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Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

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Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#41

Post by jackmott42 »

Tade0 wrote: post #6

Solid state might share the fate of Betamax. There was a post a while ago about a small scale battery manufacturer named Amprius, which reported 500Wh/kg batteries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35276709 Thing is, the company is producing 450Wh/kg batteries NOW and they're planning on scaling up their manufacturing capacity to 5GWh: https://www.convertingquarterly.com/ConvertingQuarterly/Indu... This solid sta…

EVs are already very heavy, and when the model 3 switched to LFP it got even heavier. This mass has lots of subtle consequences that aren't always appreciated. Like accelerated tire wear (which Tesla owners notice after they buy) and increased particulate pollution from that, increased road wear, increased danger to pedestrians and cyclists, etc.

So, I'm less excited about LFP. There are a number of ideas in the works that might double the energy density over the current leading lithium ion chemistries and if any of them work out its going to unlock a lot a things that don't quite work yet like:

1. light weight sports car EVs (like a miata) 2. EVs that can tow things or carry 4 mountain bikes on road trips 3. Some aircraft 4. EVs that can do a track day for a reasonable amount of time 5. EVs that are lighter than ICE counterparts rather than heavier

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#42

Post by jackmott42 »

chimen wrote: post #5

Surprised how "dead" this industry is. I remember having Lithium-Ion batteries since I was in high school which was more than 20 years ago (and some Li-Po until then). Everything is leaps and bounds since then but not the batteries. Seems like a massive disconnect to me but I'm no chemist or researcher in this field.

Lots of fields have run into fundamental physical limits that pause progress. Rocketry is another. In the 1950s we pretty much figured out how to throw gas out the back as fast as possible, and so not much has happened since that improves rocket performance. We did finally figure out how to reuse a bit of the rocket affordably though so that has been nice.

similarly airplanes stopped getting faster because we hit the point where the atmosphere starts melting you to death, and not much can be done about that.

battery chemistry is hardly dead though, since 20 years ago there have been all kinds of improvements in different directions. Just no big leaps. But the little improvements add up.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#43

Post by Anarch157a »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #34
windowsrookie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely not "dead". As commented above me, there have been massive improvements. 20 years ago laptops had two hours of battery life. Today a MacBook has 20+ hours of battery life. Obviously many components have become more efficient, but battery improvements have also contributed to that large increase in battery capacity.

The iBook G3 had a 45Wh battery which is only slightly less than a M2 air, and barely under half of the maximum you can take on a plane. Battery development has led to smaller, lighter and cheaper batteries in laptops but not really to an increase in capacity.

Because Apple realised that a thin and small laptop sells better than a chunky one. Make a Mac Book the sane size as the iBook G3 and you could have a week's worth of battery.

But then you wouldn't be allowed to carry it on a plane. The limitation is not tecnological, is regulatory.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#44

Post by _trackno5 »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #16
_trackno5 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please share that article if you can find it. Sounds like an interesting take! I honestly don't get the criticism Toyota has been getting recently. I think their decision to not go all in on just electric vehicles makes sense, especially for countries where it is highly unlikely that full EV will be a reality in the next decade.

>I honestly don't get the criticism [Toyota] has been getting recently. I think their decision to not go all in on just electric vehicles makes sense Because for a while it seemed they were going all-in on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, a technology that makes little technological (and even less practical) sense.

For a while, but not the case anymore. They seem keen on having a diverse set of offerings, with some EV and hybrid cars. Yet the criticism continues

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#45

Post by danbruc »

ngrilly wrote: post #18

Why is it called anode-free when it still has a copper collector with a special coating? Yes, they removed the graphite, but they didn’t remote the entire “anode”. Or is it because the collector and the coating are not technically considered as an electrode?

Technically speaking you can not get rid of the anode unless you also get rid of the cathode as anode and cathode switch places between charging and discharging. It is just by convention that in case of batteries the role while discharging is used, I would guess carried over from non-rechargeable batteries, but the anode would better be called the negative electrode.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#46

Post by ngrilly »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #26
ngrilly wrote: post #18

Why is it called anode-free when it still has a copper collector with a special coating? Yes, they removed the graphite, but they didn’t remote the entire “anode”. Or is it because the collector and the coating are not technically considered as an electrode?

I initially thought this was an early April Fool's joke in a different time zone to me. It does sound to me like they're replacing the traditional anode with a different anode.

Sounds the same to me. A copper sheet coated with a thin layer of lithium-activated tellurium instead of a thicker layer of graphite. Not trying to diminish their achievement, but I don’t understand the anode-less claim.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#47

Post by jillesvangurp »

akokanka wrote: post #3

Research Vs Reality are quite often decades behind in physical world.

Easy to forget that most car enthusiasts thought that Elon Musk was a lunatic that was obviously going to fail about a decade ago. And now he's basically dominating the car industry. Lithium batteries did not exist until the nineties and did not get practical for use in cars until about 15 years ago.

Research on solid state batteries has been ongoing since then. E.g. Quantumscape founded in 2010. and is planning to start small scale production next year. We'll see how successful they are of course. You are right that it takes quite long to take technology into production. But the counter argument is that there are a few decades behind us with stuff that is now slowly trickling into the market.

Double the energy sounds amazing. Until you ask the question "double of what". Double of what's available in the market right now (450 wh/kg, Amprius sells these in low volumes) would be 900 wh/kg. That's perhaps not what they mean. The article is infuriatingly hand wavy on what is being compared to what. Or maybe they do. Hard to tell.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#48

Post by ngrilly »

Tade0 wrote: post #37
ngrilly wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some applications still require higher energy densities than what LFP can provide. Are you saying silicon anodes are more promising than solid state for those applications?

My position is as follows: -LFP wins on price where it fits the use case, so grid storage, current-gen EVs. -Silicon anode competes for market share with solid-state in areas where LFP can't, namely aerospace and next-gen EVs or even aviation, should they ever reach 1kWh/kg. The former has easily a decade lead considering that they're already selling packs and the latter exists largely in the lab or on paper. I also…

I totally agree with your position on LFP, and about 400 Wh/kg being enough to unlock some applications.

But I’m not fully convinced on silicon anodes versus solid state. Yes, energy density is very promising, but I understand capacity fade is still a huge problem due to silicon volume expansion/reduction while charging/discharging?

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#49

Post by moron4hire »

I didn't see any mention of sustained discharge rate. I mean, pretty much any battery will put out about as much current as you ask of it. But that comes with heat scaling problems and heat dramatically effects capacity. So at what kind of discharge rate are they seeing ”72% higher capacity by weight than Li-Ion," and how does it compare to typical Li-Ion usage?

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#50

Post by wffurr »

jackmott42 wrote: post #41
Tade0 wrote: post #6

Solid state might share the fate of Betamax. There was a post a while ago about a small scale battery manufacturer named Amprius, which reported 500Wh/kg batteries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35276709 Thing is, the company is producing 450Wh/kg batteries NOW and they're planning on scaling up their manufacturing capacity to 5GWh: https://www.convertingquarterly.com/ConvertingQuarterly/Indu... This solid sta…

EVs are already very heavy, and when the model 3 switched to LFP it got even heavier. This mass has lots of subtle consequences that aren't always appreciated. Like accelerated tire wear (which Tesla owners notice after they buy) and increased particulate pollution from that, increased road wear, increased danger to pedestrians and cyclists, etc. So, I'm less excited about LFP. There are a number of ideas in the work…

Wh/Kg is the relevant metric to optimize though. Whether it’s LFP or solid state doesn’t matter. If that company is building higher density LFP batteries, that addresses every concern you mention.
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