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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday June 06 2020, @06:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the smells-like-rotten-eggs dept.

Breaking the mold: An unusual choice of material yields incredibly long-lasting batteries:

The tremendous increase in the use of mobile technology, wearable electronics, and a wide range of portable devices in general over the past few decades, has driven scientists worldwide to seek out the next breakthrough in rechargeable batteries. Lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs)—composed of a sulfur-based cathode and lithium anode submerged in a liquid electrolyte—are promising candidates to replace the ubiquitous lithium-ion battery because of their low cost and the non-toxicity and abundance of sulfur.

However, using sulfur in batteries is tricky for two reasons. First, during the "discharge" cycle, soluble lithium polysulfides (LiPS) form at the cathode, diffuse into the electrolyte, and easily reach the anode, where they progressively degrade the capacity of the battery. Second, sulfur is non-conducting. Thus, a conductive and porous host material is required to accommodate sulfur and simultaneously trap LiPS at the cathode. In the recent past, carbon-based host structures have been explored because of their conductivity. However, carbon-based hosts cannot trap LiPS.

In a recent study published in Advanced Energy Materials, scientists from the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology proposed a novel host structure called "platelet ordered mesoporous silica (pOMS)." What is unusual about their choice is that silica, a low-cost metal oxide, is actually non-conducting. However, silica is highly polar and attracts other polar molecules such as LiPS.

[...] Yet, all this considered, perhaps the most important insight to derive from this study is that host structures for LSBs need not be as conductive as was previously thought. Prof Yu says, "Our results are surprising, as no one might have ever thought that non-conductive silica could be a highly efficient sulfur host and even outperform state-of-the-art carbon hosts." This study broadens the selection of host materials for LSBs and could lead to a paradigm shift in realizing next-generation sulfur batteries.

More information: Byong‐June Lee et al, Revisiting the Role of Conductivity and Polarity of Host Materials for Long‐Life Lithium–Sulfur Battery, Advanced Energy Materials (2020). DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201903934


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  • (Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Sunday June 07 2020, @02:27AM (5 children)

    by TheReaperD (5556) on Sunday June 07 2020, @02:27AM (#1004394)

    The next big military breakthrough, once we have high-capacity batteries, will be hand-held rail cannons rather than phasers. The military has experimented with a lot of laser tech and, even with high power supplies such as nuclear reactors, they have all sucked. Laser tech relies on a lot more than energy capacity and there's a lot of material science to solve before we have anything resembling true weaponized lasers. We have one that technically works that housed on the tip of a jumbo jet, but it still sucks. Star Wars style blasters are more likely (which are high-energy plasma cannons rather than lasers). In addition, troops find most improvements to weapons that only fire in a strait line all but worthless. The only reason that rail cannons will count as an improvement is their ability to shoot through barriers (as long as they have a scope that will see through walls; not a problem for the military). What troops on the ground want are non-linear weapons: Things that shoot around corners, over walls and other barricades, and target through narrow passageways (like an open manhole cover). This is something that the military contractors don't want to work on because it's difficult; just like VTAL [Vertical Take-off And Landing] aircraft (#1 on the military's wish list, yet almost no one is working on them due to the complexity).

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2020, @03:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2020, @03:42PM (#1004522)

    > Things that shoot around corners, over walls and other barricades, and target through narrow passageways (like an open manhole cover).

    Didn't they try that in WW1 with gases? And in Vietnam with carpet bombing?

    Turns out that shooting around corners, over walls and other barricades isn't that effective. Oh unless you enjoy long ultimately pointless conflicts.

  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday June 07 2020, @04:41PM (3 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Sunday June 07 2020, @04:41PM (#1004546)

    For VTOL (not "VTAL"), they have this: the F-35B used by the Marines is either VTOL or short-take-off. It's the one that has big fans in the wings.

    For weapons that shoot around corners etc., there was a movie in the 80s about this, starring Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons (!), called "Runaway". For a more modern take, I saw a short YouTube movie, I think on the "DUST" channel, about "killbots": small, inexpensive drones armed basically with a short-range single bullet. A swarm of them would attack a group of people, each one targeting one person, flying up to his head, and shooting him. It was actually pretty scary, because if you think about it, this wouldn't be that hard to do technically with current technology.

    • (Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Thursday June 18 2020, @01:33AM (2 children)

      by TheReaperD (5556) on Thursday June 18 2020, @01:33AM (#1009376)

      Sorry on the acronym botch, I should have looked it up before posting. For the F-35B, I'll believe it when/if they finally mark it as "combat ready." The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been a disgrace that has fleeced the American taxpayer for an estimated 1.5 trillion! dollars. If this is what is marked as a "success" for VTOL aircraft, I'll gladly live without it.

      For the drones, I agree that it is totally doable. I just shows how little will there is in solving this problem. Not that the US military needs to be even more powerful. As it is, out military is already strong enough to take on the entire world with a fair chance of winning so, what's the point of continuing to increase it at the cost of everything else important to the US population?

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      Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 18 2020, @03:29PM (1 child)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday June 18 2020, @03:29PM (#1009547)

        The F-35 has been a pork-barrel for sure, but it really does exist, and it really does fly, whether you choose to believe that or not. Of course, I can't vouch for its effectiveness in combat, but we're not talking about that here, we're just talking about having VTOL planes. Lots of military planes in history have done poorly in combat compared to their competitors, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist or should somehow be ignored. The first German jet in WWII is a good example of this: it was a historically important airplane, though it never really saw combat.

        As for the military's ability to "take on the entire world", that's just crazy. No military has that power; they best they can hope for is to invade one or maybe two sizeable countries at once without collapsing. The US hasn't even been able to handle Afghanistan in all the years it's been there, and is now capitulating to the primitive Taliban.

        • (Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Sunday June 21 2020, @10:31AM

          by TheReaperD (5556) on Sunday June 21 2020, @10:31AM (#1010623)

          Unless the F-35 does what it was intended to, it's just an admiral's overpriced toy. We can do a lot of better things with our money.

          Bad phrasing on my part about taking on the world. Controlling the entire world has been the dream of conquerors since before Alexander the Great and it's just as unrealistic now, regardless of what weapons we have at our disposal. The proper phrasing I should have used was we have enough military power to crush the militaries of the entire world or destroy it entirely. Actually controlling the world is a whole different matter that I hope we never solve.

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          Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit