6 ms·

Can somebody skilled in chemistry confirm the article's claim? Because if it is true, then this is a technical revolution. In most devices I own, the battery is

by ngrilly 11y ago

Can somebody skilled in chemistry confirm the article's claim? Because if it is true, then this is a technical revolution. In most devices I own, the battery is usually the only thing that I need to replace at some point (which is especially unpleasant with Apple devices).

pessimizer 11y ago
Removable batteries have been around for at least 75 years, so I assume that if there were an infinitely-lived battery, it still wouldn't be in an Apple device.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  I don't understand the logic in this. How does "we don't want a removable battery" imply "we don't want an infinitely-lived battery"?
  - stephengillie 11y ago
    Planned obsolescence can be seen as a revenue stream to some.
    - jdietrich 11y ago
      It's not planned obsolescence. Batteries that require tools to replace are commonplace in phones and tablets, because they allow the device to be made smaller and stronger. Apple will replace an iPhone battery for $79; Independent repairers charge about half that. You can do it yourself with a screwdriver and a suction cup.
      - hyperbovine 11y ago
        I think the point is that nobody is going to want to use their current iPhone in 7.5 years, let alone 75. That is partly because people like shiny new things, but also because your current iPhone will lose iOS compatibility long before that time.
        jdietrich 11y ago
        The iPhone 4s and iPad 2 are still getting updates, nearly five years on. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those devices are still plodding along in 2020, particularly iPads being used in PoS applications.
  - pessimizer 11y ago
    Because there's no rationale for excluding either other than to limit the product's lifespan.
    - matt_kantor 11y ago
      Limiting the product's lifespan is one rationale, but to say that there are no others is a little unfair. Off the top of my head, these are all within the realm of possibility: - Easier/cheaper manufacturing process. - Increased structural stability. - Make the device smaller/thinner/lighter. - Apple is concerned that end users will screw something up, so they want their service staff to handle battery replacement. I'm sure the internal discussions that led non-user-replaceable batteries was more nuanced than "let's milk those suckers for all they're worth".
      - pessimizer 11y ago
        There will be a public rationalization for why they can't include an infinitely-lived battery, too. They'll probably say "power curve" somewhere. I can't imagine that an iPhone with a battery door would cost more than pennies more to manufacture. iPhones are fragile, and have always been; if they can charge you $79 for a new battery, they can charge you $79 to fix the battery door. Smaller/lighter/thinner? You're talking a razor-thin space savings that adds up to a major inconvenience for users. Users have been operating battery doors for a very long time without electrocuting themselves or losing fingers. They're about as dangerous as an SD slot. > I'm sure the internal discussions that led non-user-replaceable batteries was more nuanced than "let's milk those suckers for all they're worth". I'm sure Snidely Whiplash doesn't work there. That a decision both so profitable and user-hostile was made is neither an incidental part of a general striving for perfection, nor undiscussed.
        jeffbush 11y ago
        I worked on the iPhone at Apple and sat in many meetings where the product design and electrical engineering leads would almost come to shouting matches over fractions of millimeters. The engineering was fascinating. Everything inside the phone wants to be away from everything else. For example, the radios have power amplifier chips that are hot spots and need to be kept away from the battery to avoid exceeding its thermal limits. The antennas need to be kept away from noisy chips that would affect their reception. There are external connectors and SIMs invading the case. Once that is all crammed in, they need to drop test the whole thing and hope it doesn't bend or shatter. It's really challenging to cram that much stuff into a constrained enclosure, and all of the layers add up. As I understand, a removable battery takes up a lot of area, because you need clearance below it and space for the mechanical fasteners. It also breaks up the pristine surfaces that are a big part of Apple's design language. The individual industrial design, product design, electrical, and RF design/antenna engineers responsible for each part aren't thinking about sales in two years. They want to make their piece as good as they can and hit the schedule.
