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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday June 16 2018, @09:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the electrifying-news dept.

Two soylentils have submitted stories about improvements in lithium battery storage capacity. The first focuses on the cathode while the second features improvements in the anode.

Tripling the Energy Storage of Lithium-Ion Batteries

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

A collaboration led by scientists at the University of Maryland (UMD), the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the U.S. Army Research Lab have developed and studied a new cathode material that could triple the energy density of lithium-ion battery electrodes. Their research was published on June 13 in Nature Communications.

"Lithium-ion batteries consist of an anode and a cathode," said Xiulin Fan, a scientist at UMD and one of the lead authors of the paper. "Compared to the large capacity of the commercial graphite anodes used in lithium-ion batteries, the capacity of the cathodes is far more limited. Cathode materials are always the bottleneck for further improving the energy density of lithium-ion batteries."

Scientists at UMD synthesized a new cathode material, a modified and engineered form of iron trifluoride (FeF3), which is composed of cost-effective and environmentally benign elements—iron and fluorine. Researchers have been interested in using chemical compounds like FeF3 in lithium-ion batteries because they offer inherently higher capacities than traditional cathode materials.

Source: https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=112885

Turbocharge For Lithium Batteries

A team of material researchers from Juelich, Munich, and Prague has succeeded in producing a composite material that is particularly suited for electrodes in lithium batteries. The nanocomposite material might help to significantly increase the storage capacity and lifetime of batteries as well as their charging speed. The researchers have published their findings in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

"In principle, anodes based on tin dioxide can achieve much higher specific capacities, and therefore store more energy, than the carbon anodes currently being used. They have the ability to absorb more lithium ions," says Fattakhova-Rohlfing. "Pure tin oxide, however, exhibits very weak cycle stability—the storage capability of the batteries steadily decreases and they can only be recharged a few times. The volume of the anode changes with each charging and discharging cycle, which leads to it crumbling."

One way of addressing this problem is hybrid materials or nanocomposites—composite materials that contain nanoparticles. The scientists developed a material comprising tin oxide nanoparticles enriched with antimony, on a base layer of graphene. The graphene basis aids the structural stability and conductivity of the material. The tin oxide particles are less than three nanometres in size—in other words less than three millionths of a millimetre—and are directly "grown" on the graphene. The small size of the particle and its good contact with the graphene layer also improves its tolerance to volume changes—the lithium cell becomes more stable and lasts longer.

"Enriching the nanoparticles with antimony ensures the material is extremely conductive," explains Fattakhova-Rohlfing. "This makes the anode much quicker, meaning that it can store one-and-a-half times more energy in just one minute than would be possible with conventional graphite anodes. It can even store three times more energy for the usual charging time of one hour."

"Such high energy densities were only previously achieved with low charging rates," says Fattakhova-Rohlfing. "Faster charging cycles always led to a quick reduction in capacity." The antimony-doped anodes developed by the scientists, however, retain 77 % of their original capacity even after 1,000 cycles.


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday June 16 2018, @10:43AM (17 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Saturday June 16 2018, @10:43AM (#693909) Homepage

    And as with every single battery tech and paper ever put in the news:

    There's a 99% chance that nothing will ever happen with it because it can't be produced at scale enough or has serious problems in other areas.
    There's a 1% chance that it does something, and it'll end up in a battery, but you won't be able to buy a battery like that for years.

    As always: When it exists in a shop and I can buy a, what? 15Ah battery in a AA format (I can buy 4800mAh batteries in such a format, if I'm prepared to pay for them)... that's when I'll care about them.

    Until then, it's "yet another battery paper".

    You also have to account: If it has three times the energy, then it's going to take three times longer to charge. So you'd *have to* speed up charging by three times as much. Which means three-times higher current, which means three times higher peak draw, and significantly thicker charging cables and capacity required.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @10:47AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @10:47AM (#693911)

    I agree on your first point.

    The second point about charging times is not clear cut. I charge overnight so it can take 10 times longer for all I care. The main problem with batteries (for me) is worrying that it will run out midway thru my journey (phone GPS, electric vehicle). 3x capacity is WELL worth 3x charge time.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:47AM (9 children)

      by anubi (2828) on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:47AM (#693919) Journal

      Sad to see removeable batteries on phones is getting to be a difficult find.

      I found a BLU Life XL phone a couple of years ago at Best Buy, and its battery is removeable. I went looking for another, now that I know more about what I am looking for in a smartphone, and am discovering that more and more manufacturers are building the batteries in. I still like the assurance that should I have battery problems, I can swap out a pack without a lot of fuss... I feel the "battery is shot, throw the phone away" paradigm is more for the Apple folk, who seem to pride themselves in being able to afford to do such things.

      I am looking for one with dual-sim, fm-radio chip, TF card slot for offline maps, GPS, Compass, bluetooth, gyro, and FTP server... basically something that should I have to get up and go, and go offline during long trips, I can fall back to things that do not need the cloud to function, and also use it for backup of a lot of my critical files.

