pressure of hydrogen in the cell; in some designs, 50% of the capacity can be lost after only a few days' storage.

-ERD50

[EarlyandLate]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koolau 25 years ago, I toured a house in my home town which used a phase-change storage system to provide heat to a solar heated home after the sun went down. Excess heat in the day time melted a solution of Sodium Acetate (if my 25 year old memory is correct.) At night, the sodium acetate re "froze" (phase changed from liquid to solid) giving up it's stored heat. I thought it was very interesting but I have no idea how effective it was. The plastic containers that held the solution were probably 4 times the size of cooler bricks that you can buy for keeping drinks cold in a cooler. Of course, cooler bricks are essentially water/ice, not anything exotic.

This goes way back. Here's a nearly forgotten pioneer from the 1930's.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1ria_Telkes