Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes triple the density of lithium batteries • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

goldenchrome wrote: post #103

0xffff2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s not incredibly rare at all. Phones these days are engineered well and they’re much less susceptible to fall damage. I’ve dropped my case-less iPhone X on the ground half a dozen times and it’s only collected a few dings on the corners.

I always found the older, entirely aluminum iPhones way too slippery to hold onto without a case.

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

#112

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

Qwertious wrote: post #18

Articles like this is why I want a service which lets you "bookmark" the article and have it tell you whether it panned out a few years later. There's not much you can do here other than Defer Judgement yet again, at which point you'll have forgotten about it anyway.

Save the article to pdf and attach it to a future calendar event?

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

#113

Post by HeadsUpHigh » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #77

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 10x speedup of charging? Not possible with existing infrastructure. The limiting factors are cooling the batteries and feeding them enough power. On small scale like laptops it's possible to speed up charging but not at large scale like cars. That isn't to say it may be possible in the future but it isn't now.

The main way you can make batteries charge faster is my reducing the heat produced. This is the first limitation you hit anyway

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

#114

Post by HeadsUpHigh » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

Qwertious wrote: post #21

dTal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is an "electric rocket"?

Presumably a rocket with a power source separated from its exhaust, and that flings its exhaust material out with an electrically-powered device. So basically think of a 'reverse railgun'.

That's an ion thruster. They've been around for a while.

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

#115

Post by 0xffff2 » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #67

0xffff2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the second time in this discussion someone mentions electric planes being viable and you respond with electric airliners not being viable. Those are (in most peoples terminology) entirely different things. Having viable light electric aircraft could revolutionize flight even if every aircraft for more than 20 people would run on kerosene for the next century. I don’t think anyone is expecting a battery powere…

I can state from experience that you're mistaken in what you think people expect. I work in a field very closely aligned with electric aircraft, and people who say "electric planes" without further qualification virtually always mean "electric 737s".

I also strongly question your assertion that viable light electric aircraft could "revolutionize flight". What exactly would the revolutionize? 2 seat electric trainers already exist, but the niche they fill is tiny. You're not going to move the needle on aircraft emissions with anything short of electric airliners. The rest of it is just a way to keep the research funded until we get there.

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

#116

Post by stainforth » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #76

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

it just stopped being AI. night mode camera on recent android and iphones were top of the line AI couple years ago. DLSS (deep learning super sampling) is allegedly borderline magic; it'll just be DLSS sometime next year. google translate and alpha zero are most definitely amazing AI. carbon nanotubes? yeah.

Can't we use AI to design carbon nano tube construction processes?

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

#117

Post by pritovido » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

seanc wrote: post #79

0xffff2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I heard somewhere that in Holland every bicycle + lock weighs 5kg. If you have a cheap 5kg bike no one wants it and you don't have to lock it. If you have an expensive 1.5kg bike you need a lock that weighs 3.5kg to protect it.

In tour de France, bicycles under 6kgs are forbidden. Bicycles under this weight are incredible expensive and dangerous. Using metals like titanium and carbon fiber.

Most light and simple(no suspension) road bicycles weight usually 10 kilos, most mountain bikes do weight 15-20 kgs.

In Holland, most bicycles you see on the street are simple and cheap.

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

#118

Post by bitdotdash » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #105

choeger wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> if you can build batteries with the energy density of gasoline Actually significantly worse than that. A plane gets lighter the longer it flies, especially at takeoff when everything is at max thrust. A battery becomes more and more dead weight the longer you fly.

I wonder if this could be solved for with detachable take-off booster. Gets you up in the air, then returns to the airport.

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

#119

Post by audunw » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

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?

It would be pretty cool if we could make something like the folding tablets in Westworld.

I think phones and tablets will keep getting thinner, because you can always buy a cover to make it bigger. And it's better if more of the bulk of the phone is protective material rather than sensitive electronics.

I think eventually phones will basically be just a display, with no ports (wireless charging only), no buttons, and then you'll get covers with extra battery, ports, or whatever you want.

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

#120

Post by reportingsjr » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #108

Bad headline. This increases power density, not energy density of lithium batteries, by decreasing internal resistance. That potentially increases charging speed. They claim by 10x. Car charging stations are going to need megawatt chargers if this works. They talk some about the possibility of future silicon batteries using this technology.

Megawatt car charging stations are already a thing. The Tesla V3 supercharges are a 1MW power source, but right now they split that between four charging ports.

Battery power density is certainly going to continue increasing through a variety of means. It will be very interesting to see how these sort of power rates are handled safely via charging cables in the future!