Lithium Sulfur batteries: SOLVED! Two new tech breakthroughs in the same week!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 พ.ค. 2024
- Lithium Sulphur (or Sulfur) batteries have been on the 'hopeful technology' list for over a decade now. Potentially they have 5 times the energy density of existing lithium-ion batteries. The trouble is, previous prototypes had terribly short cycle lives, so they were pretty much useless. Now, after ten years of waiting, suddenly two different solutions have been announced within a week of each other, both claiming to solve the problem. So, which one will come out on top?
Video Transcripts available at our website
www.justhaveathink.com
Help support this channels independence at
/ justhaveathink
Or with a donation via Paypal by clicking here
www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
You can also help keep my brain ticking over during the long hours of research and editing via the nice folks at BuyMeACoffee.com
www.buymeacoffee.com/justhave...
Interested in mastering and remembering the concepts that I present in my videos? Check out the FREE Dive Deeper mini-courses offered by the Center for Behavior and Climate. These mini-courses teach the main concepts in select JHAT videos and go beyond to help you learn additional scientific or conservation concepts. The courses are great for teachers to use or for individual learning.climatechange.behaviordevelop...
Check out other TH-cam Climate Communicators
zentouro:
/ zentouro
Climate Adam:
/ climateadam
Kurtis Baute:
/ scopeofscience
Levi Hildebrand:
/ the100lh
Simon Clark:
/ simonoxfphys
Sarah Karvner:
/ @sarahkarver
ClimateTown: / @climatetown
Jack Harries:
/ jacksgap
Beckisphere: / @beckisphere
Our Changing Climate :
/ @ourchangingclimate
Research Links
Monash University Team
www.nature.com/articles/s4146...
Lyten Press Release
lyten.com/lyten-launches-lith...
Linda Nazar paper 2012
www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~lfna...
Enserv
www.enservpower.com/board/proj...
Regardless of anything the EV sceptics might say, the global challenge to produce batteries of far greater energy density than today’s Lithium Ion is proceeding at a furious pace. For reasons vastly more diverse than just powering our Cars, the electricity storage cell has got to improve way beyond current technologies. I doubt there will be a single “winner”, rather I’d anticipate a spread of battery tech to come to be, targeting or being used by different markets. It cannot come quickly enough.
I hate to break it to you, but battery development has been around for many decades. And they are still garbage. Are batteries much better than 20 years ago? Slightly, but they still suck. The biggest advance has been in cost. My toy rc cars from the 90s only had about 5 minutes of drive time. Today that is about 12 minutes. Big deal...
Battery tech is advancing much slower than you think. Just lots of companies hyping their tech so they can trick investors and get rich quick.
@@jimj2683 That is 2 1/2 times. That is a lot. If we get the same improvement in the next 20 years, we will have EVs that have over 600 mile range.
One of these alternate battery and/or PV chemistries will eventually make it through to full productization and we will take another big step forward. Thanks for keeping us informed of the possibilities Dave.
The nascent EV aircraft industry would be VERY excited about a 900kWh/kg battery.
or both could fail to materialise - not just for technical reasons but established players sabotage them as is standard practice as already experienced in the Monash team
I love the innovative improvements, but Earth's supply of Lithium will be completely depleted by 2080 at it's current rate of consumption. By 2040, Lithium will be so expensive you will not be able to power your laptop with new Lithium batteries. No matter what, Lithium batteries are going away.
Lithium is one of the least sustainable products man has developed an infrastructure around. All improvement to this technology will be short lived.
What we will need is environmentally friendly batteries that are not using Lithium in the future. Building our infrastructure on batteries is exceptionally dangerous and ill-advised.
@@shinigamilee5915 The DPRK is sitting on likely the worlds largest supply - thatś what is pissing off the west and why Michael Spavor the spy was trying to research as well as weapons
@@shinigamilee5915 No. Lithium batteries are not going away any time soon. There will be a time when alternatives will be needed to reduce the amount of lithium required or remove the requirement altogether however that time is not soon. Waiting for those alternatives instead of using the technologies we have now will not be beneficial to a goal of reducing fossil fuel usage and thus carbon emissions.
I really like that you expose new technologies, explain without falling for the hype. Please keep this up.
Seems to me he did exactly that in this video: falling for a hype. If it's not working yet they have discovered nothing.
"Planned to reach full production .... within 5 years." => That means they have nothing, it's just fluff looking for investment. Another:"They don't provide any details".... They have nothing.
@@melanieenmats exactly
If the smartest among us keep working on the problem, they'll find a solution eventually. I'm not one of them by a long shot, but we will all benefit. Congratulations to the two teams highlighted in this video, and more importantly, thank you.
AMOGUS
Only if the problem can be solved.
If we’re being honest, we just want our phones to last a week before it needs a charge
@@mikemondano3624 Or if there is enough 🕛 & resources to do so...
#reality
@@foxxinrox Lmao what I wanted to comment 😂
I had a look into the first paper. Their prototype cell has an energy density of 206 Wh/kg and degrades quite linearly to around 40 % capacity after 1000 cycles.
Considering Lithium Ion batteries have an energy density of around 150 Wh/kg, and have a useful life of 400-1000 cycles, I'd say the prototype wins when it comes to capacity/time. It's not a battery panacea but it looks to have improved energy density and lifespan.
