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Full title: "Stabilization of gamma sulfur at room temperature to enable the use of carbonate electrolyte in Li-S batteries". The paper is from February, but i
by jbotz 4y ago
Full title: "Stabilization of gamma sulfur at room temperature to enable the use of carbonate electrolyte in Li-S batteries". The paper is from February, but it doesn't seem to have been posted before. TLDR is that with just a new anode made from carbon nanofibers and sulfur, batteries otherwise almost identical to existing Li-Ion batteries would have 2-5 times the energy density, last 3 times as long, and cost 1/3 or less, and be more environmentally benign (not needing cobalt). The breakthrough here is the discovery that carbon nanofibers stabilize gamma-phase sulfur which previously was thought to only exist briefly at high temperatures, and which doesn't form the polysulfides that have been the main problem with Li-S batteries.
Yeah, there have been lots of "breakthrough battery tech" announcements that didn't lead to commercial products, but this one really looks like it may be just the leap forward that will make renewable energy storage a non-problem.
- xoa 4y ago>Yeah, there have been lots of "breakthrough battery tech" announcements that didn't lead to commercial products Although very important to note in these discussions: a lot of them did. Yes, in mass production as as part of a whole battery system vs a single lab cell the gains are almost always far smaller, but small gains add up over time. Energy density has dramatically increased over the last few decades [0] as well as cost dropping and those trends together have combined to make the current electrification acceleration possible. There isn't any need to be overly cynical about this stuff, the progress is real and a tipping point was reached a while ago. With the amount of capital for R&D and production pouring in at this point it's not unreasonable to hope for even more. ---- 0: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years-away-no-batteries-are-improving-under-your-nose/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years...
- RivieraKid 4y ago> a lot of them did Really? I haven't noticed much progress over the last 5 to 10 years. What was the biggest breakthrough that has materialized in that time?
- xoa 4y ago>Really? I haven't noticed much progress over the last 5 to 10 years You don't call doubling to tripling of energy density progress? https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-ion-battery-cell-densities-have-almost-tripled-since-2010/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-io... And it's not about "big breakthroughs" any more than it is for microprocessors. A bunch of lab changes that in production add .5-5% each add up to 10-20% in a generation add up to 2-3x over a decade. That something works in a lab though is still interesting since it shows the possible ceiling we can work towards. Going from that to something that we can make billions of cheaply entails compromises, but the ultimate envelope still matters.
- multiplegeorges 4y agoJust like in finance, most (consumer/laymen) people are looking for a big win when it's been shown over and over that small gains compounded over time always come out ahead.
- magila 4y agoSo this got me curious and I started to look at something a bit more concrete: the history of 18650 cell capacity. Currently the highest capacity 18650 that's widely available is 3500 mAh. The first such cell I found is the LG MJ1 which dates back to 2014: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0481/9678/0183/files/lg_mj1_data_sheet.pdf https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0481/9678/0183/files/lg_mj... I also found a 3200 mAh model from 2012: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0481/9678/0183/files/panasonic_18650b_data_sheet.pdf https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0481/9678/0183/files/panas... That's a fair bit less than a 3x improvement over 10 years. Now of course this is a rather crude and unscientific measurement. It's also effectively measuring energy density by volume rather than weight, but volume is more often the limiting factor for Li-ion batteries (e.g. smartphones and EVs are volume limited). Still, I think this shows why people are skeptical about claimed massive improvements in battery tech: it's hard to find clear evidence of it in actual products people can buy.
- simonh 4y ago
- userbinator 4y agoEnergy density, yes; longevity, no. Obviously making batteries that last (much) longer would not be very profitable, especially to the companies who depend on forced obolescence.
- altcognito 4y agoThis applies less when selling B2B. Auto companies and power companies are GOING to shop based on reliability, and are GOING to notice when your stuff doesn't last as long as it should.
- userbinator 4y agoI'm referring to the battery companies, who won't bother to increase longevity beyond the bare minimum necessary to meet a specification. While I doubt something like the Phoebus Cartel exists for batteries, when they all have little incentive to make them last longer, you won't find much difference between them. Exceptions include military and aerospace where the costs are also many times higher.
- dzhiurgis 4y agoBattery cartel did exist tho
- thesmok 4y agoI think that in the super fast growing market you don't lose anything by making your product last longer. The demand would be larger than supply for a long time anyway. OTOH, it's good to get an edge over competition by offering a superior product.
- Eyght 4y agoYou can mitigate planned obsolescense with recurrent billing, like monthly fees.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- isoprophlex 4y agoEV batteries with 2-5 times the energy density would completely change the game. Imagine a car with a 900 - 2300 km range on a single charge. The cost savings would immediately solve the business case around renewable energy storage, too.
- wffurr 4y agoAviation too would benefit enormously from this.
- jillesvangurp 4y agoYes a 3x increase would be transformative for general aviation. A lot cheaper to operate. Similar range. Probably will start happening in the next five years. Current models are a bit limited for range. But that should be a solvable problem.
- GordonS 4y agoOr even EVs capable of 500km, but weighing a tonne less than they do today. If this turns out to have the purported benefits at commercial scale, it could have an immense impact on our future!
- altcognito 4y agoIt is definitely the weight loss and reduction and materials that would make this a big deal. Imagine cutting the cost of the vehicle by 20-30%. Would be massive.
