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A virus could increase lithium batteries capacity by 10x
- sliverstorm 16y agoPerfect timing. I was only just discussing battery technology with some friends, who believe batteries cannot possibly grow to capacities larger than we have today on the basis of 'gee, they haven't grown as fast as other technology in the past 100 years' No faith in scientists, I tell you.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoBattery technology has different constraints than other technologies (such as cpu speed or memory capacity) but there's still a ton of headroom. There's at least a factor of 50 available between today's batteries and the energy density of gasoline (for example).
- raghava 16y agoI remember reading about betavoltaics a coupla years ago. http://www.newscientist.com/blog/invention/2007/07/betavoltiac-batteries.html http://www.newscientist.com/blog/invention/2007/07/betavolti... >>a factor of 50 Yes.
- ynniv 16y agoWhen making the comparison between batteries and gasoline, it is often useful to note that converting gasoline into mechanical energy is only about 35% efficient. This gives batteries a 3x operational advantage.
- anamax 16y ago> There's at least a factor of 50 available between today's batteries and the energy density of gasoline (for example). That difference doesn't imply that batteries can be improved at all, let alone by 50x. There are lots of differences between batteries and gasoline and some of them may limit the energy density of batteries to be less than that of gasoline. Even small differences matter. For example, diesel has significantly more energy per volume than gasoline. (I forget how the various alcohols rank.)
- samatman 16y agoLower than gasoline as a general rule. Once you get to butyl alcohol the differences start being minor.
- pierrefar 16y agoYou reminded of a sort-of related quote: When an expert says something is possible, they're almost certainly right and when an expert says something is impossible, they're almost certainly wrong.
- dcx 16y agoSo if you consult an expert, anything is almost certainly possible? ;-)
- wladimir 16y agoStill, it's true. Theoretical constraints that exist now might well be removed with new scientific insights. Trying to predict whether something is possible at all is useless given our limited understanding of things. If an expert says something is possible.. it probably will be developed soon. If an expect says something is not possible, it probably will be developed (far) further in the future.
- derefr 16y agoExcept if the expert in question is a physicist; rigorously determining exactly what is impossible, and why, is basically their job.
- albertzeyer 16y agoWell, yea, under the assumption that the current theory is complete and right. There are quite a few examples in history where great physicians have been wrong. Maybe todays physicians are more careful because of that but let's see how radical the view on our universe changes in the future.
- newman314 16y agophysicist = a scientist who studies or practices physics. physician = doctor.
- 16y ago
- redthrowaway 16y agoThe biggest winner of this, should it come to fruition, would seem to be electric vehicles. Electronic devices would surely prosper, but further miniaturization of smartphones doesn't really seem desirable, so it would go towards increased computational power and battery life. EVs, on the other hand, derive a double benefit: By shrinking the battery, you reduce weight, which increases range and efficiency, which reduces the requisite battery size, etc. The end product would be much cheaper and much more efficient. Having an economical EV that could get 1000 miles to a charge for the price of a Civic would be huge.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoBattery life in smartphones is rather marginal today. With light to moderate use it's still necessary to charge smartphones every day and there's no guarantee that your battery won't run out. Changing that equation such that average battery life is on the scale of weeks instead of a day or hours is quite significant, enabling people to use smartphones in new ways they would not have before. But yes, electric vehicles are definitely the most in need of higher energy density batteries.
- sliverstorm 16y agoahem My Nokia regularly goes a week without a charge with light usage. (I've heard tell the power management in the Symbian kernel far outstrips the competitors, which probably explains it.)
- barrkel 16y agoIt depends on how much or little the phone is doing, doesn't it. How much of that time is it connected to wifi? How much data transferred? How many background apps are you running? Do they use location services, orientation sensors, light sensors, etc.? What size is the screen, and what is its power output? Etc.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
- jcfrei 16y agoEvery now and then there's news about radically improving battery lifetime. I'm skeptical. Wouldn't the organic cell structure of the TMV decay over time?
- rflrob 16y agoWell, as a virus it doesn't have "cells" in the standard biology sense. The nanostructures might be vulnerable to decay, but since (I think) the relevant bits are the outer coat, I'd think they're pretty sturdy. I suspect the longevity is one of the easier barriers to commercialization.
- Symmetry 16y agoGiven that our current Lithium batteries decay over time, its not unreasonable to suspect that new ones based on this technology will too.
- lini 16y agoGiven that Li batteries are packing enough power now to be considered unsafe and "explosive" in some cases, imagine what would happen if their capacity was increased 10 times. I've started thinking conservatively about battery capacity - it's the chips and software we should redesign, not only the batteries.
- jules 16y agoWhat about cars?
- Cushman 16y agoIf batteries are considered unsafe and "explosive", how do we rate gasoline?
- eru 16y agoOutside the movies, it's quite hard to get an explosion with gasoline. Total energy density isn't the only factor. And that applies to batteries as well.