@@jon1913 Lithium Ion has a density of roughly 256 W/kg.
I heard it’s double the energy density
Lol. That’s terrible. This dude should have read the abstract then
That in itself not a very great measure of performance.
A real missed opportunity to finish off the video with a chorus of:
🎶 A spoonful of sugar makes range anxiety go down 🎵
I wanted that also. In costume. Informative video though.
Licensing Royalty issues
There should be a new Nobel Prize added, for successful applied technology that actually works in real life. Then maybe Mary Poppins would get her due, show up with an umbrella, float on stage, then sing "A spoonful of sugar" with still alive Dick Van Dyke, who is currently 95 years old, so hurry the hell up...lol
'Townsey' from Scrubbs.
That's cute, but I don't think range anxiety is the real issue. It's actually the grid.
This is some fantastic Information! Thank you for taking the time to track this tech and to share the info with us here. I really appreciate your time and effort.
Sounds more promising than most, but, whenever one hears production in four or five years on a battery breakthrough it translates to "production or other challenges we hope we can solve but have no idea how to at the moment." As a rule, they fail to find solutions and production never happens. Here is hoping for some rule breaking.
The public in general doesn't understand that technology growth follows logistics curves NOT exponential curves. And advancing chemistry is not a direct equal to shrinking a transistor.
The initial spread of scientific method into engineering 100 years ago only caused an apperent acceleration because there was so much low hanging fruit. The old 80-20 rule the first 20% of total effort gets you 80% of the total yield, meaning the last 1/5 of yield costs 4/5ths of the total effort. And so that last unit of advancement is 1/16th as cost effective as the first 4 units.
Battery research is very difficult and takes a long time because there are so many variables you have to test out.
The frustration is real
@@mytech6779 the logistics are so complex, that it seems to me that we may not breakthrough into a better standard battery to market it to market.
We still largely rely on 18650 battery, and that is not changing soon. The last improvement to 18650 was in 1996 I think, they were a mainstay for years before that.
I don’t think that model will work very well again, but it’s hard to imagine every product with a built in custom battery, especially since we now seal most of those cells into the device so that we cannot access them to replace them.
I’m not sure we can keep that up for long, but the only alternative I can see is a standard sized cell that can be swapped out, charged in a bay, replaced and recycled at the end of their life.
I think most EVs already use, and even Tesla are moving to prismatic cells.
I love all the information you always bring. Please never stop.
I read about the Monash effort a few weeks ago. Thanks for covering their work, nicely done!
A company Called Li-S Energy listed on the ASX late 2021. They have a solution that has achieved 65% capacity after 1100 cycles degrading more or less linearly. Boeing are testing the pouch cells in their drones as stated on a recent announcement. It will be interesting to follow these individual companies over the next few years.
I love the conversational style you use - your words, our thoughts, politely interacting. It’s a great educational style. THANKS!
Having worked with earlier and simpler battery production the point you raise on laboratory versus production is a vast and complex process, defeating many a bright idea.
The longer a "technology cycle" goes on, the more skeptical of claims investors should be.
Questions you should have solid answers for before getting excited.
The term "In production" can mean anything from a factory making commercial quantities of batteries to three college interns hired to assemble testing prototypes in one of the labs back rooms, so which is it?
"In as little as 20 minutes" means "At least 20 minutes" whats the actual normal charge rate?
" Up to 1500 charge cycles" the maximum number of charge cycles is usually achieved through slow trickle charges ....how many fast charges can it survive?
What temperature does the battery operate at because a battery that freezes below 150⁰C would be borderline useless.
Another very informative video Dave. Thanks a million. Where were you when I took freshman physics? Your non condescending manner and delivery along with useful analogies keeps one’s riveted attention.
You deserve many many more subscribers for this type of content. Well done!
The Pentagon has added graphite to its newest National Defense stockpile List .This calls for the DLA to acquire up to 900 metric tons of graphite to store over the coming year.This might indicate that alternative battery chemistries a a very long way off yet
These should still be a few years away.
If govt is stock piling a material then it's need has been identified for yrs already Nothing in govt works quickly. Alternatively graphite manufacturer's bribed Congress to do so to stuff their pockets after Congress people first bought up every share of their stock first Your pick
this comment makes me feel better about buying NMG
Graphite? Do you mean graphene?
I don't quite understand your logic. Graphite isn't a material of particular shortage, is it? I'd think that this would rather expand production than anything else
We have such a long way to go with Battery Technology, who can even guess how effective the ultimate battery will be?
Physically i suspect it’s some sort of strange hydrogen thing.
The problem is branding. Imagine a time where products will use interchangeable batteries...Oh wait...that was 50 years ago...
We're close enough now that big donors will begin chiming in. Research dollars are picking up big time now.
@@Tron-Jockey Not that the companies that make certain other electronics already put several trillions on the table several years ago. Just think about who really is CATL for example or actually it’s parent company
@@profounddamas How many times are you going to copypasta that stupid comment?
Awesome, I hope to see this soon, and thank you and the Patreon members!!
Exciting possibilities. Thanks for your time gathering this information and sharing.
Sounds like a new dance craze. The poly sulfide shuffle.
Poly Sulfide Shuffle * beat drops *
:-)
I like the reduction of rare earth and the focus on using more abundant materials in these solutions. We're going to need a lot more emphasis on this going forward.
Rare earth metals are 'rare' in name only. They are actually very abundant in the earth's crust. The main issues with them are the dubious extraction methods employed in some parts of the world.
@@Scuba72Chris, true but the economic deposits aren't distributed very evenly and one country controls the vast majority of the current supply, so getting away from a dependence on them can't be a bad thing.
@@pipertripp Australia and Cuba have large quantities of cobalt as does Canada
@@j.pgoodwin9020 yeah, but cobalt is the easy one to get away from. There are already a number of Li ion chemistries that don't use it and they're already on the market. It's the lanthanides that are the real issue as I understand it.
My first video of yours, and I really liked it! I look forward to going through your past and future episodes. Be well.
I’m so grateful to you for the top notch content. You give me hope. That is so important
"Spoonful of Sugar" was inspired by one of the composer's (the Sherman brothers) sons who came home from school and told them he had just gotten the polio vaccine which was administered at the time via a sugar cube. Before the vaccine 6000 children died in in the summer of 1959 alone from polio. Every parent dreaded the summer season wondering if their child was next to be afflicted -- kids would go to bed feeling fine and be unable to walk or breathe in the morning.
God that’s terrifying …
WP1 has been eliminated .
We have between 30 and 300 cases of WP2 and WP3 (in afganistan and pakistan).
I hope we are able to finish off the last Reserves of these two remaining wild strains of polio.
@@macmcleod1188 And every child in America attending public school is required to have that vaccine and ten or eleven others or show medically certified evidence why not. And Anti Vaxxers have been doing this for all their lives. The Orange God and Hiz Minions of Orange have said..... FR
I started first grade 150 miles away where my grandparents lived because of a polio outbreak. Later I got a button that said Polio Pioneer when the Salk vaccine was deployed. I was going to wear the button to my first COVID-19 vaccine shot but couldn’t find it.
the sugar cube was used for the sabine oral live vaccine; the salk, from '55 was injected. the numbers are a bit off, here. 3,000 kids died in the worst year -- 1952 -- with 60,000 being infected. I got it in '53, about 18 months before I could have been protected. Bugger.
Some questions I tend to have for most new battery tech:
- How do they handle low/high temperatures?
- Can they withstand vibrations and impacts?
- What does the performance degradation curve look like?
- How do they perform if repeatedly charged from 50% to 100%, or from 0% to 50%?
or how much more energy dense is it than lithium ion
*How can you mass produce them, such that, you can manufacturer millions of cars from them.
9:45
How do you mass manufacture them economically?
Ah yeah, let's find answers to all these questions before making the energy throughput and lifetime actually worth it.
You are so helpful in sorting out all of these wonderful innovations and discoveries, and of course we don’t want to miss out the real thing.
Most appreciated. Best regards.
Very good. I,m former director and battery inventor from the French owned company SAFT. After retiring I took out a patent application for a battery enclosed within a fly wheel . The idea allowed during spin for the electrodes to be pressed together and whilst stationary charge could take place with plates separated to gain advantages . My life covered silver zinc for torpedos but covered everything from thermals to all metal air uses. I have always been drawn to pyroforic iron nano particles in electrolyte married with air electrode which have sadly gone to the back burner these days.
My patents include the primary lithium batteries in pin size format stolen from the jewellery industry of pin size hollow metal spheres. Naturally the application lives in the James Bond uses. Oh I,m retired and male and not named as shown. The flywheel has some yet to be used in applications in batteries… good luck.
Do you have an email, would be fun to pick your brain?
The trend I've noticed with battery breakthroughs is that 90% of them turn out to be almost completely impractical, and the remaining 10% turn out to be a lot less good than we hoped. But we usually still learn something from the impractical batteries, and that knowledge contributes to future breakthroughs and improvements, and even a small improvement is great. Lithium Ion batteries as they are today are good enough to get most of the job done, with enough investment they can handle all ground transport and grid storage, but fall a bit short for air and sea travel. A little bit of an improvement may be enough to cover those final cases and also accelerate the transition in ground based transportation.
And yeah the price of batteries per watt stored has dropped by 97% in 27 years. And it's dropped by over 50% and just the last five years.
At the current time there is no flattening of the annual curve of improved per dollar.
It is expected to be $96 per kilowatt-hour stored by 2025.
One of the main things keeping it expensive now is that every time the price drops, demand surges even more at the new lower price.
So don't be too pessimistic. Things are improving every year. And I'm ignoring competitors like gravity storage and the new Iron chemistry batteries which will probably lower prices even more.
And I can see a day when every house and apartment has an inexpensive 1 to 3 kilowatt hour buffer battery that greatly smooths the "duck" curve.
They are indeed Goodenough 😂
There is no reason why carbon GHG neutral synthetic fuels can't replace jet fuel and diesel. The technology is available and well understood. All that is needed is the incentive to switch.
I wish I wasn't so old...this change over from a world being destroyed by fossil fuels to clean renewable energy is exciting and I want to be around to see if we save ourselves.
@@yorkyone2143 You're probably not wrong lol. Funny that our existence can be wiped away in an instant from forces completely out of our control, but, the show must go on.
