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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: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Saturday August 22 2020, @07:19AM
While I cannot disagree with any of your statements per se, just imagine what would have happened to space exploration if scientists had had the same mental attitude. "Nah, it's too difficult, we shouldn't even try....".
If Henry Ford had believed those who said that people couldn't breathe if the vehicle went faster than about 15mph then where would we be today?
Problems are there to be solved, difficulties to be overcome, and progress is made by fighting through the setbacks and not by stopping at the first hurdle.
Well today one end of the flight must be in a place that is civilised enough to maintain ICE, provide fuel and, presumably, there are some people too.
...today. But every major city in every country did not come into being at the time of the big bang. People built the infrastructure and, over time, there is no reason why electrical generation cannot be provided if there is a demand for it.
If you read back a few comments there are some here arguing that this is what makes the aircraft more suitable to this environment, not less.