

Aluminum battery from Stanford offers safe alternative to conventional batteries - msoad
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/aluminum-ion-battery-033115.html

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mikeyouse
Likely as a direct response to the hype of this article (a few thousand
comments in the related reddit thread), Elon tweeted:

    
    
        Battery "breakthroughs" need to state power *and*
        energy density (not the same thing), plus how long
        they last. They usually fail on energy.
    

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/585185843649716225](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/585185843649716225)

~~~
weland
It's important to note, though, that this kind of breakthrough is hardly the
kind of invention that Musk is interested in. The world of batteries doesn't
revolve around Elon and Tesla.

This _is_ sort of a big deal for those of us who design small electronic
devices, not electric cars. Not having to factor in the potential fire hazard
of a rechargeable battery for a keychain that the user has in his pocket or
thrown in her purse or luggage is pretty useful -- and many such devices are
thrown away along with their batteries, making them even bigger an
environmental problem than they already are.

Even _if_ these devices offer no improvement in terms of energy density,
they're still a pretty big deal. It's also worth remembering that Li-Ion and
even Li-Po batteries weren't necessarily stellar in terms of energy density
when they were discovered, either -- they reached their current status through
quite some industrial development.

It's also helpful if they can really stay steady at 2V (before the discharge
cycle goes down abruptly), that would simplify 1.5V designs _a lot_ , and help
drive the space (and price!) further down.

~~~
algirau
The global energy storage market is and will continue to be driven by electric
vehicles (no pun intended!) and consumer electronics. For these applications a
faster charge/discharge is nice to have, a non-flammable material is nice to
have but a high energy density is a MUST HAVE which Aluminum-ions don't.

My interpretation of a big deal is relative to the number of people it will
positively influence. I wouldn't consider this a big deal, and in fact have
heard the same claim at least once per month (ex. Titanium dioxide nanotube
batteries [http://www.gizmag.com/quick-charge-li-ion-
battery/34347/](http://www.gizmag.com/quick-charge-li-ion-battery/34347/)).

~~~
weland
The last time I read about this, it was _expected_ that, at one point, in 2020
or so, electrical vehicle batteries are finally going to become a relatively
important component of the battery market. There's a lot of money being poured
into it because a lot of people are trying to move towards electric vehicles,
but in terms of actual numbers being produced, the EVBs are dwarfed even by
regular car batteries. Of course, EVBs are incredibly important, especially
from an R&D perspective, but I don't think the market is being driven my them.
My information may be a little out of date though.

As for consumer electronics, it's worth remembering that there are probably
thousands of coin-cell operated keychains for every smartphone whose energy
density capacity is not being satisfied by our current technology. There are a
lot of consumer electronic devices for which current battery technology is OK
-- better density would be an improvement, as it is everywhere, but it's no
longer the hog it is for smartphones. For those, ease of recycling, lack of
fire hazard and the slightly simpler circuitry really are important.

------
c2h5oh
Those batteries have a lower energy density and power than the current li-
ions, so you won't be seeing them in a phone, laptop or a car.

At the same time they are significantly cheaper to make and durable, which
might make them a good solution for home energy storage - paired with panels
for example.

~~~
allworknoplay
Where does the article discuss the energy density?

I'm skeptical myself based on the number/style of claims they make, but I
can't see any details.

~~~
c2h5oh

      "Our battery produces about half the voltage of a typical lithium battery," he said. "But improving the cathode material could eventually increase the voltage and energy density. Otherwise, our battery has everything else you'd dream that a battery should have. [..]

~~~
mark-r
Voltage is not the same as energy density. It's one component of it certainly,
but not nearly enough by itself to tell you anything.

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tankerdude
With something like that, something like the a battery at home could become
viable. Even with the lower energy density, it has a few properties that are
really great if it proves to be correct: no degradation on cycles, inexpensive
and reduced fire hazard.

So imagine the Tesla Home Battery that would currently be double the size, at
a lower price point, and could theoretically last a decade or two?

So there are definitely commercial options if it ever proves truly viable and
can be easily manufactured.

