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TDK claims solid state battery breakthrough
- csours 2y ago> I will believe in Solid State batteries when iPhones come with them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681778
- alphabetting 2y agohttps://archive.is/wQw2X https://archive.is/wQw2X
- gnabgib 2y ago"Apple supplier" doesn't seem like a fair description of a company founded in 1935, with a billboard in Piccadilly Circus for 25 years [0], a billboard in Times Square since 2000 [1], and a famous maker of cassettes, minidisc, VHS, CD, DVD, Blu-ray. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TDK#Sponsorship_and_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TDK#Sponsorship_and_advertisin... [1]: https://www.tdk.com/en/news_center/press/aah33300.html https://www.tdk.com/en/news_center/press/aah33300.html
- dingaling 2y agoThey are a well-established company, but few people will have directly engaged with them outside supplier logistic chains. At least not in the past decade. Looking at their product directory, it's all B2B https://product.tdk.com/en/index.html https://product.tdk.com/en/index.html
- Lio 2y agoFor me, TDK will always be synonymous the very best cassette tapes from my youth.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoYeah, I counted myself lucky if I could get them, or Maxwell.
- ksec 2y ago"Apple supplier" is a great way to get people clicking on it. It also raise the level of the company for those too young to remember TDK.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoAlso very big in professional studio recording equipment back in the day
- consumer451 2y ago> The new material provides an energy density — the amount that can be squeezed into a given space — of 1,000 watt-hours per litre, which is about 100 times greater than TDK’s current battery in mass production. > The battery technology is designed to be used in smaller-sized cells, replacing existing coin-shaped batteries found in watches and other small electronics. > The ceramic material used by TDK means that larger-sized batteries would be more fragile, meaning the technical challenge of making batteries for cars or even smartphones will not be surmounted in the foreseeable future, according to the company. Still extremely interesting.
- ChrisGranger 2y agoI wonder if this scales up, to batteries much larger than a coin cell replacement.
- iszomer 2y agoI would be content if this became a drop-in replacement for the cmos/bios battery or an enhanced suspension/hibernation feature.
- alt227 2y agoThey specifically say in the article that it cannot be scaled up.
- ChrisGranger 2y agoWhen I commented, the URL was a link to the press release. It was changed to the Ars Technica article later. Good to know.
- ExoticPearTree 2y agoI really wish any of these companies creating super batteries that have a lot of capacity to actually market them. A laptop/phone that needs to be recharged every few weeks… heaven.
- Youden 2y agoThis isn't nearly ready for phones or laptops. Its nominal characteristics are 1.5V, 100µAh capacity, 20µA discharge: https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/download/2427688/a88e3aeab8be00d00fce586b0efec694/06-dl-ceracharge-presentation.pdf https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/download/2427688/a88e3ae... They market it for use-cases like RTC backup batteries and solar powered BLE beacons.
- yetihehe 2y ago> approximately 100 times greater than the energy density of TDK’s conventional solid-state battery. So, not 100 times greater than lion, but 2-4x (250–693 W⋅h/L [0]) is a lot. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery
- huijzer 2y agoCATL also announced 500 Wh/kg batteries [1] (but I haven't found real shipments yet). [1]: https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html
- everdrive 2y agoThis is one of the reasons why I'm not very optimistic for environmentalism. People's needs and wants are sort of like gasses: they expand to fill the space they're in. More efficient engines in cars often just mean they're a tiny bit more efficient and significantly faster than they actually need to be. (rather than significantly more efficient and relatively slow) Modern computers are incredibly fast, but we just keep making webpages heavier, and operating systems heavier. So although many modern computers are quite efficient when considering speed to power consumption, they could use significantly less power, except for the fact that people are always chasing the next thing. We eat up our new efficiencies the moment we invent them.
- andrewstuart 2y agoIf there was a quantum leap in batteries it would revolutionize the world.
