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Super-dense lithium-sulfur battery gives electric plane a 230-mile range:
British company Oxis says it's developed safe, high-density lithium-sulfur battery chemistry and will supply Texas Aircraft Manufacturing with a 90-kWh, next-gen battery pack to power the eColt, an electric aircraft with a two hour, 230-mile range.
[...] In practice, they have had issues – notably with the old chestnut of dendrite formation, in which ion deposits on the anode grow into long spikes of conductive material that short circuit the cell and cause it to catch fire. The lithium-metal anodes also tend to degrade in less dangerous ways that eventually just make the batteries die.
In a piece written for IEEE Spectrum, Oxis head of battery development Mark Crittenden details how his team is addressing these problems with a thin layer of ceramic material at the anode, and it's resulting in high-energy cells with significantly longer lifespans than previous Li-S designs.
"Typical lithium-ion designs can hold from 100 to 265 Wh/kg, depending on the other performance characteristics for which it has been optimized, such as peak power or long life," writes Crittenden. "Oxis recently developed a prototype lithium-sulfur pouch cell that proved capable of 470 Wh/kg, and we expect to reach 500 Wh/kg within a year. And because the technology is still new and has room for improvement, it's not unreasonable to anticipate 600 Wh/kg by 2025."
Still needs work on the limited number of number of charge cycles.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 21 2020, @08:52PM (1 child)
Only need to go that far to make them profitable. Combine that with reduced pollution (low altitude, high emission 4-6 cylinder opposing piston engines) and the market is there. Plus based on their prototype numbers, they could have replacement batteries capable of 500 miles within a few years and if you can engineer in the additional weight in a balanced format into the airframe, a 1000 mile ranged all electric plane is in the cards. An electrical fault could become a safety issue in the future, but already this will reduce the number of components that can fail, the weight of redundant systems for components other than the engine or battery packs, and provide a reduced maintenance burden and thus cost for people who frequently commute by plane.
This could be a game changer, although as with all battery technology cost and time to market will be critical.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday August 21 2020, @10:15PM
I must heartily agree. From the summary:
To put that into context: blah blah chestnuts ions anode dendrite the plane is on fire.