@@yorkyone2143 yes! I'll get to see that. Fusion power is just 20-50(00) years around the corner.
@@yorkyone2143
The answers 42.... but the white mice are going to be really pissed off if that happens.
They are still trying to sue the Vogons for destroying the first one 😉😁
@@yorkyone2143
Have you heard Bo.Jo etc speaking ... 🙄😱😖
Remember Vogon was only the second worse poetry the worst came from a lot closer to home 🤦🏻♂️😬😂
@@NaumRusomarov Actually I would like to see the billions being spent on the pipe dream of fusion switched to advanced fission, a technology with much better prospects of saving the planet.
Excelent writing and flawless delivery. Again!
Love your programs really informative
Now that CATL (one of the biggest if not the biggest battery producer in the world) are saying that they're close to production level Sodium Ion batteries, it will be interesting if someone experiments with Sodium Sulphur battery concept (both of the minerals are not rare).
In the 1960s Ford worked on Sodium Sulphur batteries.
And neither one of them are minerals
@@jimrichards7014 What? has some sneaky bastard moved Sodium on the periodic table?
@@crobinso2010 😲
How about Aluminium? It is common, light and a high (3+) covalence. Is recharging the problem?
This sounds quite promising- I saw something about the sugar additive a few days ago. If it works on a mass production scale, this could be a gamechanger.
@@profounddamas Agree. But you give too much credit to Blue Origin in even suggesting they get to orbit which they do not. Their little rocket barely gets outside of earth's atmosphere which is a pitiful show for 10 years of doing the same thing.
Sugar gives me more energy too, so, it just makes sense! ;)
Is it possible that the “Sugar Mafia” that puts fructose, glucose, in every processed food under the sun, as well as almost anything they can is searching for new revenue streams, as people start to veer away from cancer causing processed sugar and the Sugar Mafia?
Natural sugars work moderately well, but the real advance is likely to be some synthetic material that does the same job but is 10x or 100x as effective. The world's chemists are going to have a lot of fun with this, provided that the gov't funding is there to support the necessary R&D. (Reason enough, right there, to object to - and vote against - Koch-funded right-wing lunacy.)
@@Matt-zp1jn you sir, are wrong. Sugar, sucrose, table sugar is simply put, evaporated cane juice with a molecular ratio of half glucose and half fructose and it is nothing more than fuel for cells. There's no poison in it. Almost every living creature on Earth, including plants, evolved to consume sugar as their main source of fuel. It's the reason why the human brain got so big. Sugar is far more complex than the crystals that adorn a donut (which by the way is a high calorie treat that people like to call "sugar" while forgetting the deep fried portion of the recipe) Everything from fruits to spuds to breast milk to green leaves and wood has some form of sugar in it. Your body stores it in its muscles as glycogen. Lactose, sucrose, glucose, fructose, xylose, maltose, dextrose, galactose. There's a reason for sugar to exist!!! My point is, you've fell for yet another 10 year dietary fad, just like the previous one that said fats were evil and eggs would spike your cholesterol. People that know nothing of biology and biochemistry (amazingly, this includes so many doctors!!) like to repeat ad nauseam the "information" du jour without even looking at data. Personally, I blame TV "doctors" and diet gurus that made it hip and cool to regress back humanity to its caveman days while selling you detoxes, enemas, coffee with butter and yet another book to read on your electronic device, that people with big brains were able to develop thanks to agriculture and its "evil" sugars.
Thank You for yet another excellent video !
I always learn something new here.🌞
Amazingly informative and interesting video as always. Time to just have a think! 👍
Practically perfect in every way
Apart from the miners: th-cam.com/video/YUxqKXqX3Ew/w-d-xo.html
@@widescreen8964 Just because some mines are bad it doesn't make the whole use of the element bad.
Bad mining should be stamped out but then I guess you are writing on a clay tablet you made yourself.
@@profounddamas Do you have evidence for your claim? (LoL, not holding my breath.)
@@incognitotorpedo42 You mean like how every "wonder" battery technology (none come anywhere near the energy in a chemical bond) that's "just a few years away from mass production" inevitably hit some dead end that kills the project?
@@widescreen8964 yes, the miners in Indonesia have it very bad.
The US is the 2nd largest producer of sulfur and that's not how we mine sulfur.
I agree with Marvin, something should be done about bad mining conditions.
Unfortunately, the best thing you could do for the miners is to mechanize, but that is also the worst thing you could do for the miners, because they would lose their livelihoods.
It is unlikely that any of the sulfur that touches our lives is mined in that method, but if all possible we should make an effort to correct such injustices.
I really like your style of delivering information!
Thank you :-)
Just found your channel, amazing content, well researched and presented, you earned a thumbs up and a subscriber with this well put together video!
Awesome - I'm an electrician) engineer so follow battery tech a lot -
Awesome to see how far we've come since I started my apprenticeship in 1988 .
I love how much personality these videos have with subtle touches.
Yep. Dave's subtle humour makes these vids all the more enjoyable.
Interesting, how i first looked up for a new battery technologies in 2012 and there were plenty of very amazing and very promising ones, yet basically all of them said that these technologies will be functional and mass produced only in about 5 years. Now, almost 10 years later, i hear the same "magical" 5 years time before these new technologies would come to market.