- ck2 2y agohttps://m.xkcd.com/678/ https://m.xkcd.com/678/
- shermantanktop 2y agoRelease the HN battery naysayers in 3…2…1… For good reason, I think. I imagine the plight of a poor tech reporter. The upside of real advances in battery tech are huge, so a scoop would get a lot of clicks. But in the absence of step-change inventions, we have incremental improvements in boring areas like “recharge cycles” which make terrible news articles. So our intrepid tech reporter must ignore all that real but unsexy stuff. There is a source of zingy articles though: pr releases about unproven tech which are likely meant to pump up investment activity.
- vikramkr 2y agoThey're saying an energy density of 1000 wh/l, not saying per kg in the headline. Looking it up, the 1000 wh/l seems to be a bit above what a bunch of random internet sources say lithium batteries do on average (300-700 wh/l). So, might be a step change in solid state (compared to their old version) but not sure how it stacks up in the bigger scheme of things. They aren't promising world changing impacts either, just better batteries for wearables and stuff. Will be interesting to see how they commercialize it for sure.
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- akasakahakada 2y agoIf this thing can put into mass production, what is the excuse to not generate electricity only by solar panels?
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- _joel 2y agoThe sun doesn't always shine.
- akasakahakada 2y agoSure, but 40 billion years later.
- loudmax 2y ago> TDK Corporation successfully developed a material for CeraCharge, a next-generation solid-state battery with an energy density of 1,000 Wh/L, approximately 100 times greater than the energy density of TDK’s conventional solid-state battery. So, that energy density is 100 times greater than whatever TDK's previous solid-state battery was, not necessarily 100 times other battery technologies. Also, note that they're measuring the density in Wh/L, or Watt-hours per Liter. That is, they're measuring energy density by volume, not by weight. According to my Perplexity search, lithium-ion batteries have a "volumetric energy density ranging from 250 to 680 Wh/L". So these TDK solid state batteries will have maybe twice that energy density by volume. That press release doesn't say anything about the weight of these batteries, which is probably why they're not proposing these for vehicles. If these were lighter than lithium-ion batteries, electric car makers would be all over them, looking for ways to get volume production up to lower costs. The fact that they don't mention the energy density by mass suggests that they're no better than lithium-ion. So this is neat development, if not a major tectonic shift. The use cases TDK proposes, wireless earphones, hearing aids and smartwatches, are applications where size is a more important consideration than weight (below a certain threshold). Good for them! And if TDK can manufacture these cheaply and reliably, I'm sure engineers will come up with other clever uses for this technology. EDIT: Hearing aids were the first electronic products with transistors, so that is a historically auspicious precedent. Asianometry did a video on transistors in hearing aids here: https://youtu.be/3ykz4JAO91g https://youtu.be/3ykz4JAO91g
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- gorkish 2y agoFrom the available information I estimate they are about 2x the theoretical maximum energy density of lithium ion chemistry or about 4x better than current state of the art lithium ion batteries in mass production. The theoretical ceiling of chemical batteries overall is about 25x higher still, especially when you start including air-breathing chemistries, so their claims are not out of line with what should be possible.
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- Carrok 2y agoFor coin sized batteries only. > The ceramic material used by TDK means that larger-sized batteries would be more fragile, meaning the technical challenge of making batteries for cars or even smartphones will not be surmounted in the foreseeable future, according to the company.
- practicemaths 2y agoBattery technology starts at the cell. It's far easier to build a small cell and test it's chemistry than it is to build a large (in comparison) battery.
- perilunar 2y agoIndeed. A battery is a battery of cells.
- nsxwolf 2y agoYour original Legend of Zelda saves could last 300-400 years with this battery.
- Qwertious 2y agoThat's longer than an SSD can last.
- RicoElectrico 2y agoSRAM however won't be affected by electrons escaping from the floating gate as in Flash. It's two inverters back-to-back.
- tromp 2y agoIt's usually 6 transistors, 4 of which form 2 cross-coupled inverters [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_random-access_memory#Design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_random-access_memory#De...