- Cushman 16y agoSure, we wouldn't be using gasoline if it weren't already pretty safe. I'm just saying, before we call something dangerous, we should remember what the alternatives are.
- jfoutz 16y agoIf batteries could be 10x more powerful, you don't necessarily need to spend all the gains on longer duration. There is a space weight and power budget. Some of that budget could be spent on containment, or even just smaller more spread out cells.
- catch23 16y agoI'm not sure that increasing battery capacity is correlated with more explosive activity. These guys are using using the virus to increase surface area but the amount of lithium polymer may still remain constant so I don't think it will be more dangerous than the current line of lithium battery products.
- jaekwon 16y agowow, i'm all for better batteries, but that's a lot of viral mass we're talking about. what are the potential consequences of producing tons of viral matter? are we already doing this? and on a related note, i wonder how much viral mass a human gets when he/she is sick from a nasty flu.
- StavrosK 16y agoI guess the batteries will come with a warning: Do not disassemble battery near tobacco plantations. Relevant question: To recharge them, will you have to feed them?
- jaekwon 16y agoWell it's not so much the assembled batteries, but rather the accidents / malice that can happen at the, er, plants.
- btilly 16y agoRelevant question: To recharge them, will you have to feed them? No. Viruses do not have any sort of metabolism. They drift until they get into an appropriate target cell, at which point they hijack it and make it make more viruses. Therefore they do not need feeding at the best of times. However in this case the viruses are being used as convenient particles that will stick to the electrode. We do not care about the health and well-being of the viruses at all.
- StavrosK 16y agoOh, true, I didn't realise they were viruses. Here's hoping we see a commercially viable implementation soon, then!
- JunkDNA 16y agoThere is a link in the article to a more detailed description of the process. Basically, the viruses are used as a structural component that is then coated with metal. They claim the viruses are inert after the process but don't elaborate. My guess is that either the act of coating the viruses damages them, or they intentionally irradiate them somehow to damage their genetic material. Obviously, production of large amounts of viruses in the wild would have to be tightly controlled. The problem with TMV is that you need to really grow the virus in a plant, you can't just grow a vat of the stuff in an industrial fermentation facility. TMV is used pretty regularly for research, so people do grow big quantities. Probably the biggest industrial virus production to date would be certain kinds of vaccine production. But those quantities are tiny compared with what you would need if everyone started using batteries like these.
- Quiark 16y agoThe one thing that popped in my mind when reading this was "poor viruses, they put electric charge on them". :) Now it's clear that a virus is so simple that it's not even clear if it can be considered alive, but what if something similar was devised with bacteria? Where would we draw an ethical line? :)
- stuff4ben 16y agoWhen it starts to defend itself against us. Of course it may be too late by then (for us I mean).
- pyre 16y agoBut then it would be the 'evil bacteria' that was attacking 'innocent humans.'
- TheSOB88 16y agoI guess your post is in jest, but I'll address its point. We subjugate all kinds of life without regard for the ethics. "Poor corn plants, they grow them in overpopulated conditions, only to eat them at the prime of their lives"
- chc 16y agoLife is just self-replication. I don't see why it's interesting in a moral sense — especially when we're talking about something that has nothing to do with self-replication. Anyway, we kill pigs, which are actually intelligent, so if you're looking to get worked up about something, bacteria in batteries seem like pretty odd candidates.
- arnemart 16y agoThere seems to be news about new and revolutionary battery technologies that will increase capacity N-fold every few weeks. I have more or less stopped reading about this, as none of the ideas ever seem to make it to the market. I prefer to be ignorant of emerging battery tech, and would rather be pleasantly surprised if anything of this actually turns into a product :-)
- Rhapso 16y agoYay! Looks cool! Now to wait 20 years for it to be implemented commercially.
- julian37 16y agoOriginal article: http://www.eng.umd.edu/media/release.php?id=71 http://www.eng.umd.edu/media/release.php?id=71 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8L-ur4masU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8L-ur4masU
- maeon3 16y agoAfter much deliberation from top management we have decided that the 10x lithium battery device must be brought in on-time and under budget. Sincerely, Thaddeus Plotz.
- bingaman 16y agoI can't be the only one that hates the word "automagically." I don't see anything magic - he's explaining it right there and "therefore" or something similar would have worked fine.
- nollidge 16y agoI don't hate the word necessarily, but I did find it jarring to read in a journalistic context.
- sjs 16y agoPeople seem to substitute it for "automatically" as they please, and I find it annoying as well. But I'm in the seemingly tiny minority that cringe when they see "begs the question" misused, "should of", etc. Most people don't seem to care about these things. "I know this seems like a semantic quibble, but words mean things." One of my favourite quotes, no idea where it's from.
- protomyth 16y agoSo, if the batteries have 10x the capacity, what is the charge time?
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoI thought electrode surface area related to recharge Time, not capacity? Its a current-density thing.