- rootusrootus 4y ago> Or even EVs capable of 500km, but weighing a tonne less than they do today. That's not too realistic, a Model 3 battery only weighs half a ton to begin with. So perhaps we could cut the curb weight of the car by 15-20%. I wouldn't complain, but it's not world changing.
- foepys 4y agoHonestly, I'd rather have EV under 2 tonnes than 2,000km range...
- rsfern 4y agoI’m curious if they set out to stabilize this particular sulfur allotrope, or if they had more of a serendipitous “hmmm… that’s weird” data analysis moment. It’s really interesting because there could be so many ways to stabilize interesting new phases that conventional high throughput theoretical screening isn’t going to predict
- jbotz 4y agoApparently it was serendipitous. They were just hoping the carbon fibers would slow down the polysulphite formation, and were surprised when they found stable gamma sulfur[1]. [1] https://www.freethink.com/environment/lithium-sulfur-battery https://www.freethink.com/environment/lithium-sulfur-battery
- turbinerneiter 4y ago> that will make renewable energy storage a non-problem I recently played around with the data from Germany 2020. I scaled up the existing renewables (only the ones that are scalable - wind and solar, hydro is pretty much maxed out) so that the yearly consumption can be served from 100% renewables. Then I added a battery to carry the overproduction over to the gaps. A 3 TWh battery would still lead to 50 days of empty battery and thus gaps in the power supply. This is electricity, not Transport and heating. And obviously my approach is simple, no sector coupling effects, no smart grid just scaling up want we have. 3 TWh is 30 million Model S batteries. Even with sodium ion batteries I think this is not really realistic. I always wondered why the are talking about hydrogen so much, despite the much higher losses you get in that process. Now I get it. I think batteries will be a good solution for single family homes / buildings with solar panel. But the grunt of the grid storage I think will be hydrogen. Especially because during winter, it can produce heat and electricity and the same gas turbines that are already common in German cities. Either way, it's a big, hard project, but doable if we really want to.
- brianwawok 4y agoGrid storage is different from powering EVs though. You don’t provide a week of grid backup via battery. You do stuff like pump 100 million gallons of water into a dam with a hydro plant ready. I think water is more efficient then hydrogen even.
- DanHulton 4y agoSure, but it's very dependant on geography, if you want to do it at scale. We're definitely going to have to adopt a mixed approach, so I'd say it still makes sense to keep the research into hydrogen, batteries, all of it.
- maxerickson 4y agoThat's 3 minutes of maximum generation at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power... I guess that plant doesn't have an extreme amount of head or a particularly large reservoir. It's about 7 minutes at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta... , which has a lot more head. So you need a lot more pumped storage if you want to start talking about days of backup, and we already used quite a few of the best sites.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoThe only real reneweable energy storage problem is that we've not built enough generation to really need any storage yet. And so we're shovelling money to authoritarian regimes around the globe which they use to buy politicians and media. Luckily the EV market alone is enough to drive battery tech for short term storage forward, and green hydrogen for fertilizer is enough to take care of the rest. But, there's no need to wait, we should be a decade ahead on this at least if not for well funded lies holding us back.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoWhat fertilizer is made out of Hydrogen??
- becurious 4y agoAmmonia is currently produced from methane.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoTo be precise, it's made from hydrogen and the current standard hydrogen is in turn made from methane (and the rest of the methane is dumped into the atmosphere as fossil CO2).
- MobiusHorizons 4y agoWhile accurate in a technical chemical feasibility sense, it is misleading to suggest that ammonia is industrially produced from hydrogen. Existing facilities take in methane and output ammonia and CO2. It is true that the chemical reaction used to make ammonia takes hydrogen and not methane, but that fact in isolation ignores a lot of existing infrastructure. Existing ammonia producing plants do the conversion from methane to hydrogen in the same facility that produces the ammonia, making the hydrogen essentially an implementation detail. There are other ways of producing hydrogen industrially, but it is incorrect to think about the hydrogen generating system in isolation when considering existing infrastructure. Hopefully in the future new plants will be built with green hydrogen in mind.
- zardo 4y agoGiven that the breakthrough is getting this stable sulfur phase at room temperature that previously wasn't stable below 93C, I'd like to see how well they survive cold temperatures.
- lonk11 4y ago"TLDR is that with just a new anode made from carbon nanofibers and sulfur" The new material they discuss is for the cathode side (not anode). That's side where the lithium ions go when the battery is charged. The cathode of traditional Li-ion batteries is made of metal oxides: Cobalt, Nickel, Manganese (lately trying to get rid of the expensive Cobalt). The sulfur cathode promises to remove all of the expensive metals in the cathode and make the cathode much more energy dense. The anode is where the lithium ions go when the battery is being discharged. In traditional batteries the anode is made of carbon fibers (burnt coconut shells). The holy grail of anode is pure lithium anode - there is nothing more energy dense. But the problem with pure lithium is that it tends to get deposited not in an even layer, but in the form of dendrites that eventually poke through the dielectric separator creating a short. In this work they explored lithium anode, but as I understand that was not the main focus. I don't think they solved the dendrites formation problem.
- wolfi1 4y agowasn't that the problem of the Na-S batteries as well? that could mean Na-S systems will be viable as well (Na is very easy and cheap to source)