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A man who invented lithium-ion battery at 57 has an idea for a new one at 92 (2015)
- baybal2 5y agoWhat a surname.
- astraloverflow 5y agoIt serves its purpose
- 1_player 5y agoIt taught them some humility.
- dmos62 5y agoIt's reassuring.
- dotancohen 5y agoI thought his surname was goodenough.
- tuatoru 5y ago(2015)
- tomohawk 5y agoUpdate from 2020. https://www.metaltechnews.com/story/2020/09/23/tech-metals/goodenough-to-change-batteries-again/338.html https://www.metaltechnews.com/story/2020/09/23/tech-metals/g... https://insideevs.com/news/436729/sk-innovation-develop-batteries-john-goodenough/ https://insideevs.com/news/436729/sk-innovation-develop-batt... Goodenough was awarded a Nobel, and the technology is being commercialized.
- abdel_nasser 5y agowith respect, this is horse shit. its not an innovation or discovery in cell chemistry. its yet another electrolyte additive that even in the estimation of these lofty articles only stands to slow dendrite growth -- something that does not on the face of it stand to increase energy density. its not something that will move the needle in any way, not now and most likely not ever.
- aliswe 5y agoto be fair it does seem to be good enough.
- anonuser123456 5y ago>only stands to slow dendrite growth I believe the electrolyte inflammable. If you slow dendrite growth by 1/2 and have an inflammable electrolyte, that's a huge accomplishment. A 10 year battery becomes a 20 year battery and doesn't burn your house down when something goes wrong.
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoThat doesn't seem to be the same tech being talked about in the original article...
- peter_d_sherman 5y ago>In short, the world needs a super-battery. Prediction: If for a given battery, rechargeable or otherwise, Lithium-Ion or otherwise, energy is drained via a pulsed DC (alternating) frequency (think LC coil) rather than direct DC, and if this frequency is switched at regular intervals (let's say at least once a second) -- then the battery should drain slower at a given current level -- than via direct DC (at the same current level) alone... Reason: Everything in the universe, including metals, including metal oxides, resonate at given (asymmetric, in the case of two or more different substances) frequencies. Electricity is what naturally seeks the balance between those things. But if you disrupt/interrupt the way Nature flows her electricity and keep doing this quickly, over a long period of time, you'll preserve (for a longer period) the asymmetry that allows the electricity to exist in the first place! I'll bet a 5% longer lifetime out of any battery could be realized -- by "switching it up" -- the frequency (using Pulsed DC) at which the device is drained, that is!
- snovv_crash 5y agoIt's actually the opposite. The IIR-type losses in the battery when using PWM are much higher than if you smooth the current out with an LC filter.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- vatys 5y agoDepending on the application and how far you want to discharge them, Li-ion batteries generally can transfer more charge when drained with DC. Each battery chemistry has different impedance curves. See the plot in the 2nd to last page of this PDF: https://www.omicron-lab.com/fileadmin/assets/Bode_100/ApplicationNotes/Battery_impedance/App_Note_Battery_Impedance_V2_0.pdf https://www.omicron-lab.com/fileadmin/assets/Bode_100/Applic... Higher impedance means more voltage drop will occur across the internal impedance of the cell while trying to pull current. For an equivalent average power, pulses will have to be higher current than a constant DC. If you pulse the battery, and it is at a low state of charge where the impedance is high, the battery voltage will effectively "droop" and your system may brown out. This means you have to shut down before you've been able to fully discharge. So pulsed power delivery does not necessarily improve efficiency.
- datene 5y agoThis article doesn't actually get into what the idea is. Instead, it explains the entire history of the world hoping you don't notice the idea is missing "Although Goodenough will not spell out his precise new idea, he thinks he is on to something."
- unbanned 5y agoConcluding that his existing design is good enough.
- nkingsy 5y agothat has to be some kind of hat tip from whomever is running the simulation.
- fexl 5y agoI got that impression too, but it does say "But the path he has chosen involves one of the toughest problems in battery science, which is how to make an anode out of pure lithium or sodium metal." I suppose that implies he's trying to make an anode out of pure lithium or sodium, but you never know with science journalism.
- kpetermeni 5y agoThis is likely the solid-state glass battery that he filed a patent for last year [0]. Oh, and he did win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019[1]. [0] https://thedriven.io/2020/04/06/li-ion-co-inventor-patents-glass-battery-that-could-upturn-auto-industry/ https://thedriven.io/2020/04/06/li-ion-co-inventor-patents-g... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Goodenough https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Goodenough
- swiftcoder 5y agoIf you named a character in a story "John B Goodenough", folks would think it was a little on the nose. Names are wild
- newsbinator 5y agoI recently went to a medical clinic in which there is a doctor named "Dr. Goodhealth". No idea if that was their original birth surname, but I wouldn't be surprised. Too on the nose for a serious novel.
