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Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

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Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

#51

Post by analognoise »

mhh__ wrote: post #32
samdung wrote: post #30

Battery noob here: Will this achieve the energy density of fossil fuels? In other words, a 50 litre tank of petrol gets me around 500 km. What will a similar volume of these batteries get me?

Not even close, but that's not so bad. ICEs will probably always have their place but most people can go without, especially in Europe (Americans are very loud about how they need to drive 3000 miles to work everyday so I won't bother arguing that)

You can fit an entire Italian town in the size of a freeway interchange in Houston:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/highway-interchange-ho...

Our cities were designed to be spread out to make them less susceptible to atomic weapons in the 1950's (not a joke).

So... Yes, we need cars. It really is a long way for many of us.

Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

#53

Post by choeger »

DennisP wrote: post #34
newyankee wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that presumably Tesla's goal is to take battery costs down by 56% in 3 years from (108 - 140 $/kwh) to (50 - 70$/kwh) and widely held consensus is that 100$/kwh is the price point at which EVs are no brainer on upfront costs with ICE cars, i feel that there is a long way to go. However, i think any successful real world demo starting with niche applications will help. We need all the battery tech to succeed.

Electric airplanes need significantly better energy density.

I don't know. Sure, if you can build batteries with the energy density of gasoline, you can build an electric plane with them. But is this really necessary?

Right now, we have relatively large, relatively fast, jet planes. Do we need that size and that speed to be commercially viable? Could we also run a larger fleet of smaller, more automated planes or helicopters? If there was no kerosene left by tomorrow morning, would there really be no alternative?

Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

#54

Post by moftz »

CarVac wrote: post #9

A 3x capacity increase is huuuge but a >10x cost increase is prohibitive except for applications like aircraft.

Cost of manufacturing something like this can only go down and there are plenty of applications where mass or power output/battery life of a device is much more important than cost.

Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

#55

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

xutopia wrote: post #52

I've yet to see these carbon nanothings on the market. It's been 10 years now that we hear about carbon revolutionizing everything and it never pans out.

It's probably going to be like with AI. People talk about it for years and nothing substantial happens and then suddenly it takes off. I was working on AI around 2005 (we called it neural networks). There were no good libraries, the literature was difficult to understand and nothing really worked (at least I didn't get it to work). I was still a student and pretty disillusioned by the whole idea. A few years later the field took off and now it is ubiquitous.

Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

#56

Post by immmmmm »

I had the opportunity to work in one of the world best nano technology lab.

My supervisor once told me that he refused to work on nano-structured batteries for an obvious reason: These are impossible to recycle.

Science these days is often more about the headline (even better if you do the cover of Science) and less about real (societal) benefits.

Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

#57

Post by 0xffff2 »

DennisP wrote: post #34
newyankee wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that presumably Tesla's goal is to take battery costs down by 56% in 3 years from (108 - 140 $/kwh) to (50 - 70$/kwh) and widely held consensus is that 100$/kwh is the price point at which EVs are no brainer on upfront costs with ICE cars, i feel that there is a long way to go. However, i think any successful real world demo starting with niche applications will help. We need all the battery tech to succeed.

Electric airplanes need significantly better energy density.

"significantly" sells it short. Electric airliners need a couple orders of magnitude of improvement to even come close to viability.

Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

#58

Post by 0xffff2 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #35
rocqua wrote: post #6

IF this is true, it would be a massive breakthrough. Truly monumental. Hence, I am skeptical. But otherwise, this would be a massive thing. a 2x capacity per weight advantage of batteries? Without an increase in space? That comes down to doubling the range of EVs, and making electric planes and rockets a lot more viable. A 3x capacity per space advantage means roughly a 3x improvement in your phone and laptop battery…

>Or, more likely, a slight improvement in your phone and much thinner phones. On laptops, we might see the return of more ports. // Please, no. I don't understand the utility of making something so expensive be so fragile and hard to hold. My phone is 5mm thick, that's already too thin for me. Does anyone want thinner phones or is it just a marketing thing?

The thinner the phone, the thicker the case I can put on it with the same total thickness. It's incredibly rare to see a case-less phone in the wild these days.

Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

#59

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #55
xutopia wrote: post #52

I've yet to see these carbon nanothings on the market. It's been 10 years now that we hear about carbon revolutionizing everything and it never pans out.

It's probably going to be like with AI. People talk about it for years and nothing substantial happens and then suddenly it takes off. I was working on AI around 2005 (we called it neural networks). There were no good libraries, the literature was difficult to understand and nothing really worked (at least I didn't get it to work). I was still a student and pretty disillusioned by the whole idea. A few years later th…

I don't know, it seems like AI/ML are on the cusp of the "Trough of Disillusionment" themselves. And they've been talking about Graphene, Nano-tech since I was in high school.

Re: Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries

#60

Post by 0xffff2 »

rocqua wrote: post #6

IF this is true, it would be a massive breakthrough. Truly monumental. Hence, I am skeptical. But otherwise, this would be a massive thing. a 2x capacity per weight advantage of batteries? Without an increase in space? That comes down to doubling the range of EVs, and making electric planes and rockets a lot more viable. A 3x capacity per space advantage means roughly a 3x improvement in your phone and laptop battery…

A 3x increase in density does approximately nothing to make electric airliners more viable. We need more like a 100x increase before we see an electric 737 or A320.
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