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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

#61

Post by Tagbert »

giantg2 wrote: post #60
Tagbert wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have a tank water heater in your home that holds a large quantity of very hot water 24/7. Not quite to this level but in the same scale. That water heater is insulated and doesn’t prove a problem due to heat.

Eventually you'll heat soak the insulation. With a waterheater, you have new water moving in as you use the previously heated on. The loss may be minimal, but still an efficiency drain half the year. Either way, you to pay for the housing and insulation. Then pay for a replacement battery every year or two.

Why would you need to pay for a replacement battery? These aluminum batteries are specifically designed for long lifetimes. the operating tempurature is not a detriment to the battery.

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

#62

Post by giantg2 »

comboy wrote: post #59
giantg2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends on how hard it is to move. At least when GM tells people not to park their Bolt inside or near flammable stuff, they can move it. I image it would be difficult to do that with a battery pack whether connected to the wall or not.

You could always mount it on wheels, which would be way way easier than moving a car that's on fire (you can even keep big wire cutters nearby) If fire hazard is what's stopping people I guess one could also build a fire-resistant brick cage around it (presumably just a shelf on top should be enough? so that it still can stay cool during normal operation)

Especially since they tend to be installed in garages, that would be my plan if I get one. Building stuff with casters is something commonly do for my basement or garage.

The idea isn't to move it when it's on fire, but that if a recall is issued, then you can at least move it out of the structure in case it does ignite.

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

#63

Post by giantg2 »

Tagbert wrote: post #61
giantg2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually you'll heat soak the insulation. With a waterheater, you have new water moving in as you use the previously heated on. The loss may be minimal, but still an efficiency drain half the year. Either way, you to pay for the housing and insulation. Then pay for a replacement battery every year or two.

Why would you need to pay for a replacement battery? These aluminum batteries are specifically designed for long lifetimes. the operating tempurature is not a detriment to the battery.

If you're using a cycle a day, it would deteriorate to 80% capacity in just 200 days. The article says it lasts a few hundred cycles. That's not very long.

The tempature isn't a detriment to the battery, in fact it's required to operate efficiently. What it does limit is the suitable applications.

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

#64

Post by unnouinceput »

mannykannot wrote: post #17
unnouinceput wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably 1.2 V, like any classic cell. I mean take one zinc and one copper disc, put some paper between them, spill citric acid onto said paper and voial!, you got yourself a battery cell.

From what I can recall of high-school chemistry, it depends on which ions are being used, and generally different for each combination. The basic zinc-manganese dioxide cell has an EMF of about 1.5V, while lead-acid car battery cells give about 2V. https://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/battery-characteristics/... https://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/battery-basics/electroch... Update: I see it also depends on their conc…

When I say classic, I meant the classic from 1800's, you know when Volta, Faraday and other were experimenting with different wet/dry electrolytes between the zinc/copper discs. Citric acid as electrolyte holds 1.2V and is easy to buy from you local supermarket.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaic_pile

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

#65

Post by unnouinceput »

jhoechtl wrote: post #15
unnouinceput wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably 1.2 V, like any classic cell. I mean take one zinc and one copper disc, put some paper between them, spill citric acid onto said paper and voial!, you got yourself a battery cell.

The classic cell has 1.5V.

The classic is this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaic_pile

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

#66

Post by timbit42 »

ID1452319 wrote: post #7

The challenge of course is scale. It is very easy to build a high powered and fast charging batteries as a one-off in a lab. Trying to produce a million a month is an altogether different proposition.

Sure, but if it can't be done in a lab, it can't be done in a factory.

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

#67

Post by warvariuc »

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…

These are articles for taxpayers, not for you.

Are they? Taxpayers don't decide where their taxes go.

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

#68

Post by cestith »

giantg2 wrote: post #56
cestith wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more concerned about the battery itself bursting into flame on my wall, frankly, than having a battery that needs some insulation and a metal enclosure between it and air-conditioned space. Lithium batteries can do that. They say this one can't. Either way, safety steps should be taken before putting a battery in a pile of oily rags or anything.

Eh, that's exceedingly rare. I wouldn't be surprised if defects in the mass manufacturing of the new battery produces rare fire hazards too. I assume the thermal expansion and contraction of the containment materials will lead to issues too (I've seen it in even cooler operation temps for other batteries). Lithium sulfur batteries are supposed to be fire safe too. I assume there are other options out there as well, s…

I imagine before it hits any markets (if ever of course) refinements would increase the recharge cycle limit somewhat. They used to be lower on lithium, too. We used to use NiCad and NiMH too. I'm just saying that level of heat is not a deal killer for a fixed position residential application.

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

#69

Post by noneeeed »

tssva wrote: post #16
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…

From the article itself: > Other types of batteries, such as a recent design using molten salt electrolyte and aluminum and nickel electrodes, could work better at grid scale.

Huh, weird. I definitely read the article and just that bit just didn't register! Weird.

Would still be interesting to see if this can be made to work well at grid scale, feels like we need as many different technologies so we minimise specific resource constraints.

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

#70

Post by Schroedingersat »

harvie wrote: post #37
Schroedingersat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with the paper quote 50mAh/g to 500mAh/g depending on charge rate for some reason (not discharge?). Which would give it slightly higher volumetric energy density but worse mass.

li-ion has 70-100mAh/g based on my estimation? so if they can do 200mAh/g that would be very nice, but what about the voltage, charge cycle lifespan and maximum discharge rate?

Voltage is 1.2. I couldn't understand the claims about charge cycle (I think the tests were of 100s of charges, but the discharge rate was variable). Discharge rates were up to 200D, but no explicit mention of internal resistance.

I think this was more of a 'we tried the thing' paper to justify whatever funding they had and now it'll all be hush hush until they think they have a product.

It's being commercialized by the same people that did ambri which looked like a very promising technology at the time with one hard materials problem then they went dark.

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