  - beamatronic 11y ago
    Imagine how long electric cars would last if the only part you really need to replace is the battery. Not to mention, you have a chance to decouple the parts that don't have or need a technical revolution ( the motors ) from the parts that do ( the battery ).
    - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
      In the abstract, one could believe that an electric car would be uncomplicated. But that doesn't seem to be true. For example a few days ago we discussed the BMW i3. Electric means simple? No. Someone in that discussion posted a link to a 40 min video of the i3 production line. I had no idea of how much effort was involved. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11532982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11532982 Yes, electric cars are inherently simpler than internal combustion vehicles. But they're still quite sophisticated, with quite a lot that can break or become obsolete. There's a whole like more than the battery that needs a "technical revolution". People have been embracing recent developments such as automatic crash braking and Apple CarPlay. It would be difficult to retrofit all the sensors needed for automatic braking and lane change warnings.
      - Joof 11y ago
        So we need modular cars that people can update every few years. Or crush them all and get new ones I guess...
    - csours 11y ago
      Fewer moving parts is not "no moving parts". Even non-moving parts move in automobiles - the whole thing moves; add vibration and heat stress, and there will probably never be a zero-repair vehicle (excepting heroic or shiny variants) One of the biggest problems with electric vehicles right now is resale value. If the battery did not degrade, resale value would be much much higher. If resale prices were higher, people would be more willing to lease and buy new electric vehicles, and then those vehicles would be available on the used car market, and available for hacker types to do interesting things with them [1] 1. http://cafeelectric.com/stretchla/ http://cafeelectric.com/stretchla/ ; http://www.autoblog.com/2016/04/19/classic-firebird-restomod-swallowed-prius/ http://www.autoblog.com/2016/04/19/classic-firebird-restomod...
  - elorant 11y ago
    What he/she probably means is that you don’t need a battery that lasts for decades in a device that would become obsolete in five years. It’s a waste of valuable resources, assuming that this battery would cost more to build.
    - jrapdx3 11y ago
      But in may cases the device becomes "obsolete" because its battery no holds adequate charge and is intentionally not replaceable. For example, that's certainly the case with Microsoft Surface Pro [1,2,3,etc.] computers as MS made it clear that the design life of the battery was about 3 years (and isn't user replaceable). That's absurd for a device with an initial cost of >$1500. If the battery lasted 20 times as long, I'm sure many such devices would be kept in service for much longer than 3 years, for many users there's no need to "upgrade" after so short an interval.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        >For example, that's certainly the case with Microsoft Surface Pro [1,2,3,etc.] computers as MS made it clear that the design life of the battery was about 3 years (and isn't user replaceable). That the "design life of the battery is about 3 years" and it isn't "user replaceable" doesn't mean the device become obsolete -- just that you need to go to a shop to have the battery replaced.
    - BeefySwain 11y ago
      5 years? More like 2.5
    - prodmerc 11y ago
      Wait, is no one considering that these batteries can be recycled? Apple or third parties can reuse them a lot of times provided that they share a form factor and there are no significant advances to capacity that would require throwing the old ones away... With all this talk about plastic bags in the other thread, I'm surprised people think no one wants an infinite battery in a device that will be obsolete in 5 years...
infogulch 11y ago
Really. This would also solve one of the biggest problems of battery-based grid scale storage. Li-ion batteries are one of the best solutions to storing renewable energy for use in off-peak periods in almost all metrics except longevity. The cost/benefit for grid-scale storage is over a time period of decades and hundreds of thousands of cycles, usually far longer than li-ion is expected to perform.
- awqrre 11y ago
  energy density is my biggest issue with Li-ion... even if it is probably one of the best...
  - awqrre 11y ago
    For example: it would be nice to charge your cellphone battery only once a month even if you need to replace the battery once a year