So for some reason, there are so many great possibilities in new battery technology, in theory, yet almost nothing in practice.
Since 2012 we understand much better how to use LI-ion batteries. They are considerably cheaper and considerably more energy dense. Other batteries were trying to compete against 2012 Li-ion when 2017 Li-ion was half the price, and 20% more energy per litre.
Thanks, this was a super interesting and informative video. I really enjoy the content you produce and am interested in keeping up with new energy-storage technologies etc. :) Cheers!
Thank you Mr. Just Have a Think for providing us with interesting info on renewable energy and cutting edge battery research. Keep on spreading hope for a better future environment!
My gut level guess is that as exciting as all the news is, I get the feeling that whatever technology becomes practical, it's about 10 years before we see it hit mass production. However, given the number of labs doing the R&D, at least one of them has to hit on the winning solution.
All the more reason we should be funding more research, not subsiding 19th century technology that’s already obscenely profitable.
Joel Jeffcoat There's already lots of R&D Labs pouring millions of dollars into improved battery technology. Every now and then News pops out about an improvement that a lab discovered. Given enough time we'll have a major improvement that goes to market. My best guess is about 10 years.
Everyone seems to be in anticipation of the 'Eureka' moment in battery technology when in fact it will probably be a matter of small step improvements over a long period of time. Look at electric motors which have been incremently improving well over a 150 years ! Batteries have come a long way as well - compare Voltaires battery to what we have now. Once again it has taken a long time to get here. 'Eureka' moments are very rare and transformative. Sometimes they come from shear brilliance and sometimes shear good luck. Whether this is going to happen in battery technology remins to be seen.
I really appreciate the caveat at the end. The thinking public needs to consider the practical difficulties of creating a technology from a scientific result. Consider that, in the area of battery advances, Tesla’s new form factor battery is a very minor advance compared with a substantial change in basic chemistry and is still having problems with mass production. Products can founder on small details in the real, non-simplified , world.
I thought the purpose of the new form factor was specifically as an advance for production, with slightly improved energy efficiency of the product as more of a side effect.
The dry electrode manufacturing process is a substantial improvement and a fairly large change from the previous wet manufacturing process. If the only difference was the format, I think they would have had it figured out a while ago. That said, it sounds like they are really progressing, and are now seeing a reasonable yield.
That's often true in aerospace projects, especially those pushing the edges like a new space launcher. Most times it's an issue that has nothing to do with basic science or whether it would "work" _in theory_ but rather that the money runs out or the program is stuck in a cycle of redesigns or changing requirements until momentum is lost and it dies (or the next economic downturn/pandemic/etc kills it.)
I remember reading an article about autonomous vehicles that stated the last 5% of problems that remained to be solved were more complex than the 95% that came before them. So the finish line, seemingly so tantalisingly close, often recedes into the far distance.
@@mytech6779 that too, giving [battery day] substancial cumulative advancements
Interesting as always 👍
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍😀
Thanks for your great work.
As for all new breakthroughs it will all boil down to cost efficiency when reaching mass production i.e. TWh per year
This is always informative and interesting to check out these videos; I am curious about solid hydrogen tech, what has followed Ovshinsky’s initial debut as seen in Scientific American hosted by Alan Alda?
You never fail to excite the mind in a very balanced way.
With all these battery technologies out there one is bound to break through. Research has a thousand failures to one success. If someone can indeed come through with a battery that is inexpensive and uses abundant raw materials we have hit the jackpot. As of now we are still waiting. Thanks for posting what seems to be the multitude of battery technologies because it shows that there are many trying to develop a better future. We certainly need it. Plus watching your videos keeps me in connection with England as my father came to the US from London in the late 1940's. Keep going because your content does make a difference.
Lithium can react with Sulphur just like it will with oxygen, in fact this is what drives the battery. So Lithium-Sulphur batteries are absolutely susceptible to thermal runaway.
"3-D graphene" sounds exotic enough to never leave the lab.
It also sounds a bit like an oxymoron, since graphene is inherently two-dimensional. So it's probably not real graphene, but some PR-name for a type of graphite.
2D graphene is suffering enough
If it's only got 2 dimensions it doesn't exist in this world... (?)
@@simonpritchard472 The third dimension is atomically thin. Technically it's 3D.
@@GoofyChristoffer I imagine they're talking about schwarzite graphene.
As always, an excellent explanation, thank you.
Thank you so much for explaining simply the different focuses of your podcasts. I for one am very great full as a forever scientific & space travel advancement follower. Please keep up your very appreciated excellent work. From an ex pat in Cambodia.
Battery tech is still at a relatively early stage, we will surely see one of these new technologies that you have covered over the years come to the fore and improve our abilities to store renewable energy. Another great video, thanks Dave!
I hear this a lot. Battery tech is still in it’s early stage. Batteries are quite old and Li-ion batteries have been around for decades. No increase in battery density has been made since Li-ion batteries have been introduced. A new battery chemistry has yet to emerge.
@@mikerit9570 Huh? Yeah there's been TONS of increases in battery density, you're confusing "big huge leaps" with "small incremental steps", ever since the first standardized AA nickel metal hydrate battery came out they made tons of tiny upgrades to its capacity and discharge capabilities via different separator and anode\cathode material changes. Same is true for Lithium batteries, they kept changing the chemistry of the battery and the materials used for it in order to increase its capabilities.
