6 ms·

Precious little detail on the batteries themselves. As with all solid state batteries, power is the Achilles heel. I'm skeptical this battery can make provide

Precious little detail on the batteries themselves. As with all solid state batteries, power is the Achilles heel. I'm skeptical this battery can make provide the 1+ C a car needs to run on the highway, but it's possible it may in the future. According to [1], the specific energy is ~300 Wh/kg- the best li ion cells are ~275 Wh/kg, but only barely. When the OP article refers to 2-3x capacity improvements (2x on the website), it refers to energy density, or Wh per liter. That's not really considered an important metric except for phones. Unfortunately, the battery has to be over 150 Celcius for the solid electrolyte to work, so don't expect better phone batteries any time soon. The way this would work is that cars would have a small conventional battery of ~15-30 kWh that could supply acceleration power and preheat the solid state battery. The larger battery would just back it up on long trips. How attractive this is depends 100% on how much power they can crank in the battery, since it isn't that much bigger than a normal battery. Lots of people think solid state batteries will eventually replace liquid electrolytes, but it's effectively anyone's guess. We've had a lot of trouble finding high-power solid electrolytes for a looong time. The main benefits are safety related right now. The basic reason is that conventional cathodes are highly oxidizing, so when a liquid electrolyte gets too hot it steals that oxygen and breaks down, causing a runaway reaction. Solid electrolytes and metallic cathodes don't have extra potential energy, so when there's damage to the cell like a short or overtemperature it simply burns itself out. The solid electrolyte is also far more stable and isn't very subject to breakdown from overtemperature or overvoltage. [1]: https://qz.com/1383884/a-startup-promising-an-all-solid-state-rechargeable-battery-has-raised-20-million/ https://qz.com/1383884/a-startup-promising-an-all-solid-stat...

CarVac 8y ago
From your link: >But the battery only functions properly at temperatures above room temperature and up to 150°C It doesn't have to be over 150 Celsius, it has to be over room temperature.
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  ... and it can't be 'cold' like it would be in a car in winter pretty much anywhere?
  - termie 8y ago
    Perhaps the solid cells could be warmed up via some cheap coils powered by some bootstrapping liquid cells?
  - heisenbergs 8y ago
    i believe that's the case with current batteries too. Car batteries, such as Tesla's, require both heating and cooling elements to keep them in an acceptable temperature range. Unsure what the exact temperature range is, but my guess is it's not too far off of those ranges. Interesting fact: Tesla achieves their ludicrous mode (2.3 seconds 0-100kph) by pre-heating their batteries so that more power can be drawn. During my test drive, it took an estimated 40 minutes to heat the batteries to do this...
    - ianai 8y ago
      Do capacitors have the same problem? I know they’d take longer to charge than discharge, but I don’t know temperature requirements.
      - Baeocystin 8y ago
        Capacitors are blindingly fast in both charging and discharging compared to chemical batteries, and are much less susceptible to thermal variance in performance to boot. Their downsides are greater mechanical fragility, greater self-discharge, and comparatively terrible energy density.
      - snarfy 8y ago
        I believe it would depend on the type of capacitor. A metal foil capacitor would have no problem, but an electrolytic might. The rate for capacitors is so much larger than batteries I doubt it's actually a problem.
  - Robotbeat 8y ago
    So like a diesel, it may need a heater circuit.
  - 8y ago
jadbox 8y ago
You seem to know a lot about batteries... do you know of anything promising to improving cell phone batteries in maybe the next year or three?
- saudioger 8y ago
  microwave charging
  - ddnb 8y ago
    Going to try it right now, thanks!
fulafel 8y ago
I gather "1+ C" is "power capability" as explained at https://learn.adafruit.com/all-about-batteries/power-capacity-and-power-capability https://learn.adafruit.com/all-about-batteries/power-capacit... ? With current batteries, there are just many tiny 18650 cells connected in parallel / series to get the desired power and voltage, right? Are you saying there are some unstated engineering limitations that would hinder getting to the desired "C" by connecting more battery cells in parallel?
- magnat 8y ago
  > Are you saying there are some unstated engineering limitations that would hinder getting to the desired "C" by connecting more battery cells in parallel? When connected in parallel, each cell has to discharge at same rate within a small margin. That means you have to match cells by capacity and internal resistance during manufacturing process. The more cells you put in parallel, the more chance some of them will age differently and cause whole battery to underperform or fail spectacularly.
  - gdy 8y ago
    Could you elaborate why would that affect the battery as a whole? And why the batteries have to discharge at the same rate in the first place?
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      Because the load is spread equally if there is a difference in the capacity / internal resistance of the battery it can cause a higher load on it than it can safely discharge at that moment. That said this is a problem with all batteries which is solved trough rebalancing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_balancing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_balancing Without this we wouldn’t ba able to make battery packs with 100s not to mention 1000s of cells and even smaller battery packs would die much much sooner. A good analogy would be if you have a boat with multiple people rowing and one of them can’t hold the same pace if you don’t adjust for it you aren’t going to hold course and if you don’t let the man catch a break they’ll pass completely eventually.
DickVanDyke 8y ago
I hope you see this, or if anyone can answer I'd appreciate it. Where does one go to research battery technology? What are the reputable journals? What is the discipline that is primarily motivated with researching battery technology? Thanks!
- WilliamEdward 8y ago
  To answer your last question, chemical or electrical engineering mainly, but chemistry, physics, and material engineering are all involved as well. There's no specific "battery tech" major, you can dive in with any partially related background.

