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Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

extremetech.com

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Re: Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

#51

Post by scythe »

leoc wrote: post #42
scythe wrote: post #24

For the record, there are a lot of experimental battery technologies out there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Variations_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-sulfur_battery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanowire_battery Just... one of these will probably catch on, yes, and that's awesome, but we've come up with so many different ideas that at this point, demonstrating a high-capacity lithium bat…

And the promised capacity increase is always 10x, neither more nor less.

Lithium-sulfur is an older, more well-studied technique, and it only promises a 4x increase. There are still quite a few kinks to be worked out but I think it has the best potential of the bunch for the near future.

Re: Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

#52

Post by MartinCron »

planckscnst wrote: post #6
dlikhten wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mmmm electric cars... 10x the range of current cars... thats what... cross country in one charge? can anyone argue with that? Ok fine 10x is not cross country... but it is 2000 miles per f-ing charge!

I'd rather have 200 miles and lighter/cheaper(? at least in terms of environmental costs) batteries.

Just as with gasoline-powered vehicles, I would like to have the choice of many different options.

Re: Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

#53

Post by bluedanieru »

KaeseEs wrote: post #35
lini wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usual Li-Ion batteries get a bit over 1000 cycles, so if this is 10 times more power, it provides more power for 150 cycles than a normal Li-Ion for its lifetime.

No they don't. Degradation of lithium-ion batteries is a function of temperature, time since manufacture and charge level rather than charge/discharge cycles. If you keep the battery cool and don't discharge it below 20% or so, it will last a very long time. If you keep it hot and constantly do full discharges, it will be dead very quickly.

Small aside here:

Li-ion tech is a major pain in my ass. Storing them discharged damages them. Storing them charged damages them. Keeping them topped off damages them. Fully discharging them damages them but your battery might have a protection circuit so don't worry about it. But it might not so worry about it. You've apparently got to store them half-charged for optimal lifetime but there is a lot of wrong information out there.

I think I want to power my devices with disposables, thanks :-)

Re: Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

#54

Post by tsotha »

Torn wrote: post #14
danmaz74 wrote: post #9

This would be a real game changer for electric cars. Even a "mere" 3x enhancement would already make them really competitive with combustion engines ones, but with 10x they would just be better than our traditional cars. Let's hope this technology can be industrialized in an economic way.

It'll surely be patented and sat on for a while at a very high price. My bet is we'll need to wait $time_of_release + 10 years until we see things working out over traditional cars.

You can't "sit on" patents. The whole point of the patent system is to get an idea out there so people can use it. As a patent holder you're required to license your invention for a reasonable amount (I'm not really sure how that's determined - probably in court). If you don't, a judge can put your invention in the public domain and give you nothing.

The stories you hear about the 300 mpg carburetor and machines that produce power from the spin of electrons? These devices, if they actually existed, would have to be bought and hidden away without ever entering the patent system. And the buyer (oil companies, is it?) would have to take the chance somebody else would patent the invention for which he paid millions.

Re: Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

#55

Post by tsotha »

maeon3 wrote: post #10

What is the safety of this battery? At 10x power we are looking at potential explosion for eletric cars instead of raging fire for gas cars... Does it work in 30 below zero?

Why do you assume it's not as safe as gas? Gas has a similar energy/m3 profile.

And not everyone cares whether it works at thirty below. Most places don't get that cold.

Re: Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

#56

Post by Dylan16807 »

ljlolel wrote: post #45
guimarin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. it's like you're trying to troll me. #5,612,606.

He's talking about this patent, by the way, which I know he made: http://www.patents.com/us-5612606.html

But that patent's going to be expired by the time these batteries are ready.

Re: Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

#57

Post by nknight »

tsotha wrote: post #54
Torn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll surely be patented and sat on for a while at a very high price. My bet is we'll need to wait $time_of_release + 10 years until we see things working out over traditional cars.

You can't "sit on" patents. The whole point of the patent system is to get an idea out there so people can use it. As a patent holder you're required to license your invention for a reasonable amount (I'm not really sure how that's determined - probably in court). If you don't, a judge can put your invention in the public domain and give you nothing. The stories you hear about the 300 mpg carburetor and machines that…

Citation, please. I've never heard of compulsory licensing occurring in the US outside of government contracts and anti-trust settlements.

Re: Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

#58

Post by grannyg00se »

fryguy wrote: post #49
grannyg00se wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I've seen. Charging rates usually scale with capacity. Discharge rates vary greatly.

Generally given a battery chemistry and manufacturing technology, the charge rates and discharge rates are given in units of "C" which means it allows 1A charge/discharge per Ah capacity of the battery. For instance, the lipoly batteries I got for my combat robot last year were 20C discharge, and 1C charge, and had a capacity of 1800mAh. This means I can discharge at 36A, charge at 1.8A. While true, the charge rate d…

I wouldn't be so sure about it scaling directly even within the same chemistry. Batteries can be manufactured for different purposes. I've seen 10C, 20C and even 40C discharge rates in lithium ion polymer batteries. But the charging rate usually stays under 2C.

Personally I don't really care too much about charging rates. My battery powered vehicle would be parked overnight. But I do like acceleration. And that's where discharge rates (and other problems) become an issue.

Re: Graphene improves lithium-ion battery capacity and recharge rate by 10x

#60

Post by FrojoS »

wanorris wrote: post #19

While this could change the game for electric cars (Edit: as others have already been discussing), it would also be an amazing advance for cell phones and computers. Imagine a cell phone that had a lighter battery but still lasted through a week of use between charges. Or an incredibly thin and light battery (and a correspondingly thin and light phone) that still lasted a couple of days. Or a notebook that didn't nee…

For a notebook you still want to reduce energy usage. All that heat has to go somewhere and a hot device and loud fan are very annoying.

Apart from that, I agree. Any of this new battery types will first be used in small, high priced devices.

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