Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cheap zinc/manganese battery being developed commercially

adelaide.edu.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 35 posts

Re: Cheap zinc/manganese battery being developed commercially

#11

Post by lazyguy2 »

rkangel wrote: post #7

$1m is a tiny amount to bring a battery to manufacture. That number is about what it costs to set up production to have a LiPo battery in a specific shape for your electronics. If they had said $100m then I'd believe that there was finally going to be a serious competitor to the status quo on batteries.

Even if it was serious you'd have to wait for the patent-enforced monopolies to expire before there is significant benefit to us normal people.

This is one of the reasons why everybody is running around with 18650 lithium ion batteries. It's all 1990's tech that has been evolved and improved on since then by numerous competitive businesses.

Re: Cheap zinc/manganese battery being developed commercially

#12

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

scottlocklin wrote: post #10

Zinc/manganese has been around for decades; in fact, it's the standard issue disposable battery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_battery "An alkaline battery (IEC code: L) is a type of primary battery which derives its energy from the reaction between zinc metal and manganese dioxide." The new permutation which allegedly ups the energy density and allows it to be safely recharged supposedly uses a different el…

Can you explain what "woo" means in this context? I've seen it used a lot lately, but it's new to me.

Re: Cheap zinc/manganese battery being developed commercially

#14

Post by 52-6F-62 »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #12
scottlocklin wrote: post #10

Zinc/manganese has been around for decades; in fact, it's the standard issue disposable battery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_battery "An alkaline battery (IEC code: L) is a type of primary battery which derives its energy from the reaction between zinc metal and manganese dioxide." The new permutation which allegedly ups the energy density and allows it to be safely recharged supposedly uses a different el…

Can you explain what "woo" means in this context? I've seen it used a lot lately, but it's new to me.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo

Re: Cheap zinc/manganese battery being developed commercially

#15

Post by BubRoss »

rbx wrote: post #5

Zinc is very important in the diet and its deficiency is very common. Our food is already becoming scarce in zinc, potentially needing supplements from mined minerals. But these are not projected to last very long either [1]. This doesn't make me very excited for using it for batteries at all. [1] https://www.iatp.org/documents/scarcity-of-micronutrients-in...

What relevance does this have? Do you think zinc is scarce?

Re: Cheap zinc/manganese battery being developed commercially

#16

Post by jandrese »

wolfi1 wrote: post #6
rbx wrote: post #5

Zinc is very important in the diet and its deficiency is very common. Our food is already becoming scarce in zinc, potentially needing supplements from mined minerals. But these are not projected to last very long either [1]. This doesn't make me very excited for using it for batteries at all. [1] https://www.iatp.org/documents/scarcity-of-micronutrients-in...

i wouldn't worry about Zinc, men need 11 mg/day, women even less. The common battery, the Leclanché element, already consist of Zinc, but it is not advisable to recharge them (danger of explosion). In the 90s people even claimed the could safely recharge the Leclanché element, so I could imagine the have overcome these problems

A kilogram of Zinc costs about $2.50[1] and is enough for an adult man for three months. There is no zinc crunch in the foreseeable future. Plus if it really became a problem you could recycle the zinc out of old batteries.

[1] https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/zinc-price

Re: Cheap zinc/manganese battery being developed commercially

#17

Post by Tade0 »

If anyone's interested here's an actual company selling a real Zinc-air product:

https://eosenergystorage.com/about-eos/

Two largest downsides of this technology are:

1. Round-trip efficiency of 75%.

2. Low power density.

Cost and cycle life are great though - should be great for grid storage.

Re: Cheap zinc/manganese battery being developed commercially

#18

Post by robocat »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #12
scottlocklin wrote: post #10

Zinc/manganese has been around for decades; in fact, it's the standard issue disposable battery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_battery "An alkaline battery (IEC code: L) is a type of primary battery which derives its energy from the reaction between zinc metal and manganese dioxide." The new permutation which allegedly ups the energy density and allows it to be safely recharged supposedly uses a different el…

Can you explain what "woo" means in this context? I've seen it used a lot lately, but it's new to me.

Reading the sibling link, it looks like this person is using "woo" incorrectly in this context. Good science/technology often has failed outcomes (which isn't woo). I'm also presuming the University of Adelaide isn't practicing pseudoscience.

Re: Cheap zinc/manganese battery being developed commercially

#20

Post by onemoresoop »

jandrese wrote: post #16
wolfi1 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wouldn't worry about Zinc, men need 11 mg/day, women even less. The common battery, the Leclanché element, already consist of Zinc, but it is not advisable to recharge them (danger of explosion). In the 90s people even claimed the could safely recharge the Leclanché element, so I could imagine the have overcome these problems

A kilogram of Zinc costs about $2.50[1] and is enough for an adult man for three months. There is no zinc crunch in the foreseeable future. Plus if it really became a problem you could recycle the zinc out of old batteries. [1] https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/zinc-price

1 kg for 3 months? Maybe 3 lifetimes..
Post reply on HN