    - infogulch 11y ago
      The issue you have isn't with Li-ion -- it has one of the best volumetric energy densities of all commercially available technologies today. [0] Even experimental technologies don't promise more than 2x. No, your issue isn't with Li-ion, your issue is with physics. As long as power draw stays within an order of magnitude of current mobile devices (note: backlights and radios put a hard lower-bound on this, and devices are already approaching it asymptotically) your dream is not possible without some different technology altogether. One of those different technologies might be remote wireless charging. [0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Secondary_cell_energy_density.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Secondar...
bajsejohannes 11y ago
I'm not a chemist, but I have seen enough articles about revolutionary battery technology that I won't believe it until I see it.
- hobs 11y ago
  Dont worry, a new article on upcoming revolutions in fusion | nanotechnology | cancer | hiv | material science | ai | quantum computing will hopefully hold you over for another few hours until the next one.
smaddox 11y ago
The conclusion about Li-ion batteries is not supported by the paper. The paper tests the electrodes in a capacitor configuration, not a Li-ion battery configuration. Li-ion battery electrodes are damaged more by the swelling caused by Li-ion diffusion into and out of the electrode than they are by the electromagnetic forces between electrodes.
- jobu 11y ago
  It's hard to tell if the article is just confusing capacitors and batteries, or if the researchers consider using the coated nanowires in a capacitor configuration as a proof-of-concept for use in Li-Ion batteries. From the article: "All nanowire capacitors can be extended from 2000 to 8000 cycles to more than 100,000 cycles, simply by replacing a liquid electrolyte with a... gel electrolyte," the researchers wrote in their paper. The result: commercial batteries that could last a lifetime in computers, smartphones, appliances, cars and spacecraft.
- fencepost 11y ago
  My takeaway is that nanowires like this are applicable both in capacitors and in batteries; they've determined a way to make them much more durable in capacitors and if they can duplicate that within batteries then it's going turn out to be an even larger discovery than it already is. If they were actually working on this only for batteries, then presumably capacitors are simply a test methodology that allows them to test hundreds of thousands of cycles within a reasonable time period.
05 11y ago
Apple won't be using those unless they also have higher energy density than regular cells - they will make their devices thicker over Ive's dead body ;)
Xcelerate 11y ago
I do research in Li-ion battery anodes. High performance materials with exceptional charge capacity, cycling capability, safety, and cost are frequently discovered, but the materials almost never have all of those properties at once, and that is essential to getting a product to market. Most of the new materials with high charge capacity or good cycling performance are very exotic, and thus it is too difficult or expensive to mass produce them. In my opinion, hybrid Si/C anodes show the most promise as a material that would realistically be found in Li-ion batteries in the next decade. Nanowires/nanospheres do not seem as promising to me, unless we can find a way to cheaply produce them.
- bryondowd 11y ago
  How expensive is too expensive? If you can increase a battery's lifespan by 100x, certainly there would be applications for it even if the production cost was 50x that of current tech. You'd still be doubling your lifetime value, right?
  - nickff 11y ago
    Lifetime value also depends on the rest of the device. Many devices also become obsolete at about the same time their battery reaches the end of its life. If the battery lasts 10 or 100 times as long as the rest of the device, the effort expended to extend its life may have been wasted.
    - GreaterFool 11y ago
      Agree. My current battery in my Macbook Pro reports 85-88% health. That's a significant loss but my laptop is long overdue for an update (when Apple will finally get of their ass and make a new MBP). Stopping the battery deterioration is neat but if it isn't cheap, it wouldn't be worth it. I'd rather see extended capacity.
    - jimmcslim 11y ago
      Of course, if device manufacturers could be convinced to build devices around a small range of standard battery sizes, then maybe we could move to a Bring Your Own Battery model of powering our gadgets? Most consumers probably want a thinner device however...

