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Huh. Double the energy per kg of lithium. Potentially as good as gasoline. This would be a game-changer. And the article (if you can call a paragraph an articl

Huh. Double the energy per kg of lithium. Potentially as good as gasoline. This would be a game-changer. And the article (if you can call a paragraph an article) is about rechargable batteries.

nojvek 3y ago
Gasoline is 45MJ/kg. Lithium ion is ~0.5MJ/kg. Gasoline is ~100X energy dense compared to Li-ion batteries. It’s fundamentally very hard for batteries to come anywhere close to hydrocarbon fuels. One is pushing electrons around with anode/cathode, while hydrocarbon fuels are breaking the chemical bonds to release energy. Intense electron gradient is pretty hard to achieve per unit mass. Electrons love their protons.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  LiIon is 1MJ/kg? But yes, a wide margin. I see I was confusing Wh/kg with MJ/kg. Zinc-air could reach 5. Still down there.
jacquesm 3y ago
It would be. But like all other material science publications: paper is cheap and easy to manipulate, a lot can happen between the laboratory and the product shelf that impact those KPIs. The energy density is useless until factors such as packaging and thermal management are taken into account. Those can eat up any perceived advantage in hurry. So I'm not going to get excited until there is an actual product which may well be many years away. So there is nothing to 'move over' just yet.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Manufacturing tolerances are a significant factor in power density for the last two battery chemistries. And when manufacturers have gotten ahead of themselves, there have been lawsuits about laptop and cellphone fires. Big sloppy batteries have wider safety margins and uninspiring performance. The safety margins and avoiding toxicity in manufacturing can eat up gobs of the “potential” for a battery chemistry. For years or indefinitely.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Indeed, it's a gigantic set of requirements that result in compromises and the theoretical storage capacity of the bulk chemistry can give some indication of whether it is worth pursuing a particular technology but it certainly shouldn't be read as an exact number until the product is sitting on a shelf ready to be ordered.
    - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
      Yup that's why they show the 2X lithium-ion achieved? Instead of the 10X theoretical.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Let's see it. I'm going to always be skeptical of tech like this until it is proven even if the theory is solid. The road to the market is littered with the corpses of revolutionary battery technology ideas.
        hinkley 3y ago
        I think if you look down you’ll see the road is paved with them.

Huh. Double the energy per kg of lithium. Potentially as good as gasoline. This would be a game-changer. And the article (if you can call a paragraph an article) is about rechargable batteries.

nojvek 3y ago

Gasoline is 45MJ/kg. Lithium ion is ~0.5MJ/kg. Gasoline is ~100X energy dense compared to Li-ion batteries. It’s fundamentally very hard for batteries to come anywhere close to hydrocarbon fuels. One is pushing electrons around with anode/cathode, while hydrocarbon fuels are breaking the chemical bonds to release energy. Intense electron gradient is pretty hard to achieve per unit mass. Electrons love their protons.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
LiIon is 1MJ/kg? But yes, a wide margin. I see I was confusing Wh/kg with MJ/kg. Zinc-air could reach 5. Still down there.

jacquesm 3y ago

It would be. But like all other material science publications: paper is cheap and easy to manipulate, a lot can happen between the laboratory and the product shelf that impact those KPIs. The energy density is useless until factors such as packaging and thermal management are taken into account. Those can eat up any perceived advantage in hurry. So I'm not going to get excited until there is an actual product which may well be many years away. So there is nothing to 'move over' just yet.

hinkley 3y ago
Manufacturing tolerances are a significant factor in power density for the last two battery chemistries. And when manufacturers have gotten ahead of themselves, there have been lawsuits about laptop and cellphone fires. Big sloppy batteries have wider safety margins and uninspiring performance. The safety margins and avoiding toxicity in manufacturing can eat up gobs of the “potential” for a battery chemistry. For years or indefinitely.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Indeed, it's a gigantic set of requirements that result in compromises and the theoretical storage capacity of the bulk chemistry can give some indication of whether it is worth pursuing a particular technology but it certainly shouldn't be read as an exact number until the product is sitting on a shelf ready to be ordered.
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    Yup that's why they show the 2X lithium-ion achieved? Instead of the 10X theoretical.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Let's see it. I'm going to always be skeptical of tech like this until it is proven even if the theory is solid. The road to the market is littered with the corpses of revolutionary battery technology ideas.
      - hinkley 3y ago
        I think if you look down you’ll see the road is paved with them.