Findings could pave the way for a cost-efficient, high-performing calcium-ion battery:
Concerns regarding scarcity, high prices, and safety regarding the long-term use of lithium-ion batteries has prompted a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to propose a greener, more efficient, and less expensive energy storage alternative.
[...] "The vast majority of rechargeable battery products are based on lithium-ion technology, which is the gold standard in terms of performance," said Dr. Koratkar. "However, the Achilles' heel for lithium-ion technology is cost. Lithium is a limited resource on the planet, and its price has increased drastically in recent years. We are working on an inexpensive, abundant, safe, and sustainable battery chemistry that uses calcium ions in an aqueous, water-based electrolyte."
[...] The team demonstrated that calcium ions can be rapidly inserted and extracted from the material, with these tunnels acting as "conduits" for reversible and fast ion transport and the findings indicate that MoVO provides one of the best performances reported to date for the storage of calcium ions.
"Calcium-ion batteries might one day, in the not-so-distant future, replace lithium-ion technology as the battery chemistry of choice that powers our society," explains Dr. Koratkar. "This work can lead of a new class of high-performing calcium-based batteries that use Earth abundant and safe materials and are therefore affordable and sustainable. Such batteries could find widespread use in portable and consumer electronics, electric vehicles, as well as grid and renewable energy storage."
Journal Reference:
Aniruddha S. Lakhnot, Kevin Bhimani, Varad Mahajani, et al., Reversible and rapid calcium intercalation into molybdenum vanadium oxides, PNAS, 2022. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2205762119
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2022, @03:17AM (2 children)
It's good to see that yet more battery technologies are being developed. Here are a few more, from MIT Prof Don Sadoway,
http://donaldsadoway.com/technologies---companies.html [donaldsadoway.com]
He's an excellent lecturer, clear and to the point. Here's one video on the need for new types of batteries and why they won't come from industry, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYuVoSqj1OE [youtube.com] There may be a TED talk too.
(Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 09 2022, @07:36AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday August 09 2022, @08:46AM
Is this just another variant of a vanadium redox battery, or something genuinely new? Too lazy to try and reverse-engineer the paper to figure out what it really is.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Barenflimski on Monday August 08 2022, @03:17AM (1 child)
You know something else that will be used in the not so distant future? Fusion power. Totally right around the corner.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday August 08 2022, @04:16AM
You going to put a fusion reactor in your phone? Or car....I don't know what you're smoking, but it must be some good shit.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 5, Informative) by anotherblackhat on Monday August 08 2022, @03:30AM (3 children)
Hand-wavy projections of future high prices for lithium and no cost projection for calcium-ion make me leery of this kind of story.
Lithium is about $25/kg right now.
It's expected to rise to about $40/kg, but then, inflation is expected for almost everything.
But it's possible to extract lithium from seawater, so the price is unlikely to rise above $50/kg (inflation adjusted).
I've even seen projections that once we start extracting lithium from seawater, the price of lithium is going to drop below $25/kg.
A one 1 kilowatt-hour lithium battery has about 160 grams of lithium, or about $4 worth, in it.
It costs about $100 to make (if you're Telsa). So the lithium is about 4% of the cost.
Even if that doubled, it wouldn't affect the cost of the battery that much.
Calcium is cheaper lithium, but it's not at all clear that a calcium-ion battery is cheaper than lithium-ion.
I have great hope for new battery tech, in particular I like Ambri's calcium-antimony chemistry, but so far the cheapest-per-kwh is still lead-acid, with lithium-ion a close second.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2022, @04:26AM (2 children)
> ... 1 kilowatt-hour lithium battery has about 160 grams of lithium, or about $4 worth
Tesla batteries range from (iirc) 60 to 100 kwh. And some of them are the larger size, limited in capacity by software (you can pay extra to "unlock" additional range--but you are carting around the larger capacity battery all the time).
So, between $240 or $400 per car in cost to Tesla. If this doubled (due to limited supply in the near future), when you multiply by the typical markup between manufacturing and consumer, it could add a significant amount to the price of a car. And that's just the lithium, there are also other expensive materials used to manufacture the battery pack.
Don Sadoway (YT video linked up-thread) also mentions a potential copper shortage. If current plans to install hundreds of thousands of charging points around the USA go forward, the amount of copper required will greatly exceed current usage.
(Score: 2) by anotherblackhat on Monday August 08 2022, @05:35PM (1 child)
Even assuming a mark up of 4:1, a $1,600 increase in a $35,000 car is what? 5%? And that's worst case. Typical is probably closer to 1.5%
There are plenty of reasons to not like lithium-ion, but theoretical shortages of lithium isn't at the top (or even near the top) of that list.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 09 2022, @07:11AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2022, @05:00AM
Unless lithium destabilizes the crystal, I suppose.