Samsung's Advanced Institute of Technology has come up with another use for graphene, a material that's part of many exciting future projects from purifying seawater to detecting cancer, this time putting it to work inside lithium-ion batteries. Scientists created a "graphene ball" coating for use inside a regular li-ion cell, which has the effect of increasing the overall capacity by up to 45 percent and speeding up charging by five times.
[...] Samsung's research team has published a long, very technical paper about how the graphene ball works, and how it's produced. It's clear the technology is at the very early stages, and isn't likely to be a major feature on the Galaxy S9 (or the iPhone 11 or any other device next year), but its potential to have an impact on future batteries inside Samsung and other phones is obvious. Who doesn't want a faster charging, longer-lasting battery inside their favorite device?
Li-ion batteries power not only our mobile gadgets, where fast charging is a extremely helpful, but they are also used in electric vehicles, where fast charging is essential for wider adoption. Samsung says it's possible the graphene ball technology can be scaled up from small capacity cells in our phones, to much larger batteries inside cars. The company has filed patents in the United States and South Korea for graphene ball technology, but there is no indication when or if it will reach a consumer product.
Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-graphene-ball-news/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:01PM (12 children)
This like the 10th article I've seen about improvement in lithium battery capabilities that simply disappear into the background noise.
Better electrodes, tweaked lithium mixtures, different electrolytes and now buckyballs on the electrodes.
Why do these things disappear and never come to market?
Why wouldn't Tesla be all over this like yesterday?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: -1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:24PM (5 children)
it's like the 10th friend i have who gets voted down by people disagreeing with him, being limited to like 1 post per day, then just never visiting this site again, because lets face it - we come for actual discussion, not a 10 comment per article discussion. boy you soylent guys are schmart. you should just block all users who post comments that disagree with the opinion of the 10 users you have that ignite a discussion. much less bandwidth needed. keep it small, like your dicks.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:32PM
:^)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:36PM (3 children)
Maybe you're going about posting the wrong way? There's a fair number of people around here who abuse the mod categories, admittedly.
Personally, if a post has a direct insult at another poster, it will almost always get modded down by me unless the rest of the post is very worthwhile.
SN has unfortunately turned into an arena where the top 20 personalities scream at each other about their political views and call each other names. I wouldn't say that there's a lot of real discussion to be had anymore :/
Seriously, can we stop the constant questioning of jmorris's and Runaway's mental health? It's not constructive.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @11:02PM (1 child)
SN was the refuge for angry people, thus we get a lot of opinion and a serious lack of discussion. Valid points are often ignored, and after enough time on this site it becomes evident that a certain group with a certain political slant are here only to stir shit up and not engage in any discussion. The closest to a real discussion is a back and forth where one side just sets up straw men and uses whataboutism instead of anything of value. After enough trying people get tired of it and just resort to "you're an idiot". It communicates a lot more detail with much less bullshit.
I have also noted a trend where constructive comments by either of those two posters get upmodded by users you wouldn't expect, though often followed with a snarky "I can't believe you made me agree with *****!"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday November 30 2017, @03:49PM
It didn't start out like this. I was here in the first week or two after SN started and it was much better.
SD and SN have both gradually deteriorated over time. All good things must end someday.
Well, those who don't already just kneejerk insult jmorris or Runaway whenever they post anything.
The next best thing to an insult is a backhanded compliment, apparently.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Thursday November 30 2017, @08:09PM
Maybe read before replying. My comment was not about how idiots like you mod things. It was about how a site that has a lack of users and comment content should not aggressively block comments, and how doing that is shooting themselves in the tiny crotch.
Do learn to read fucktard.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:35PM
I don't disagree. But there will be gradual improvements. If not this, then something else. Just as internal combustion engines have been improved over decades to be far better than they started out. Over time EVs will get better. Even small gains will matter in each model year. Especially as fossil fuel becomes harder to find.
As for Tesla not being all over this, it is probably because Tesla doesn't believe it to affect their business. And probably rightly so.
At some point, Tesla, like all others (and Google), will misstep and miss out on an important opportunity. Like IBM with the PC. Like Xerox with the GUI. Like HP with letting Woz build the Apple II without any claims from HP. Like Microsoft overly focused on Desktop. Or like Kodak with lucrative film vs digital.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Informative) by KilroySmith on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:27PM (4 children)
>>>Why do these things disappear and never come to market?
>>>Why wouldn't Tesla be all over this like yesterday?
As Elon Musk once noted:
Revolutionary LiIon battery improvements get announced weekly - but very few of them make it to production. This is just another one. For Tesla to jump all over it, it has to be better than their current battery chemistry on a lot of levels:
1. Power to Weight - They don't need battery packs to weigh twice as much
2. Power to Volume - They don't need battery packs to take up twice the room
3. Safety - They don't need cars that go up in flames
4. Longevity - Tesla's current batteries are showing 5-10% capacity loss after 100,000 miles. This is showing 22% loss after 500 cycles.
5. Cost - self-explanatory
6. Producibility - They have to be able to build them fast, with high yield.
7. Materials - Gotta be made out of stuff that's not in short supply
8. etc.
Lithium-Ion batteries have had a long history, and have had a lot of people looking at a lot of different ways to improve them for a lot of years. As a result, improvements aren't going to come easily. Some of the approaches that have been announced (like solid electrolytes) look very promising, and I'm sure that Tesla is experimenting with them.
I'd suggest a quick review of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_in_lithium-ion_batteries [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:17PM (3 children)
And in large quantity with low labor. It can't be like 1960 magnetic bubble memory that is extremely labor intensive for asian girls to thread tiny wires through tiny cores forming a fabric of woven cores.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:59PM
I'm guessing technology advances -- robotics, computer vision, trainable dust mites -- haven't helped address that particular manufacturing mode?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @05:32AM (1 child)
That was core memory. Bubble memory was something else. And core was made by American grannies.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday November 30 2017, @02:39PM
Yes, you are correct. I meant that. I can't believe I wrote that wrong without reading it carefully enough.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ese002 on Wednesday November 29 2017, @08:19PM
As it is, applying graphene often makes for impressive research results but not manufacturable products. Graphene has wonderful properties it is too difficult and expensive to produce. But maybe there is hope [futurism.com].