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Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost

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Re: Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost

#41

Post by amluto »

basicplus2 wrote: post #36
tmikaeld wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not THAT huge, just not, pocket sized. There's a hint here: "The cells would cost just one sixth of the price of a similar-sized lithium-ion cell."

So more expensive than lead acid? I think lead acid batteries are about 1 tenth the cost of lithium

The lead acid capacity numbers are a bit of a lie, though. With Li-ion, you can use 80-90% of the nominal capacity. With lead acid, if you do that with any regularity, you will quickly destroy the battery. Lead acid likes to be used in a narrow SoC range around 100%.

Re: Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost

#43

Post by drcongo »

adrian_b wrote: post #12
drcongo wrote: post #3

Would this also be a lot easier / safer to recycle?

That is one of the main claimed advantages, because the main components are simple inorganic substances, and not e.g. complex organic solvents that degrade in time, like in most lithium batteries.

Thanks, I scanned the article and searched for the word "recycle" but it wasn't clear.

Re: Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost

#44

Post by cestith »

giantg2 wrote: post #39
jessaustin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internal combustion engines regularly get that hot. It isn't hot enough to damage any commonly used metals.

But do you want that in a phone, in your pocket? Or any other electrical device? Or producing that heat in your house?

I regularly heat things in and near my house to 350º, 450º or even 600º F. It's called cooking. I'm pretty sure if I look at my water heater or clothes dryer the point heat source raising the temperature there is well over 200º F as well.

Re: Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost

#45

Post by toss1 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #40
jaybeavers wrote: post #21

At this point I strongly distrust any 'breakthrough' article about research at MIT. After hundreds of these, I'm fairly convinced that any time a grad student pours liquid into a beaker, MIT's marketing department is out publishing the fact that Flubber has just been invented and we're all going to be saved by bouncy flying automobiles. I mean, congrats on the great marketing department. But it's tiring to be disappo…

Views like this are common amongst STEM types, but they vastly underestimate the importance that science communication plays in getting the public on board with science funding. These are articles for taxpayers, not for you. A scientist who is also an effective communicator can be 10-100x more effective than one who only publishes in journals, because it can build consensus to fund large projects and get champions an…

That's lovely, but if this is not even effective communication.

Very frustrating that the article entirely fails to provide key information about its main topic - batteries. They even fail to provide even rough order-of magnitude values.

How much energy can it store, i.e., the energy density (watt-hours per kilogram or equivalent measure)?

How much power can it put out per unit mass (watts per kilogram or equivalent measure)?

What level of cost (e.g., dollars per kilogram) are we talking about?

Sure, they talk about some new feature, but without at least a rough order of magnitude on these key parameters, we cannot even guess at what will be the valid applications. For example, a battery with a very modest energy & power density but really cheap will be worthless for transport or airborne applications but may be great for fixed storage, and many other combinations.

But with only highlighting some new feature in isolation, the only possible audience is ignorant enthusiasts, who we hope are not making policy.

I used to be really enthusiastic about most new battery tech articles, but at this point, if they fail to even mention one of those three parameters, it looks to me just like clickbait or spam.

Re: Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost

#47

Post by giantg2 »

cestith wrote: post #44
giantg2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do you want that in a phone, in your pocket? Or any other electrical device? Or producing that heat in your house?

I regularly heat things in and near my house to 350º, 450º or even 600º F. It's called cooking. I'm pretty sure if I look at my water heater or clothes dryer the point heat source raising the temperature there is well over 200º F as well.

Yeah, and those aren't constantly on, some require outside venting and/or insulation. They also don't constitute the majority of a wall. There's a reason old timey kitchens were outdoors in the hot areas.

All I'm saying is that there are other concerns with this battery vs a lithium battery, and that I feel the concerns are much lower with lithium.

Re: Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost

#48

Post by klyrs »

giantg2 wrote: post #39
jessaustin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internal combustion engines regularly get that hot. It isn't hot enough to damage any commonly used metals.

But do you want that in a phone, in your pocket? Or any other electrical device? Or producing that heat in your house?

> Or producing that heat in your house?

Yes please, today if you can deliver. A combination battery / heater / heat pump sounds amazing.

Re: Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost

#49

Post by tehbeard »

comboy wrote: post #9
noneeeed wrote: post #5

> The team says that this battery design would be best suited to the scale of a few dozen kilowatt-hours, like powering an individual home from renewable sources. I'm curious to know if this would also be suitable for grid-scale storage, it seems like an odd ommision in the article. The description certainly implies that this would be a good use but I wonder if there is an issue that I'm not seeing that would make th…

> I've always been a bit uncomfortable about the idea of a large li-ion battery pack in my house So am I, but I think we're not different from people who are afraid of using planes. Yes, it's really bad when it happens, it just doesn't happen all that often and when it does it ends up in the news. Just like cars are more dangerous than planes even when you have li-ion battery it probably has very low impact on total…

Easier to make an impromptu firebreak between a car and the house, than a battery pack presumably securely mounted to the wall of the house.

Re: Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost

#50

Post by webmobdev »

denton-scratch wrote: post #30

So I need a kettle of boiling water to warm up the battery in my electric bike, before I can ride off in the morning? Also, boiling-hot molten salt - I don't want that spilling on me in the event the battery is ruptured in a collision. (Sure, I don't really want lithium salts splashing on me either; but molten salt at 90C?)

For finicky people like you sire, we have the sodium-sulphur battery that works at room temperature - https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/iit-m-designs-room... ...
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