And just in this video you've seen a development that the chinese researchers demonstrated DOUBLE energy density while still using Lithium as the base for the battery, this only proves that our understanding of the technology is in its infancy, despite how long we've used it for.
Sure their end product almost definitely won't have double energy capacity, but even a 50% increase over current highest capacity per kilogram would be a huge leap forward.
@@ScarletFlames1 there has been increases in speed of charge, cycle times and some other parameters. I don’t know of any increases in kWh per kg. I am always interested to find out.
@@ScarletFlames1 I agree. If all the money put into improving ICE engine tech over the years was put into electric tech we'd probably have large crystals powering our energy needs. Now, electric is poised at ICEs' starting point but with much greater advancements in the tech to advance it. See a need fill a need
@@aronbraswell1589 No, we wouldn't. Electrochemical energy is simply nowhere close to the energy density of a chemical bond. Even if we account for the greater efficiency of electric motors and neglect the substantial improvement in efficiency possible through the use of high temperature materials in ICEs, battery technology still only has a theoretical limit of the energy 1/3 of petroleum fuels. This is why electric airplanes and other high performance applications will never be anything but a novelty.
This must be the third video by you I've seen this week! let's hope green tech discovery slows down a bit to give you a break!
I disagree. Let's hope green tech discovery makes a quantum leap in three weeks time and solves our current energy needs in a truly sustainable and inexpensive manner.
I'm pretty sure Industry will ramp up production before making it public and the raw materials goes up in price...
These aren't discoveries. These are PR publications looking for investment. Don't get you hopes up.
Venture capitalists are inventing in battery companies like flies gathering on excrement.
This has very little to do with technological advances, and everything to do with financial gamblers trying to score the winning lottery ticket.
Great developments. Hopefully it'll result in massive step forward. Cheers
Thanks for the update.
Cheers Liz :-)
Three year, four years out. We’re told the “holy grail of batteries will be out in …. Tesla has been working just to manufacture the 4680 for a number of years now. That’s just the manufacture part of the puzzle. How to safely assemble the batteries at large scale so that it’s economical. Hopefully the non combustible nature of these Li-Su batter will shorten the process. Good video! Keep it up!
The existing manufacturing infrastructure might be able to be adapted. If the cell itself is still constructed in the same fashion its just the chemistry that changes.
Tesla does not actually manufacture the battery cells. They buy them from the manufacturer and assemble them with other components into battery packs.
Why do I have the feeling that quick charging, high power density, inexpensive, long lasting batteries are (like nuclear fusion) only 5 or 10 years away, and always will be?
Like Elon musk says: “building a prototype of anything is easy, mass production is 100x harder”
Even if we had the science figured out today, it doesn’t mean much, since it takes decades to implement at the manufacturing level.
For one reason, the denser your battery, the more it is like a bomb. We are already close to the limits in terms of power.
@@melanieenmats are you on drugs? That makes no sense.
@@Flash_345 Of course it does. A lot of energy in a small space and with the capacity to unleash all at the same time basically means - a bomb. The more energydense something is the more potential for danger. It's difficult to find chemistry that has high energy potential and at the same time not being dangerous. Haven't you seen batteries breaking and burning?
Hi. Thanks, Dave.
Looking forward to the Lytcell interview you do next!!!! :-)
It seems like most new technologies have very bold claims in their advertising, and promising lab results, but when they eventually get to market, they are just a few steps ahead of the competition. Batteries have definitely come a long way in a couple of decades.
3D Graphene matrix sounds way too good to be true, a very cool development with sulfur cathodes though, great video.
it's real it's just figuring out mass production
Is it just me, or does 3d graphene sound a lot like graphite?
Thanks, new information is always welcome..
Excellent coverage
I think what we all ought to learn here is that the development of a battery technology is a very gradual process. It's hard to have a breakthrough study or breakthrough company in the field as everything is very gradual. Even the replacement of Li-Ion (if any) will be very gradual.
Lithium ion is quickly being replaced by Lithium Iron Phosphate..............Paul
Progress in any field is a function of the number of people working on the problem, the amount of money available to work on it, and the motivation of the researchers. Batteries now have all three in spades. It's not the 1990's any more.
@@paulholterhaus7084 that's a type of lithium ion battery
@@incognitotorpedo42 not really. Take for example what 3M is doing. The supply chain is simpler than let's say batteries and more sophisticated devices, and so the process and market penetration are much more rapid.
Great video again, but the part often missing from battery stories is the recycelability at the end-of-life. There are all the elements in an old battery to make a new one, making the whole process circular. But if the cost of separating and refining the materials if higher than using virgin material, it won't happen. Some kind of economic change which included the many currently externalised costs of mining and refining would help here, but sticking to technological solutions, which technologies are eaasiest to circularise. Good old lead-acid batteries have been recycled in this way for a long time.
It's more expensive to mine new materials than to recycle. This is why every new Ev battery manufacturer wants to invest in recycling.
Thank you Dave, This is why you are one of the best on youtube, likely on any science-tube Channel.
Cheers Brian. I really appreciate that feedback :-)
You do the best most interesting videos. Thank you so much.
This is indeed very promising news. I imagine it’s very much within the laws of physics and chemistry that the technology can work, just a matter of time!