      I flat do not trust the cloud. I do not like putting anyone else in a position to deny me access to my stuff until I comply to his terms and conditions.

      I'd just as soon leave that kind of stuff to the business-type people who seem to love complying to everyone else ... they seem to like the handshakes and signatures and all the paperwork... I just want stuff that works. I never did like begging Dad if I could use the family car, nor do I enjoy agreeing to crap so I can use something in the cloud - especially if I could facilitate means of doing what I want to do, and not involve them. At all.

      The BLU is working perfectly, but it does not have a compass, nor gyro, but does have GPS which fills in the compass part as long as I am moving, and I have maps.me installed, but its massive databases really load its CPU. Slowly but surely, I am devising means of weaning myself off its preloaded apps and getting things done without involving the cloud apps it shipped with. ( Google maps are great, but they disappear after a few days, and I flat do not want a Google account. I really hate being accountable for something a rogue script may commit me to.... like "in app purchases". As long as they don't have my billing information and pre-agreed privileges of charging my credit card, I'm ok. I never know when I may lose that phone, or have it stolen... I am trying to limit my losses in the event of such, which I consider likely.

      I've grown to like this thing, and I think having a backup for it would probably be wise.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:53AM (1 child)

        by anubi (2828) on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:53AM (#693923) Journal

        Oh yeah, another thing about removeable batteries... removing the battery gives me the ability to know the phone is completely OFF, for storage, privacy, and the assurance that when I re-install the battery, it will have charge in it.

        Another thing is it gives me one last ditch effort to recover a bricked device by cycling power to it. I recovered an AT&T GO phone that way, as I had let it slowly die, and it did not come back to life when I charged it... but when I opened it up, removed its battery, re-installed, then tried the phone, it came back up.

        --
        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:31PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:31PM (#693936)

          Thanks for sharing 2 posts on your likes and dislikes. Fascinating read. I'll make sure to buy your autobiography - is it coming out soon?

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:28PM (6 children)

        by Aiwendil (531) on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:28PM (#693935) Journal

        While finding smartphones with user replaceable batteries are getting less common they are by no means rare yet.

        Sorry for pointing you to a site in swedish (the in-browser "translate to english" in chromium works pretty well for it) but here is a list of some smartphones with replaceable batteries [prisjakt.nu], just check what other critiera you have as well. (That site is for the swedish market, but similar models in different markets tend to be close-ish in terms of features so it should help you find starting points)

        (For the non-nordic readers - prisjakt.nu (lit. "pricehunt.now") is a price comparasion site that allows you to filter on properties)

        replaceable battery, sdhc, dual sim, fm-receiver, gps [prisjakt.nu]
        replaceable battery, sdhc, dual sim, fm-receiver, gps AND gyro [prisjakt.nu]
        For some reason they don't have a checkbox for compass, and I don't even know when the last time was a saw a smartphone without bluetooth.

        FTP-server is downloadable from the google play store (or what they call it this week)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:34PM (5 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:34PM (#693937)

          Swedish is rated the easiest language to learn for English speakers. I like my 2nd languages like I like my women.

          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:31PM (1 child)

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:31PM (#693948) Journal

            Swedish is rated the easiest language to learn for English speakers.

            That's surprising. I would have expected English to be the easiest language to learn for English speakers. :-)

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
            • (Score: 3, TouchĂ©) by RS3 on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:39PM

              by RS3 (6367) on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:39PM (#693950)

              That's surprising. I would have expected English to be the easiest language to learn for English speakers. :-)

              You haven't been to rural 'Merica.

          • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:45PM

            by RS3 (6367) on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:45PM (#693951)

            I like my 2nd languages like I like my women.

            A mouthfull?

          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:50PM (1 child)

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:50PM (#693956) Journal

            > I like my 2nd languages like I like my women.

            Er...illustrated in books and you have to go to classes to comprehend them...? Mysterious and out of reach? Help me out here...

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @04:10PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @04:10PM (#693988)

              r...illustrated in books and you have to go to classes to comprehend them...?

              Yep, thats it!

  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:48PM

    by RS3 (6367) on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:48PM (#693955)

    If it has three times the energy, then it's going to take three times longer to charge.

    I generally agree with your points, but regarding charging: your point stands given the same size battery, but the idea here is that they can make smaller batteries with the same WH (energy storage), so the same charge time and run time, just smaller and lighter.

    Let's say someone makes a retrofit battery pack for your phone, laptop, power tool, etc. It could be made as 2 or 3 smaller modules that could be charged separately, so the same overall charge time.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:32PM (1 child)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:32PM (#693976) Journal

    You also have to account: If it has three times the energy, then it's going to take three times longer to charge.

    Says you. TFS says the opposite, highlighted here:

    "Enriching the nanoparticles with antimony ensures the material is extremely conductive," explains Fattakhova-Rohlfing. "This makes the anode much quicker, meaning that it can store one-and-a-half times more energy in just one minute than would be possible with conventional graphite anodes. It can even store three times more energy for the usual charging time of one hour."

