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"It’s easy to imagine that decades from now, the chemistry of batteries will have changed so much that they will use two, three, or four times less than today."
by jacknews 4y ago
"It’s easy to imagine that decades from now, the chemistry of batteries will have changed so much that they will use two, three, or four times less than today."
It's easy to imagine, but is it even possible? My understanding is that the lithium is the charge carrier, and while there is some room to improve efficiency, less lithium means less capacity.
OTOH, it's quite possible that, eg, sodium batteries become viable, and the whole debate becomes moot.
- Manuel_D 4y agoThis is correct. It's like saying do "in the future we'll have gasoline that contains 2, 3, or 4 times as much energy." Sure, different gasoline chemistries have different energy densities. But there's thermodynamic limits to it, unless you're switching to an entirely different chemistry. IIRC, we're already at ~40% the thermodynamic limits of lithium, so tripling or quadrupling are out of the question.
- consp 4y agoHow do lithium-sulfur batteries weight in on this? They have the (theoretical) 2-3 times the wh/kg capacity compared to li-ion.
- tuatoru 4y ago> is it even possible? I believe so. As I understand it, in current cell designs, only a fraction of the lithium leaves the anode. This limit is deliberately imposed to preserve the integrity of the physical structure of the anode. Increasing the deintercalation fraction (the percentage of lithium that moves in the electrolyte) is being actively researched. So are other cell types where the whole problem is avoided. And yes, lithium isn't the only possible choice.
- SigmundA 4y agoSee Lithium-Sulphur which has a theoretical limit of ~2500 wh/kg vs ~250 wh/kg of todays lithium batteries. So you're looking at up 10x improvement, if we can get to 1000 wh/kg that's your 4x. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium–sulfur_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium–sulfur_battery