@@profounddamas Lithium-ion batteries are getting a lot cheaper but not much more energy dense, so these new "promising" batteries are lighter and more energy dense, but now we have to wait 5 years for production, and then wait another 12 years for the price to go down, so people can afford it.
I’m getting a really strong déjà vu feeling with this video?
Absolutely the best channel about the technologies that one day will hopefully make our life sustainable. And the best thing is that the channel is independent and non-biased in any way
Cheers Adone :-)
Great job as usual. Thanks
Skepticism of new development is always warranted, but keep in mind that the price of batteries have dropped by 97% over the last 27 years. And that the curve isn't flattening yet. They've dropped in price by over 50% since 2013. They're expected to drop over 50% by 2025.
At some point, they'll probably be inexpensive enough that they will choke out potentially better approaches.
I guess you are using the price of li ion cells from its first availability, to current , for that 97% figure ?
But the reality is that neither price of performance metrics have significantly changes in the last 5 years.
Infact the commercial price of batteries like the Tesla powerpacks have actually increased recently, but either was are still prohibitively expensive for adoption universally for storage or transport. ..(yes, i know they are used for both, but that does not mean they are universally practical !)
I'll totally agree with your assessment when it comes to battery powered passenger cars. Local logistics and distribution can be done with battery powered vans and commercial vehicles with the currentr state of technology and prices will dictate the market in the comming years.
For long haul freight transport the picture is different. A drivers should be able to drive a full shift (around 9 hours, 800km in best case) without having to stop 2 hours for charging.
A fullly loaded 40 tons semi truck uses about 250kWh/100km. This means an on-board capacity of 2000kWh would be needed. With the current state of tech this means 8 tons of batteries alone! A breakthrough is needed to makes electrification economically and practically feasable in this case.
Substantial electrification of air travel needs gravimetric density 10x higher than what is commercially available now and still 3-5x more what is promised to be in production in 2025 ... not only LiS, but also solid state Li batteries. The question in this case won't be "which battery is cheaper?" but rather "which battery can do it at all?".
And even if the LiS chemistries fail to get power density (essentially C-rate) right I can see people being willing to pay more for a smart watch which runs for longer than a day on a single charge or for in-ears which play longer then a couple of hours. I can even see people which need more than 5 hours screen-on-time of their smart phones.
@@glockmanish : For some flights batteries will never be practical, because there's no _possible_ chemistry (not even sodium-flourine!) that can compete with the volumetric & gravitometric densities of hydrocarbons _or_ hydrogen- these routes will either have to be abandoned, moved to vehicles like zeppelins, or move to artificially produced fuels (either hydrogen, which is honestly horrible as a fuel for it's behavioral characteristics; or synthetic hydrocarbons).
@@absalomdraconis First: I can take noone serious who is using "never" in the scope of technical progress. In the 60s you would have been the one telling us that there never would be billions of transistors on a cm². How can you do such a statement?! There are chemistries in the theoretical phase which have 200x the energy densities of what is in use now!
You don't have to directly compete with the energy density of fossil fuels! My Kona electric's battery holds the energy equivalent of 7L of petrol when fully charged. The pure fossil version of the Kona can drive 100km with that energy. So by your flawed logic I would NEVER be able to drive 400km in the real world, but I do, and even 500km when pure city driving and warm dry weather come together! To understand whether the energy density is enough you HAVE TO view every vehicle as a system. Easy: energy on board / consumption = range
In the world of planes this means that at first only smaller and lower flying planes can be electrified, even when considering hydrogen. E-Fuels are out of question: dirty as fu** and more expensive than fluid gold. CO² footprint as a whole would probably (no numbers crunched on that) be lower when we keep flying the "old metal" on long-haul flights on kerosine compared to building a stupidly massive and energy hungry infrastructure which can sustain the need for synthetic jet-fuel. Even green energy is neither CO2 neutral nor "free" ... so wasting 90% of it for the same energy content compared to a battery is simply NOT sustainable!
And furthermore: By far the most flights and miles flown are domestic or intra-continental. And as the most energy hungry part of the flight is the start and climb those short flights are the ones where to get rid of fossil fuels! I remember having sat in multiple inland flights (in 2016 one did that even in small Germany ... schame on me ... but it was cheaper than train AND car!) which weren't even half occupied, more like 1/3. So having smaller single-pilot (or even no-pilot) E-planes scheduled more often and only starting when a minimum percentage of passengers are checked in would greatly reduce the CO² footprint! Then it would truly be an air-bus ...
@@glockmanish Dennis, i dont quite understand what point you are making here, but range and energy used are not the only metrics to be considered for a full comparason.
By definition , energy density is defined in terms of weight and volume , with cost being an equally vital factor. ..( you could have the ideal , lightweight, infinite, energy source,....but if its cost was totally unafordable, then it would be impractical for general public use.
This is the current problem with EVs, ..not technical density factors , but their cost .which is basicly dictated by the size of the battery pack , hence why the Kona EV costs $20k more than the ICE version,..( and why hybrids are so much more affordable !)
Now replace the lithium with sodium and use them for grid storage. Sulfur, carbon, and sugar is one of the cheapest electrode materials I’ve ever heard of, I look forward to this technology immensely.