by ngrilly 11y ago

pessimizer 11y ago

Removable batteries have been around for at least 75 years, so I assume that if there were an infinitely-lived battery, it still wouldn't be in an Apple device.

StavrosK 11y ago
I don't understand the logic in this. How does "we don't want a removable battery" imply "we don't want an infinitely-lived battery"?
- stephengillie 11y ago
  Planned obsolescence can be seen as a revenue stream to some.
  - jdietrich 11y ago
    It's not planned obsolescence. Batteries that require tools to replace are commonplace in phones and tablets, because they allow the device to be made smaller and stronger. Apple will replace an iPhone battery for $79; Independent repairers charge about half that. You can do it yourself with a screwdriver and a suction cup.
    - hyperbovine 11y ago
      I think the point is that nobody is going to want to use their current iPhone in 7.5 years, let alone 75. That is partly because people like shiny new things, but also because your current iPhone will lose iOS compatibility long before that time.
      - jdietrich 11y ago
        The iPhone 4s and iPad 2 are still getting updates, nearly five years on. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those devices are still plodding along in 2020, particularly iPads being used in PoS applications.
- pessimizer 11y ago
  Because there's no rationale for excluding either other than to limit the product's lifespan.
  - matt_kantor 11y ago
    Limiting the product's lifespan is one rationale, but to say that there are no others is a little unfair. Off the top of my head, these are all within the realm of possibility: - Easier/cheaper manufacturing process. - Increased structural stability. - Make the device smaller/thinner/lighter. - Apple is concerned that end users will screw something up, so they want their service staff to handle battery replacement. I'm sure the internal discussions that led non-user-replaceable batteries was more nuanced than "let's milk those suckers for all they're worth".
    - pessimizer 11y ago
      There will be a public rationalization for why they can't include an infinitely-lived battery, too. They'll probably say "power curve" somewhere. I can't imagine that an iPhone with a battery door would cost more than pennies more to manufacture. iPhones are fragile, and have always been; if they can charge you $79 for a new battery, they can charge you $79 to fix the battery door. Smaller/lighter/thinner? You're talking a razor-thin space savings that adds up to a major inconvenience for users. Users have been operating battery doors for a very long time without electrocuting themselves or losing fingers. They're about as dangerous as an SD slot. > I'm sure the internal discussions that led non-user-replaceable batteries was more nuanced than "let's milk those suckers for all they're worth". I'm sure Snidely Whiplash doesn't work there. That a decision both so profitable and user-hostile was made is neither an incidental part of a general striving for perfection, nor undiscussed.
      - jeffbush 11y ago
        I worked on the iPhone at Apple and sat in many meetings where the product design and electrical engineering leads would almost come to shouting matches over fractions of millimeters. The engineering was fascinating. Everything inside the phone wants to be away from everything else. For example, the radios have power amplifier chips that are hot spots and need to be kept away from the battery to avoid exceeding its thermal limits. The antennas need to be kept away from noisy chips that would affect their reception. There are external connectors and SIMs invading the case. Once that is all crammed in, they need to drop test the whole thing and hope it doesn't bend or shatter. It's really challenging to cram that much stuff into a constrained enclosure, and all of the layers add up. As I understand, a removable battery takes up a lot of area, because you need clearance below it and space for the mechanical fasteners. It also breaks up the pristine surfaces that are a big part of Apple's design language. The individual industrial design, product design, electrical, and RF design/antenna engineers responsible for each part aren't thinking about sales in two years. They want to make their piece as good as they can and hit the schedule.
- beamatronic 11y ago
  Imagine how long electric cars would last if the only part you really need to replace is the battery. Not to mention, you have a chance to decouple the parts that don't have or need a technical revolution ( the motors ) from the parts that do ( the battery ).
  - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
    In the abstract, one could believe that an electric car would be uncomplicated. But that doesn't seem to be true. For example a few days ago we discussed the BMW i3. Electric means simple? No. Someone in that discussion posted a link to a 40 min video of the i3 production line. I had no idea of how much effort was involved. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11532982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11532982 Yes, electric cars are inherently simpler than internal combustion vehicles. But they're still quite sophisticated, with quite a lot that can break or become obsolete. There's a whole like more than the battery that needs a "technical revolution". People have been embracing recent developments such as automatic crash braking and Apple CarPlay. It would be difficult to retrofit all the sensors needed for automatic braking and lane change warnings.
    - Joof 11y ago
      So we need modular cars that people can update every few years. Or crush them all and get new ones I guess...
  - csours 11y ago
    Fewer moving parts is not "no moving parts". Even non-moving parts move in automobiles - the whole thing moves; add vibration and heat stress, and there will probably never be a zero-repair vehicle (excepting heroic or shiny variants) One of the biggest problems with electric vehicles right now is resale value. If the battery did not degrade, resale value would be much much higher. If resale prices were higher, people would be more willing to lease and buy new electric vehicles, and then those vehicles would be available on the used car market, and available for hacker types to do interesting things with them [1] 1. http://cafeelectric.com/stretchla/ http://cafeelectric.com/stretchla/ ; http://www.autoblog.com/2016/04/19/classic-firebird-restomod-swallowed-prius/ http://www.autoblog.com/2016/04/19/classic-firebird-restomod...
- elorant 11y ago
  What he/she probably means is that you don’t need a battery that lasts for decades in a device that would become obsolete in five years. It’s a waste of valuable resources, assuming that this battery would cost more to build.
  - jrapdx3 11y ago
    But in may cases the device becomes "obsolete" because its battery no holds adequate charge and is intentionally not replaceable. For example, that's certainly the case with Microsoft Surface Pro [1,2,3,etc.] computers as MS made it clear that the design life of the battery was about 3 years (and isn't user replaceable). That's absurd for a device with an initial cost of >$1500. If the battery lasted 20 times as long, I'm sure many such devices would be kept in service for much longer than 3 years, for many users there's no need to "upgrade" after so short an interval.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >For example, that's certainly the case with Microsoft Surface Pro [1,2,3,etc.] computers as MS made it clear that the design life of the battery was about 3 years (and isn't user replaceable). That the "design life of the battery is about 3 years" and it isn't "user replaceable" doesn't mean the device become obsolete -- just that you need to go to a shop to have the battery replaced.
  - BeefySwain 11y ago
    5 years? More like 2.5
  - prodmerc 11y ago
    Wait, is no one considering that these batteries can be recycled? Apple or third parties can reuse them a lot of times provided that they share a form factor and there are no significant advances to capacity that would require throwing the old ones away... With all this talk about plastic bags in the other thread, I'm surprised people think no one wants an infinite battery in a device that will be obsolete in 5 years...

