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Presumably that should be read: Better than previous “massless battery’s”. “... produced a structural battery that performs ten times better than all previ

Presumably that should be read: Better than previous “massless battery’s”. “... produced a structural battery that performs ten times better than all previous versions”

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
I recommend people read the article, it actually has some information. More info: "The battery has an energy density of 24 Wh/kg, meaning approximately 20 percent capacity compared to comparable lithium-ion batteries currently available. But since the weight of the vehicles can be greatly reduced, less energy will be required to drive an electric car, for example" "the researchers did not choose the materials to try and break records – rather, they wanted to investigate and understand the effects of material architecture and separator thickness." - this implies there may be a lot of room for improvement with this design.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  then the question becomes how are they solving for the increased heat.
  - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    In increased surface area-to-mass ratio would probably make this easier.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      Which makes it heavier no?
      - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        No. A rectangular block of a typical battery has a much lower surface area-to-mass ratio than a tube, even if their weights are the same. It's why cooling fins on a CPU are long and skinny. Such length and skinniness makes heat dissipation much easier.
        ThomPete 6y ago
        But if the energy density is higher wouldn't you need more material to cool down the area?
m463 6y ago
Add a qualifier and you can claim almost anything! The Fastest Sports car! [1] [1] with a 3.2-liter horizontally opposed flat 6-cylinder engine
- rzwitserloot 6y ago
  Indeed. From the perspective of battery chemistry technology this paper is utterly unremarkable. But then that's not what it is about. The breakthrough is (oversimplifying here) that they invented a way to whack a bog-standard smartphone battery into the middle of a bunch of layers of building material, such that about 20% of the weight of the end product is battery, whilst the material is still strong enough to not cause a Samsung Galaxy Note style oopsie when structurally compromised, and to be strong enough to build with, and to have some of the mass of the battery improve the structural integrity of the whole, even. The idea being: Take your tesla. Take the batteries out. Smash em to paste. Remove ~20% of the atoms from the chassis materials and replace them with your paste. Voila - made your car 20% lighter.
  - m463 6y ago
    btw, tesla is already doing that in production now. They have a new structural battery, although no carbon fiber yet. I think there might be lots more low hanging fruit, their cars weigh quite a bit.

Presumably that should be read: Better than previous “massless battery’s”. “... produced a structural battery that performs ten times better than all previous versions”

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago

I recommend people read the article, it actually has some information. More info: "The battery has an energy density of 24 Wh/kg, meaning approximately 20 percent capacity compared to comparable lithium-ion batteries currently available. But since the weight of the vehicles can be greatly reduced, less energy will be required to drive an electric car, for example" "the researchers did not choose the materials to try and break records – rather, they wanted to investigate and understand the effects of material architecture and separator thickness." - this implies there may be a lot of room for improvement with this design.

ThomPete 6y ago
then the question becomes how are they solving for the increased heat.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
  In increased surface area-to-mass ratio would probably make this easier.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    Which makes it heavier no?
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      No. A rectangular block of a typical battery has a much lower surface area-to-mass ratio than a tube, even if their weights are the same. It's why cooling fins on a CPU are long and skinny. Such length and skinniness makes heat dissipation much easier.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        But if the energy density is higher wouldn't you need more material to cool down the area?

m463 6y ago

Add a qualifier and you can claim almost anything! The Fastest Sports car! [1] [1] with a 3.2-liter horizontally opposed flat 6-cylinder engine

rzwitserloot 6y ago
Indeed. From the perspective of battery chemistry technology this paper is utterly unremarkable. But then that's not what it is about. The breakthrough is (oversimplifying here) that they invented a way to whack a bog-standard smartphone battery into the middle of a bunch of layers of building material, such that about 20% of the weight of the end product is battery, whilst the material is still strong enough to not cause a Samsung Galaxy Note style oopsie when structurally compromised, and to be strong enough to build with, and to have some of the mass of the battery improve the structural integrity of the whole, even. The idea being: Take your tesla. Take the batteries out. Smash em to paste. Remove ~20% of the atoms from the chassis materials and replace them with your paste. Voila - made your car 20% lighter.
- m463 6y ago
  btw, tesla is already doing that in production now. They have a new structural battery, although no carbon fiber yet. I think there might be lots more low hanging fruit, their cars weigh quite a bit.