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The reason lithium is used for batteries is that it is an excellent anode the lightest metal. Lithium will always be used for batteries that need to be light.

by nsnick 9y ago

snowmaker 9y ago
Relevant article from 11 days ago on sodium battery development: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938642
- NicoJuicy 9y ago
  Comment from there: If price was the only factor that matters, we could be using nickel-metal-hydride batteries. They also last longer. + Lithium is safer as it seems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IT2I3LtlNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IT2I3LtlNE
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  Sodium is not fundamentally better material than lithium, though. It's just a bit more abundant (but lithium is very abundant and can be extracted from actual ocean water, though because of lithium's abundance, that will never be the cheapest way to get lithium). Lithium is the third lightest element and the lightest (regular) metal. Sodium is much heavier.
mrob 9y ago
True, but we can't be sure that no breakthrough in fuel cells or supercapacitors will make batteries obsolete.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  We can't be sure that there won't be a breakthrough that will make all our phones and cars run on adenosine triphosphate, like everything else on this planet. But right now we have to work with what we have, and whatever knowledge and experience we thus gain will likely be useful post-unexpected-breakthroughs anyway.
  - mrob 9y ago
    According to Wikipedia: ATP + H2O → AMP + PPi ΔG° = −45.6 kJ/mol (−10.9 kcal/mol) And at 507.18g/mol + 18g/mol for the water, that's only about 87J/g, which is worse than lithium ion batteries.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      In terms of energy density, maybe, but the magic of ATP is the whole process of creating it and the precision with which it is used to power things :).
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    ATP is not a storage medium. That's like withing to make cars run on electricity. Duh! Generating that electricity on demand is still the hard part.
- skrebbel 9y ago
  Yes we can, because "breakthroughs" don't happen over night. There's often at least a decade between the first lab result and wide industrialization of technologies like these. That means you can use today's lab results to predict the "breakthroughs" in 10 years. I'm no expert whatsoever but if there's no promising lab results currently for lighter batteries than lithium, then I doubt they'll be replaced any time soon.
fpoling 9y ago
Battery based on aluminium theoretically can have much better capacity than lithium both per volume and per weight. But it is much harder to make batteries from it. Still there were a progress of making non-rechargeable fuel cells based on aluminium. As aluminium is safer to handle even compared with gasoline, loading/unloading few bars of it from a car should not be a problem.

The reason lithium is used for batteries is that it is an excellent anode the lightest metal. Lithium will always be used for batteries that need to be light.

by nsnick 9y ago

The reason lithium is used for batteries is that it is an excellent anode the lightest metal. Lithium will always be used for batteries that need to be light.

snowmaker 9y ago

Relevant article from 11 days ago on sodium battery development: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938642

NicoJuicy 9y ago
Comment from there: If price was the only factor that matters, we could be using nickel-metal-hydride batteries. They also last longer. + Lithium is safer as it seems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IT2I3LtlNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IT2I3LtlNE
Robotbeat 9y ago
Sodium is not fundamentally better material than lithium, though. It's just a bit more abundant (but lithium is very abundant and can be extracted from actual ocean water, though because of lithium's abundance, that will never be the cheapest way to get lithium). Lithium is the third lightest element and the lightest (regular) metal. Sodium is much heavier.

mrob 9y ago

True, but we can't be sure that no breakthrough in fuel cells or supercapacitors will make batteries obsolete.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
We can't be sure that there won't be a breakthrough that will make all our phones and cars run on adenosine triphosphate, like everything else on this planet. But right now we have to work with what we have, and whatever knowledge and experience we thus gain will likely be useful post-unexpected-breakthroughs anyway.
- mrob 9y ago
  According to Wikipedia: ATP + H2O → AMP + PPi ΔG° = −45.6 kJ/mol (−10.9 kcal/mol) And at 507.18g/mol + 18g/mol for the water, that's only about 87J/g, which is worse than lithium ion batteries.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    In terms of energy density, maybe, but the magic of ATP is the whole process of creating it and the precision with which it is used to power things :).
- thriftwy 9y ago
  ATP is not a storage medium. That's like withing to make cars run on electricity. Duh! Generating that electricity on demand is still the hard part.
skrebbel 9y ago
Yes we can, because "breakthroughs" don't happen over night. There's often at least a decade between the first lab result and wide industrialization of technologies like these. That means you can use today's lab results to predict the "breakthroughs" in 10 years. I'm no expert whatsoever but if there's no promising lab results currently for lighter batteries than lithium, then I doubt they'll be replaced any time soon.

fpoling 9y ago

Battery based on aluminium theoretically can have much better capacity than lithium both per volume and per weight. But it is much harder to make batteries from it. Still there were a progress of making non-rechargeable fuel cells based on aluminium. As aluminium is safer to handle even compared with gasoline, loading/unloading few bars of it from a car should not be a problem.