- macintux 2y agoDuplicate: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40701402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40701402 (3 comments) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40703316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40703316 (19 comments)
- chrisbrandow 2y agoThis is very cool. Being able to produce commercial solid state batteries of any macroscopic size at commercial scale gives me hope that this tech will not remain vaporware. Even just increasing size a few percent per year would be transformative in a decade or two.
- chrisbrandow 2y agoThat being said, I’m looking forward to reading more thorough analysis, as I lack the expertise to evaluate how significant this is, given that it’s a press release.
- mjamesaustin 2y agoUsually I would take any battery breakthrough claims with a huge grain of salt, but TDK is a very well established company, so this seems pretty exciting. The big open question is whether and how this can be scaled up to larger battery sizes in a safe and functional way. Still exciting to see!
- rezonant 2y agoThat would be great, but wireless earbuds and watches greatly need battery advances to overcome the current tedious ways to use them. Most smart watches need to be charged in a matter of 1-2 days, and wireless earbuds have to use extra batteries in their carrying cases to even hope to have enough charge available for when you need them. It's nice that we may substantially relieve these limitations.
- adamhp 2y ago> "The ceramic material used by TDK means that larger-sized batteries would be more fragile, meaning the technical challenge of making batteries for cars or even smartphones will not be surmounted in the foreseeable future, according to the company."
- MBCook 2y agoBut the insanely small batteries in AirPods might be fine. Maybe even smart watch sided, let’s face it those are close to coin cell sized. It could still end up making a major difference.
- terribleperson 2y agoWould fragility really be a huge concern in more rigid flagship phones? Screens are already quite delicate It's not impossible to build a phone that doesn't flex meaningfully under normal conditions.
- mataslauzadis 2y ago[flagged]
- limaoscarjuliet 2y agoFor reference, 1000wh/l is 10% energy density of Gas. Impressive indeed!
- vel0city 2y agoI don't get many recharge cycles for that original liter of gasoline. It is cheaper per liter though!
- ghostbrainalpha 2y agoJust for fun, I would love to power my Game Boy with a little tiny gas powered engine.
- moepstar 2y agolike this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q24UxF-6ns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q24UxF-6ns
- iknowstuff 2y agoNightmare https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn__9hLJKAk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn__9hLJKAk
- sleepybrett 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Xl4PcB73A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Xl4PcB73A
- jacobp100 2y agoTake into account how inefficient internal combustion engines are, and it’s going to be a lot closer
- k__ 2y agoDon't know if I want so much energy right beside my ear, but it certainly sounds like an amazing achievement.
- gpm 2y agoI'd rather have the energy beside my ear stored in a non-flammable battery compared to what I assume are currently flammable batteries in my earbuds. Also lasting twice as long between charges would be a nice bonus.
- ajb 2y agoSolid state battery rules out some flammability failure modes, but introduces one: dendrite growth, creating a short. They need to prove that they've eliminated that before we can call it safe.
- xutopia 2y agoI'll be a naysayer. This is not in production environment. We don't know how big these batteries can be, what temperature they can operate at, how much they cost to produce, if they can even be mass produced, what their output could be, etc... Every week we have a claim like this one made by some reporter.
- adtac 2y agovirtually every battery technology in existence today got created in a non-production environment a less blunt critique would've specifically identified why this breakthrough is similar to the last one that didn't make it past the lab surely there's a large enough sample set of past failures to choose from since there are claims like this every week
- tootie 2y agoThe fact this report is coming from a commercial enterprise and not a university is pretty encouraging. Obviously it could still just be PR, but they likely wouldn't be touting this unless they expected to bring it to mass production.
- _nist 2y agoCompanies lie and exaggerate all the time. It's called PR. It makes no difference whether it comes from a company or university, but companies have much more incentive to lie than universities, especially in technical fields, because they don't have to subject their claims to peer review unlike universities.
- kube-system 2y agoI don't think anyone is accusing academics of lying -- academics are just more likely to announce things no industrial relevance. Because industrial relevance is not required for academic relevance.