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deeviant
I wish they bothered to state the expected energy density of these batteries.
The fact that they didn't leads me to believe it's quite low compared to
something like li-ion.

~~~
msoad
I believe this battery's density is not super impressive that they didn't
mention in in the article and the title of the article is about it's safety
rather that fast charging time or capacity

~~~
userbinator
Safe and "high-performance" as they claim are somewhat opposing; to a battery
that can be discharged at high currents, with a high energy density, there's
no difference between dissipating that energy in the usual load it's powering
and through a short circuit of equivalent resistance. Even if the battery
itself doesn't catch fire or heat up, all that energy still has to go
somewhere.

~~~
nsrango
Safe here doesn't mean "can't kill you". Instead it means this chemistry
doesn't exhibit thermal runaway
([http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/lithium_ion_safet...](http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/lithium_ion_safety_concerns))

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IkmoIkmo
Ugh, getting tired of all these articles that may not be untrue, but ought to
live in science journals, properly read as experiments with new battery tech
that could deliver to consumers 5-10 years later, rather than get posted on
social media as if they're consumer-grade product launches. I've read tens of
breakthroughs in batteries and solar and so on, in channels that had no
interest in the science behind it. HN is mostly the exception to the rule.

Anyway, is there a battery guy that could explain to the rest of us what the
state of battery innovation is like the next 10 years? Is it realistic to
expect some big leaps? I really don't know what to expect and it'd be awesome
to get some insider insights as to what kind of consumer-grade products we may
see the next decade :) Thanks in advance.

~~~
algirau
Battery innovation is actually bottle-necked by the fact that over 90% of all
anode materials are produced in China. So global adoption is ultimately
dictated if manufacturing in China follows suit.

Unlike Americans, where we innovate with a short time horizon, China innovates
and invest for generations (25-100 years). Thus, once a technology has been
chose to be invested in overseas, the Chinese go "all-in".

The current paradigm shift is that Chinese anode material manufacturers are
switching from graphite based electrodes to silicon nanoparticle based
electrodes due to the fact that silicon nanoparticles have a theoretical
energy density of ~4,000mAh/g, a 10x increase when compared to graphite which
is only ~350mAh/g. There has been substantial research on silicon based
lithium-ion batteries in the US for the past 7 years; it is now hitting a true
inflection point.

This is one of the few "break-though" battery chemistries that is now entering
full scale production - Panasonic is producing an 18650 cell made of silicon
used by Tesla. *(see also Amprius, Envia,XG Sciences, etc.)

Tl;dr battery adoption is limited by adoption by Chinese manufacturers which
control over 90% of the global anode material manufacturing. Silicon
nanoparticles are taking over.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Sweet, thanks! So what would that (e.g. 10x the energy density) mean for
consumers in practice. Can we expect 4x the range on a car, or the lifetime on
a phone? Is this something we'll see around 2020, later, earlier?

~~~
algirau
Unfortunately, there are several items that interfere with maximizing the 10X.
Then anode is only ~16% of the entire battery, so increasing the anode energy
density by 10X does not translate directly to 10X battery life. You must also
consider the cathode, and separator which can hinder this. Remember the 10X is
a "theoretical maximum". It is important to constantly increase the
theoretical maximum energy density. Translating the theoretical to an actual
energy density is about downstream processing - see how Tesla increases
battery efficiency each year by make the processing more efficient.

Amprius was promising 10X increase, but once they reach ton-scale
manufacturing they were only able to get a 30-50% increase. I am sure they
will be able to gradually increase close to the 10X maximum by making
processing more efficient.

tl;dr battery material processing into the actual battery is where most of the
batteries lose there performance. Step (1) Increase theoretical energy density
by finding new material; Step (2) focus on battery processing to approach
theoretical maximum.

------
mschuster91
> "Our rechargeable aluminum battery generates about two volts of
> electricity."

Now that's really good news. Stick it together with a 1.5V regulator inside an
AA cell and never have problems with devices not accepting the 1.2V of a
typical NiMH cell.

~~~
tzs
Alkaline batteries _start_ at 1.5 V, but they do not stay there. They are 1.4
V when they have discharged by about 10%. When they have discharged by around
30%, they are at 1.3 V. When they have discharged by around 60%, they are at
1.2 V. By 90%, they are down to 1.1 V. By 95%, they are down to around 1.0 V,
and they pretty much nosedive from there.

NiMH also drop as they are discharged, but the curve flattens out for much of
its range. A good charger should charge an NiMH to around 1.4 V. After about
10% discharge, it will be down to 1.3 V. By 30% discharge it will be around
1.25 V, and it stays around that until around 80% discharge. From 80% to 90%
it will drop to around 1.2 V, and from there it will drop to around 1.0 V at
around 99% discharge, and then it falls off a cliff.

Devices designed for alkaline batteries are designed to run fine on anything
from around 1.0 or 1.1 V through 1.5 V, and so should be fine with NiMH,
except if they have a battery remaining indicator that is hard wired to assume
alkaline it won't give accurate estimates for NiMH because of the different
shapes of the discharge curves.

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nikanj
Why do we see a new "super battery" article every two weeks or so?