infogulch 11y ago

Really. This would also solve one of the biggest problems of battery-based grid scale storage. Li-ion batteries are one of the best solutions to storing renewable energy for use in off-peak periods in almost all metrics except longevity. The cost/benefit for grid-scale storage is over a time period of decades and hundreds of thousands of cycles, usually far longer than li-ion is expected to perform.

awqrre 11y ago
energy density is my biggest issue with Li-ion... even if it is probably one of the best...
- awqrre 11y ago
  For example: it would be nice to charge your cellphone battery only once a month even if you need to replace the battery once a year
  - infogulch 11y ago
    The issue you have isn't with Li-ion -- it has one of the best volumetric energy densities of all commercially available technologies today. [0] Even experimental technologies don't promise more than 2x. No, your issue isn't with Li-ion, your issue is with physics. As long as power draw stays within an order of magnitude of current mobile devices (note: backlights and radios put a hard lower-bound on this, and devices are already approaching it asymptotically) your dream is not possible without some different technology altogether. One of those different technologies might be remote wireless charging. [0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Secondary_cell_energy_density.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Secondar...

bajsejohannes 11y ago

I'm not a chemist, but I have seen enough articles about revolutionary battery technology that I won't believe it until I see it.

hobs 11y ago
Dont worry, a new article on upcoming revolutions in fusion | nanotechnology | cancer | hiv | material science | ai | quantum computing will hopefully hold you over for another few hours until the next one.

smaddox 11y ago

The conclusion about Li-ion batteries is not supported by the paper. The paper tests the electrodes in a capacitor configuration, not a Li-ion battery configuration. Li-ion battery electrodes are damaged more by the swelling caused by Li-ion diffusion into and out of the electrode than they are by the electromagnetic forces between electrodes.

jobu 11y ago
It's hard to tell if the article is just confusing capacitors and batteries, or if the researchers consider using the coated nanowires in a capacitor configuration as a proof-of-concept for use in Li-Ion batteries. From the article: "All nanowire capacitors can be extended from 2000 to 8000 cycles to more than 100,000 cycles, simply by replacing a liquid electrolyte with a... gel electrolyte," the researchers wrote in their paper. The result: commercial batteries that could last a lifetime in computers, smartphones, appliances, cars and spacecraft.
fencepost 11y ago
My takeaway is that nanowires like this are applicable both in capacitors and in batteries; they've determined a way to make them much more durable in capacitors and if they can duplicate that within batteries then it's going turn out to be an even larger discovery than it already is. If they were actually working on this only for batteries, then presumably capacitors are simply a test methodology that allows them to test hundreds of thousands of cycles within a reasonable time period.

05 11y ago

Apple won't be using those unless they also have higher energy density than regular cells - they will make their devices thicker over Ive's dead body ;)

Xcelerate 11y ago

I do research in Li-ion battery anodes. High performance materials with exceptional charge capacity, cycling capability, safety, and cost are frequently discovered, but the materials almost never have all of those properties at once, and that is essential to getting a product to market. Most of the new materials with high charge capacity or good cycling performance are very exotic, and thus it is too difficult or expensive to mass produce them. In my opinion, hybrid Si/C anodes show the most promise as a material that would realistically be found in Li-ion batteries in the next decade. Nanowires/nanospheres do not seem as promising to me, unless we can find a way to cheaply produce them.

bryondowd 11y ago
How expensive is too expensive? If you can increase a battery's lifespan by 100x, certainly there would be applications for it even if the production cost was 50x that of current tech. You'd still be doubling your lifetime value, right?
- nickff 11y ago
  Lifetime value also depends on the rest of the device. Many devices also become obsolete at about the same time their battery reaches the end of its life. If the battery lasts 10 or 100 times as long as the rest of the device, the effort expended to extend its life may have been wasted.
  - GreaterFool 11y ago
    Agree. My current battery in my Macbook Pro reports 85-88% health. That's a significant loss but my laptop is long overdue for an update (when Apple will finally get of their ass and make a new MBP). Stopping the battery deterioration is neat but if it isn't cheap, it wouldn't be worth it. I'd rather see extended capacity.
  - jimmcslim 11y ago
    Of course, if device manufacturers could be convinced to build devices around a small range of standard battery sizes, then maybe we could move to a Bring Your Own Battery model of powering our gadgets? Most consumers probably want a thinner device however...