
Silicon, the new lithium? - chanux
http://www.mnn.com/technology/gadgets-electronics/blogs/silicon-the-new-lithium
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iamwil
I hate it when the article never links to the original paper.

[http://materials.technion.ac.il/EinEli/Publications/publicat...](http://materials.technion.ac.il/EinEli/Publications/publications.html#)

Click on 2009, and then click the pdf link to request by email.

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scythe
As someone who's been paying attention to various high-performance battery
technologies, I'm a little disappointed that they didn't link to the original
paper (if anyone could find it, that'd be nice). However, the author is a
little eager to jump to conclusions, some of which are wrong: first, a non-
rechargeable battery that "uses air as a cathode" is called a fuel cell, and
it's not a particularly new design. In fact, silicon fuel cells have been
around since at least 2007 [1]. Also, Bolivia does _not_ have half of the
world's supply of lithium; they currently have the cheapest reserves, but as
lithium represents about 2% of the cost of producing a lithium-ion battery,
there are many more potential reserves available [2]. It's also worth pointing
out that we've had non-rechargeable batteries that exceed lithium's energy
store potential for quite a while, in the form of lithium-thionyl chloride
[3].

Really, though, what seems more interesting to me are the _nanostructured_
silicon-anode lithium-ion batteries, which have been demonstrated multiple
times now, have capacities several times those of lithium, and _are_
rechargeable [4] [5] [6].

[1] <http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-983920.html>

[2] [http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-
shortage-...](http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-for-
electric-cars/)

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_battery>

[4] [http://gas2.org/2008/11/25/silicon-could-give-lithium-ion-
ba...](http://gas2.org/2008/11/25/silicon-could-give-lithium-ion-
batteries-10x-more-capacity/)

[5]
[http://aiche.confex.com/aiche/2009/webprogrampreliminary/Pap...](http://aiche.confex.com/aiche/2009/webprogrampreliminary/Paper159441.html)

[6]
[http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908....](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html)

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davi
Nice example of interesting but vapid post leading to dense HN comment.
Thanks.

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etherealG
any 3rd party verification available on this?