CarVac 8y ago

From your link: >But the battery only functions properly at temperatures above room temperature and up to 150°C It doesn't have to be over 150 Celsius, it has to be over room temperature.

ChuckMcM 8y ago
... and it can't be 'cold' like it would be in a car in winter pretty much anywhere?
- termie 8y ago
  Perhaps the solid cells could be warmed up via some cheap coils powered by some bootstrapping liquid cells?
- heisenbergs 8y ago
  i believe that's the case with current batteries too. Car batteries, such as Tesla's, require both heating and cooling elements to keep them in an acceptable temperature range. Unsure what the exact temperature range is, but my guess is it's not too far off of those ranges. Interesting fact: Tesla achieves their ludicrous mode (2.3 seconds 0-100kph) by pre-heating their batteries so that more power can be drawn. During my test drive, it took an estimated 40 minutes to heat the batteries to do this...
  - ianai 8y ago
    Do capacitors have the same problem? I know they’d take longer to charge than discharge, but I don’t know temperature requirements.
    - Baeocystin 8y ago
      Capacitors are blindingly fast in both charging and discharging compared to chemical batteries, and are much less susceptible to thermal variance in performance to boot. Their downsides are greater mechanical fragility, greater self-discharge, and comparatively terrible energy density.
    - snarfy 8y ago
      I believe it would depend on the type of capacitor. A metal foil capacitor would have no problem, but an electrolytic might. The rate for capacitors is so much larger than batteries I doubt it's actually a problem.
- Robotbeat 8y ago
  So like a diesel, it may need a heater circuit.
- 8y ago

jadbox 8y ago

You seem to know a lot about batteries... do you know of anything promising to improving cell phone batteries in maybe the next year or three?

saudioger 8y ago
microwave charging
- ddnb 8y ago
  Going to try it right now, thanks!

fulafel 8y ago

I gather "1+ C" is "power capability" as explained at https://learn.adafruit.com/all-about-batteries/power-capacity-and-power-capability https://learn.adafruit.com/all-about-batteries/power-capacit... ? With current batteries, there are just many tiny 18650 cells connected in parallel / series to get the desired power and voltage, right? Are you saying there are some unstated engineering limitations that would hinder getting to the desired "C" by connecting more battery cells in parallel?

magnat 8y ago
> Are you saying there are some unstated engineering limitations that would hinder getting to the desired "C" by connecting more battery cells in parallel? When connected in parallel, each cell has to discharge at same rate within a small margin. That means you have to match cells by capacity and internal resistance during manufacturing process. The more cells you put in parallel, the more chance some of them will age differently and cause whole battery to underperform or fail spectacularly.
- gdy 8y ago
  Could you elaborate why would that affect the battery as a whole? And why the batteries have to discharge at the same rate in the first place?
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Because the load is spread equally if there is a difference in the capacity / internal resistance of the battery it can cause a higher load on it than it can safely discharge at that moment. That said this is a problem with all batteries which is solved trough rebalancing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_balancing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_balancing Without this we wouldn’t ba able to make battery packs with 100s not to mention 1000s of cells and even smaller battery packs would die much much sooner. A good analogy would be if you have a boat with multiple people rowing and one of them can’t hold the same pace if you don’t adjust for it you aren’t going to hold course and if you don’t let the man catch a break they’ll pass completely eventually.

DickVanDyke 8y ago

I hope you see this, or if anyone can answer I'd appreciate it. Where does one go to research battery technology? What are the reputable journals? What is the discipline that is primarily motivated with researching battery technology? Thanks!

WilliamEdward 8y ago
To answer your last question, chemical or electrical engineering mainly, but chemistry, physics, and material engineering are all involved as well. There's no specific "battery tech" major, you can dive in with any partially related background.