    That last bit means that charge imparted within an hour is 400% as much as before, which means it takes less time, not more, when using their magic nanoparticle anode.

    So you'd *have to* speed up charging by three times as much. Which means [a slippery slope culminating in the end of the world].

    No, even if it wasn't faster, which it is, there is no universal law saying that regardless of what battery technology you are using or its capacity, you must charge in the identical, same given time, regardless of how much energy you are storing. You're making higher battery capacity out to be a bad thing (it isn't). Where are you getting this stuff? You are being misled. I hope you aren't paying for it.

    • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday June 16 2018, @10:41PM

      by krishnoid (1156) on Saturday June 16 2018, @10:41PM (#694061)

      You're correct, you'll just be pulling 3x the amps. Well, until everyone in the house yells at you for tripping the breaker when you plug in your iPad.

  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:12PM (1 child)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:12PM (#694067) Journal

    Yep, if this was coming to market soon, it'd be time, maybe past time, to trade in the old gas guzzler and get a battery electric vehicle.

    > yet another battery paper

    There are so many now that even if 99% of the ideas are impractical for one reason or another (expensive materials, too heavy and/or bulky, extremely high manufacturing costs, can't scale up, short life, long charge times, dangerously destabilizes the battery) that 1% that pans out is likely to be the final push that leads to battery electric vehicles going mainstream and relegating the internal combustion engine to museums and the scrap heap. We're real close. If not the Tesla model 3, there are others waiting in the wings.

    • (Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday June 19 2018, @09:17AM

      by ledow (5567) on Tuesday June 19 2018, @09:17AM (#694889) Homepage

      99% or more of them are, and yet batteries haven't moved on.

      Battery technology is one prime example of just this kind of "PhD thesis" work... hey, look, in a lab, we get 0.1% more out of it! The fact that it was super-cooled, in a vacuum, stops working after 10 seconds, catches on fire, yeah, that doesn't matter. We can say "I can see this technology quadrupling battery capacity!" and get some press and pass my viva.

      Literally, you have to go by the chemistry and the capacity, because nothing else really changes. There was a reason that early Tesla's etc. used laptop battery packs and now use standardised lithium modules en-masse. Because there's nothing significantly better available and they're just hoping they can scale the production.

      Alkaline, Lead-acid, NiCd, NiMH, Li-ion, Li-Po.

      That's it.

      And every laptop for the last twenty years has used Li-ion (usually using those same standard cells!). And Li-Po has problems and is used only where space / weight is REALLY tight (e.g. drones and things).

      As I stated (here and elsewhere) - an AA format battery from over 10 years ago is still better than anything you can buy on Amazon today in that format. Batteries really haven't come on in over a decade at least. And the last fifty years of "breakthrough" technology in listed just about. One per decade, or thereabouts, and diminishing returns. The biggest leap was probably NiMH to Li-ion and that happened 20+ years ago (on paper, slightly later for the market).

      The vast, vast, vast majority of these things never come to fruition. Never. They don't function outside of the lab or extremely niche and specialist purposes. They certainly don't make viable commercial products, which means they never even make it into space (i.e. huge budgets for specialist materials) yet alone cars, or your local supermarket.

      Battery papers are the worst. Slashdot and (at times) Soylent has posted several every year for the last 20+ years, to my knowledge. Not one of them was about actual technologies / changes as drastic as they claimed (tiny incremental improvements, maybe, but nothing ground-breaking, and no I don't even remember stories about Li-ion, or Li-Po!). And yet Tesla still use and make standard 18650 cells - and the capacity of them is no different to anyone else's.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @02:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @02:23AM (#694112)

    All this ranting about batteries reminded me -- I haven't finished charging the 40Volt li-ion packs that run our little electric lawn mower. (moves to the other room, swaps a fully charged pack out of the charger, puts in one that is low). Mowed about a 1/4 acre yesterday.

    It may be overkill, but I like to run each pack down until they are 1 or 2 bars, from 4 at fully charged. Stopping use before they are flat seems like it might prolong their life? This also keeps them from getting too warm. When charging I always charge the coolest one first, and if it's warm in the house might take that out mid-charge and let it cool, swap in the next battery.

    As well as the two packs that came with the mower, we bought a spare on sale and then bought a string trimmer that uses same 40V pack -- so we have 4 to swap around.

    I mowed the parent's lawn as a kid and after that swore I was done with mowing for life. Years pass and then my GF wanted to live in the 'burbs and said that she would handle the mowing (self propelled gas powered), so that was OK. When the mower broke, we saw this one and figured we'd give electric a try. It's smaller than the gas one, but is so light that it doesn't need to be self propelled. And now I'm willing to mow again, I never realized that what turned me off so long ago was the noise and vibration from the single cylinder engine. The electric is quiet and smooth--if I carefully balance the blade when sharpening it's nearly impossible to feel any high frequency vibration in the handle.