- _nist 2y ago
- bredren 2y agoAirpods. This is relevant to Airpods and Apple Watch. Making these devices work charged for weeks, and a charging case for Airpods that can keep them charged for months (years?) would be extraordinary.
- nixass 2y agoGod forbid we call product by its name (earbuds and smart watch) and not its marketing name
- sojuz151 2y agoThis will have same energy density as TNT. I have a feelings that fully chargred battery of this type might explode
- malfist 2y agoHow do you feel about gasoline?
- audunw 2y agoIf you take into account fusion then the energy density of water is insanely high. Doesn’t mean you need to worry about it. It’s a myth that energy density is a reason to worry about batteries or any other form of energy storage. How much energy is stored doesn’t say anything about how easy it is to release that energy in an uncontrolled way. For Li-ion batteries it’s not really the electric energy stored you need to worry about at all. It’s the flammable electrolyte. Solid state batteries are often very safe since they usually don’t have a flammable electrolyte. And when the electrolyte doesn’t burn it’s much harder to get a short and thermal runaway as well
- EncomLab 2y agoThat hand that rocks the better battery is the hand that will rule the world...
- Animats 2y agoActual TDK press release.[1] Older TDK story from 2020.[2] TDK claims "a next-generation solid-state battery with an energy density of 1,000 Wh/L, approximately 100 times greater than the energy density of TDK’s conventional solid-state battery." Their "conventional solid state battery" is a tiny thing used in meat thermometers, a ceramic device with, like most ceramic devices, good high temperature tolerance. Lithium-ion batteries are around 250–693 W⋅h/L. So this is maybe 2x existing lithium-ion technology. That's about what everybody else is claiming for next-generation solid state batteries. Incidentally, gasoline is around 9,500 Wh/L, although only about half of that reaches the driveshaft. End result: longer cell phone battery life, and an end to "bulging" battery failures. [1] https://www.tdk.com/en/news_center/press/20240617_01.html https://www.tdk.com/en/news_center/press/20240617_01.html [2] https://www.tdk.com/en/featured_stories/entry_024.html https://www.tdk.com/en/featured_stories/entry_024.html
- topspin 2y ago> although only about half of that reaches the driveshaft. Isn't that more like around 35% on a good day? There are some pure ICE systems that can approach 50%, but those aren't in common passenger cars. Hybrid cars do considerably better, but even then 50% is an achievement.
- wredue 2y agoTook me a while to find an estimate of the actual average efficiency of ICE cars, and the number I found was “about 20%”. Some places claim the most fuel efficient vehicles are about 40% (again, on a good day in testing conditions). EVs on the other hand are up around 87% or higher.
- KennyBlanken 2y agoThey're very high especially if power is coming from solar panels on your roof or excess power from neighbors because there are virtually no transmission losses. Also, most power plants aren't that much better than car engines. Coal plants are about 33% efficient and natural gas plants are about 45%.
- not_good_coder 2y agoEnovix is putting next gen batteries into production. They've been through FAT and SAT... so you know it's real. I'm also an investor, but like the tech.
- readthenotes1 2y agoAnother Better Battery Bulletin. Good fiction the first dozen times.
- unixhero 2y agoWait... TDK still exists??? Edit: Holy shit yes they are https://product.tdk.com/en/index.html https://product.tdk.com/en/index.html
- akasakahakada 2y agoNot in consumer electronics, but pretty much became the largest electronic component manufacturer in the world.
- unixhero 2y agoInsane ... Their CD-Rs were the best! We used to buy them by the crate. I liked their floppies too, although Verbatim were probably the best there
- 1970-01-01 2y agoWe need a counter showing X days since last battery breakthrough announcement. A single digit counter is enough.
- m463 2y agoThis says 1000 Wh/L The new tesla 4680 cells seem to be in the ballpark: Cell volumetric energy density = 622 to 650 Wh/litre https://www.batterydesign.net/tesla-4680-cell/ https://www.batterydesign.net/tesla-4680-cell/