When I worked in aerospace we were looking very seriously at sodium-sulfur batteries for satellites. However, the fact that they operated at (IIRC) 450 C and each cell had to be recharged individually made them impractical for that application.
@@Globovoyeur
That’s an interesting temperature requirement, was it due to the sodium side or the sulfur side? I assume it’s the sulfur side since sodium melts at only 98C, meaning whatever advancements led to the sulfur chemistry being viable for lithium probably also applies to sodium.
As for individually charging them, cell balancing has been standard fare for lithium ion battery packs for decades now.
Love the analogy to the gold rush... See so many clips headed 'game-changer'.. one day one will. Thank you for another fascinating video.
You can now buy BYD cars in Norway. They have the same range as other EVs but can do more than 3000 charging circles. The batteries will not burn even if they are physically abused like normal lithium batteries would. They call their battery construction “blade technology “.
Since the cars are made in China they are relative cheap and quite well equipped.
That image wasn't of sulphur, it was the inside of a crunchie bar.
Thats the sugar...😁
I thought it might have been cheese
:-) you rumbled me!
one step closer to -handheldlaserguns- i mean efficient electric planes
A very good channel. Glad I found it
Thank you for the videos
7:07 "rare elements like cobalt and nickel" - cobalt and nickel are not rare. As long as humans mine for iron ore there will be plenty of nickel and cobalt on hand.
On-hand and plentiful are very different things.
@@absalomdraconis Fair enough yet Nickel still isn't classified as a rare earth or rare element. It costs the same as Hydrogen and even 20 times less than sodium.
They're not rare elements but cobalt is about $18/lb so that's a big part of the cost of a battery. Also the weight is the biggest problem.
Even if they don't match the charge cycles of lithium ion batteries their larger storage capacity should more than make up for that
Exactly, also cheaper
Ok. but go mine lithium in YOUR OWN COUNTRY.
How about that..?
@@MilanTheMan69 BAM!!!! You got me there. Nice one
@@MilanTheMan69 better still recycle it out of old lithium batteries.
@@patdbean we should recycle not just lithium, but everything we can...
But still I believe it won't make big impact on future demand.
We need new solutions.
Excellent info. Subscribed.
Wonderfully presented. 👋👋
Great channel MR. Again, Hydrogen is the most efficient means of storage without having to mine rare minerals. UK has the potential to use tidal power based on good old gravity with the world's 10th largest coastline. Moreover it has the means to store this valuable renewable "reliable" energy for grid integrity and as a plan B to lithium electric transportation - "green" hydrogen storage. Energy security is more essential than ever with dependency in Europe to Russian gas. If I were in government I would be making this the build back better green new deal post industrial strategy. Jesus wept, it's too late in the evening for clichés. 😅Green hydrogen storage could be a potential solution to intermittent wind too.
Sounds 10x expensive as natural gas
Right now, due to cost, nearly all hydrogen is produced through the use of natural gas. So much for energy decarbonization. LOL
would be curious to know how it might work with a bit of sugar and the graphene combination
I had a thought about cork 🤔 ... cellulose it is after all a re formed sugar.. but being natural it may be too irregular unless you could lab grow cells.
Great review thx!
This is one of m,y favorite channels
My question is how does this affect the Recycling process..?
Yes, and how the mining and creation process will affect the environment in the long term, especially if the EV replace cars. It is okay now, when there are just hundreds of thousands, but when you get to hundreds of millions... that is a LOT of batteries. And a lot of places around the world will not be as eco-friendly. Also the strain on an already fragile power grid needs to be considered.
I prefer to think a hybrid solution with bio-diesel might be a better alternative until solar is a more viable option.
If its an abundant material like Carbon then it should be less of on impact. Rare metals like cobalt are difficult to mine and cause a lot of damage to the environment.
It will stay the same. We'll toss it in a landfill, like everything else we recycle unless we export it to poison people in other countries.
Sulpher an carbon, sounds light.
Maybe the numbers should go per liter instead of per kilogram?
By weight, are they the same size as Li-Ion?
Anything that can be made can be made in different sizes.
Both are important in different applications. As are per hour (i.e., charge time) and per dollar. For aviation, per kg is far and away the most important; whereas, for grid storage, it's all about per dollar. Per liter will probably not be the limiting factor in either of those applications, but it can be for a cell phone.
there have been pretty significant improvements over time in the Li-S battery tech. we're getting close to the point where the tech might be ready for mass production, but that still has to be shown that it's doable.
Time will see. I am happy that over all the technology is improving.
8:35 what about the volumetric energy density ?
And weight too if they are intended for use in vehicles. Weight is not really a factor for things like land-based power storage (applications such as power wall or grid power storage).
@@stevebabiak6997 High energy density = high weight. So says Einstein's famous formula E=MC2 (dunno how to do the two in supercript :o )
@@melanieenmats - sorry, but high energy density implies less weight for the same amount of energy. Or more energy for the same weight. Whichever way you prefer to think it.
I'm a simple person, I see JHAT upload a video, I click, like, and play!
You're my kinda subscriber :-)
@@JustHaveaThink honored to learn all the latest in Climate Change tech and solutions from you!
So interesting! Hopefully these new technologies prove to be game game changers. All we can do is keep our fingers crossed.
Another excellent video...thank you!