- GuB-42 5y agoThere is a thing called "nominative determinism", that says that your name is more likely to match your occupation. And it looks like a real effect. It is controversial but there are peer reviewed studies that confirm the effect.
- jtbayly 5y agoIn one town I lived in were doctors Slaughter and Fix.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 5y agoIn Austin, TX there was recently a practicing urologist (he has since retired in the last two years or so) by the name of Richard Chopp.
- jaybrendansmith 5y agoI have a Chiropractor in my town named 'Dr. Bizzaro'
- DavidSJ 5y agoMy childhood dentists were Drs. Herzburg and Needleman.
- briffle 5y agoA former dentist was Payne. Call me Tom, he would say…
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mkl 5y agoDiscussion from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9003729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9003729 (88 comments) Followup from 2017: "Has lithium-battery genius John Goodenough done it again? Colleagues are skeptical" https://qz.com/929794/has-lithium-battery-genius-john-goodenough-done-it-again-colleagues-are-skeptical/ https://qz.com/929794/has-lithium-battery-genius-john-gooden..., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13916255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13916255 (154 comments) Another story about the same guy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14058696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14058696 (2017, 140 comments)
- melling 5y agoHe turns 100 next year. Imagine if Einstein, Hawking, Feynman, etc all lived to be 100.
- prof-dr-ir 5y agoThere are plenty of theoretical physicists who live to old age. As far as I can see, they all become increasingly irrelevant as they age. Scientific obscurity is all but guaranteed at around 80 years old, despite some people publishing until well after that age. It is quite a sad future that awaits.
- wesleywt 5y agoThe rest of us call it "retirement".
- revax 5y agoIt reminds me this SMBC comics https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21
- melling 5y agoI quite enjoy listening to Susskind, for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind People can remain inspirational and contribute well into old age https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
- the-dude 5y agoScience advances one funeral at a time. ( Max Planck ) https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/111818-science-advances-one-funeral-at-a-time https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/111818-science-advances-one...
- dotancohen 5y agoDoes not apply here. Goodenough is not holding back advances under the pretense of "can't be done". In fact, since maybe the time of the Manhattan Project, I'm hard pressed to think of a prominent scientist or physicist who has.
- nly 5y agoSo what is the latest promising battery tech in 2021? Are we going to see a decent factor density improvement over Lithium ion anytime soon?
- jacquesm 5y agoThere are many more factors at play here besides density (though that is one of the most important ones if not the most important one). Longevity, cycle time, fast charging, cost and so on are all important factors too. There are already battery chemistries that are ahead on some of these but afaik there isn't a clear winner yet for a new chemistry, but if it comes I would expect Lithium to be at least one of the ingredients, it is just too tempting a material property wise for this application.
- Tade0 5y agoCurrently most of the innovation happens in the most "boring" parts: - Recently LiFePO4 achieved energy densities on par with alternatives while retaining its long cycle life. - Sodium-ion is gaining momentum, but it's not meant to be particularly energy-dense - just cheaper and longer living. All this is working to reduce the cost per kWh - which will likely remain stable for the next few years because of high demand. Meanwhile solid state electrolyte batteries are still a long way from commercialization.
- cogman10 5y ago+1 I'd also say the 2 techs that are interesting less for their density aspect and more for longevity are flow batteries and liquid metal batteries. Both would solely be used for grid storage (Flow MIGHT be used for home storage). Flow batteries are interesting because they have an very long cycle life and their storage capacity is based on how big a holding tank you have (fill the tank, get more storage). They are less interesting because they require mechanical pumps to operate. Liquid metal batteries are interesting because of their cycle life and they are made out of pretty cheap materials. They are less interesting because they have very high operating temperature requirements.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- marcelnita 5y agoI think the li-ion battery is good enough for now.
- dotancohen 5y agoI hope that people are familiar enough with the inventor - or probably read the fine article - to get this.
- gandalfian 5y ago2015 artical? So presumably still his glass Battery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_battery
- rob_c 5y agoInteresting and I learned something, but wish the author didn't drift into unrelated topics as if they'd just discovered "science"...
- fexl 5y ago"When the battery is discharging ... positively charged ions shuttle from the anode to the cathode" I thought that electrons shuttle from the anode to the cathode.
- ok_dad 5y agoInside the battery positive ions move to equalize charge. Outside the battery, electrons cause a current in conductors.
- cmrdporcupine 5y agoAmazingly, John B Goodenough is still alive 6 years after this article, and is now 99 years old. "He became the oldest living Nobel Prize laureate on August 27, 2021, upon the death of Edmond H. Fischer." (WP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Goodenough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Goodenough)
- nunez 5y agoSurprised Tesla hasn't snatched him up (at least for consulting)