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Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

newscientist.com

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Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#31

Post by Enginerrrd »

ajuc wrote: post #17
Retric wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200 charge cycles at 4x the storage = 800 lithium ion charge cycles. That’s easily competitive. Put another way if your getting 300 miles of range a current EV that’s 300 x4 x200 = 240,000 miles.

Only if you change your habits to maximize the lifetime of the batteries. For example avoid charging the car every night and instead charge it for a few nights after it's completely empty.

As I understand it, this is a terrible thing to do to lithium ion batteries. NiCad batteries were like that, but li-ion shouldn't be allowed to go below 20% if you're interested in longevity.

Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#32

Post by mtgx »

glutamate wrote: post #6

This is a much better article with more technical details yet accessibly written: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2228681-a-new-battery-c... Publication link: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/1/eaay2757

That first article title is so bad, mainly because those who have been following the smartphone industry for years know that if given access to such battery technology smartphone manufacturers would just add 8k screens, Threadripper-level CPUs, and hardware accelerators for mind-reading AI (so they can better target ads at you, not for anything remotely useful, obviously...) - all likely resulting in slightly less battery life than your phone has today, or at best a little more.

Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#33

Post by elil17 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29
ajuc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars are about 3 times as energy-efficient as ICE cars. So it's not 1% to 2% but 3% to 6%. And with other savings (much lighter engine, no need for transmission) it's even better. The problem is with degradation - it seems the new batteries only last 200 cycles.

Its all problems, so far. Weight, heat, size, charge cycles, range. Its only recently that its been even possible to make a practical electric car. Don't fool yourself - there's a transmission element in an electric car too. The power has to get to the wheels, regardless of the power plant.

An electric car transmission is a usually a simple reduction (two gears). An ICE transmission is usually a six speed shifter, often with hydraulic controls. A world of difference in terms of weight and maintainability.

Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#34

Post by fooqux »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #31
ajuc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you change your habits to maximize the lifetime of the batteries. For example avoid charging the car every night and instead charge it for a few nights after it's completely empty.

As I understand it, this is a terrible thing to do to lithium ion batteries. NiCad batteries were like that, but li-ion shouldn't be allowed to go below 20% if you're interested in longevity.

I thought this was basically a non-issue as the battery circuitry would kill power before it got past that point. Or does that just stop it from emptying completely?

Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#35

Post by AnthonyMouse »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #26
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes electric cars viable isn't that batteries have anywhere near the energy density of gasoline, it's that if you use them, you get to replace half a ton of engine, transmission, alternator, fuel pump, emissions and exhaust with a This naturally makes battery improvements a huge win. If you double power density you can cut the weight of the battery by more than half for the same range, since not only do you ge…

Nowhere near. The Tesla battery pack is 1000 lbs. There are entire cars that don't weigh that. Race car engine is 200lbs. And battery packs have cooling systems too. So no savings there. Specific energy (watts-hours per kilogram) is the entire ballgame with batteries and transportation.

Can you name a modern production car sold in the US that weighs less than 1000 lbs? Lightest available appears to be the Smart Fortwo at ~2000 lbs.

The curb weight of a Model 3 is in the same ballpark as a BMW 3 Series or Ford Taurus. Lighter cars exist but mostly because they're significantly smaller or slower or both.

Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#36

Post by dang »

glutamate wrote: post #6

This is a much better article with more technical details yet accessibly written: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2228681-a-new-battery-c... Publication link: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/1/eaay2757

Changed from https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/supercharging-tomorrow-.... Thanks!

Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#37

Post by mumblemumble »

ajuc wrote: post #17
Retric wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200 charge cycles at 4x the storage = 800 lithium ion charge cycles. That’s easily competitive. Put another way if your getting 300 miles of range a current EV that’s 300 x4 x200 = 240,000 miles.

Only if you change your habits to maximize the lifetime of the batteries. For example avoid charging the car every night and instead charge it for a few nights after it's completely empty.

To add to what others have said with some numbers:

https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_l...

To distill it down to a single figure: If you drain the battery down to 40% capacity between recharges, you can expect it to take ~600 charge cycles for total capacity to drop by 30%. If you only drain it down to 90% between recharges, the number of cycles increases to ~6,000.

The article doesn't specify, but I assume that's using a slow charge. I am guessing that with a fast charge, which is what is implemented in most consumer electronics, the difference would be even more stark.

Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#38

Post by mhandley »

clutch89 wrote: post #23
jpm_sd wrote: post #14

Sion Power has been working on this technology "since 1989". https://sionpower.com/about/ It still only lasts a couple of hundred charge cycles before wearing out: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/1/eaay2757 "The cells are stable for more than 200 cycles..."

You misread that, it doesn't wear out after 200 cycles, it maintains 99% efficiency after 200 cycles.

Even if it did wear out after 200 cycles, you could still use it as part of a hybrid battery pack. Imagine 50% lithium ion, 50% lithium sulphur. If LiS has 4x the energy capacity of LiIon, you'd have 2.5 times the maximum range of a pure LiIon pack. But most of the time, you don't drive anywhere near the full range, so you discharge the LiIon pack first, and only dischange the LiS pack on those rare days when you need the extra range (or if you only very very rarely need the extra range, dischange the LiS half occasionally to avoid the LiIon half wearing out first).

Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#39

Post by fooqux »

betoharres wrote: post #3

funny how I saw many posts about Amazon fires and while Australia is burning to the ground(which is showing to be much worse than Amazon fires), I can only see a post about some battery; this makes me question this website..

First of all, it's hacker news, not a general news site. And while the width of breadth of the type of news you'd find on here is larger than just coding and other hackery, it's still at least usually based in technology. Like batteries. Still, the official guidelines say anything "a hacker might find interesting" and we seem to be a environmentally-minded bunch, so maybe it would fly.

Second, it's based on use submissions. You think we should know something interesting about the AU fires? Submit a good article about it I guess. If I and others learn something interesting, it'll get voted up. That's how it works.

Re: Australia first to test new lithium-sulphur batteries

#40

Post by deepersprout »

hanniabu wrote: post #24
close04 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using just uBlock Origin and since I haven't seen any cookie dialog I assume it did the job just fine. YMMV.

Unless you're on mobile and then you're helpless and it's even worse because the dialog takes up 30% of the screen, and the top sticky ads take up the top 15%, and then you have autoplay video ads at the top of the page filling up the rest of the viewable area, then you go to try and scroll the page and then a new well engineered ad has a delayed load to pop up right where you're about to click....

> Unless you're on mobile and then you're helpless

uBlock Origin is very reliable on my Firefox on Android.

You know, Safari and Chrome are not your only options on mobile.

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