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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: 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]
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  • (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!