Comments on: New “Micro-Batteries” Show Great Potential, Now The Most Powerful Batteries On The Planet

By: San Diego Loves Green – New “Micro-batteries” more powerful than any batteries on the planet

Sat, 04 May 2013 02:17:17 +0000

[…] wrote the following article which was published in Clean Technica on April 17, 2013; Image Credit (above): “The graphic illustrates a high power battery technology from the […]

By: Otis11

Otis11 — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:07:00 +0000

I think that’s because of the “economics of scale.”

Currently there are so few lithium batteries being recycled, they can’t really scale it up, making things cost more, but for the ‘new’ Lithium, it’s already operating at fully commercial levels. As more and more batteries start being recycled, I expect this will change.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:01:00 +0000

Interestingly, it’s apparently cheaper to use ‘new’ lithium than to recycle.

By: Otis11

Otis11 — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:46:00 +0000

Plus, once you have the material and only have to recycle the batteries, they will get cheaper as well.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:14:00 +0000

With EVs we need about 3x capacity at the same weight. That would give us a 180 – 200 mile range LEAF. Charge time now is not really a problem, with the rapid charging technology we now have you could drive all day (500 miles) with two <20 minute stops. (Got to eat, pee and check your messages anyway.)

Cost will come down with increased manufacturing volume. Materials are not expensive and labor inputs will be low.

I'm not worried about oil companies burying stuff. There are incredible fortunes to be made by whomever brings the best batteries to market. Microsoft is going to look like a mom and pop shop in comparison.

By: Abdominal_Snowman

Abdominal_Snowman — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:23:00 +0000

It might be a method for the future then – if they concoct a more energy dense battery they may be able to give it a similar ‘micro treatment’ to make the charge time more acceptable.

By: Abdominal_Snowman

Abdominal_Snowman — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:20:00 +0000

I think that, technology wise, there is a high probably of getting the ~2x the stored energy for ~1/2 the cost, with 1/2 the weight and 1/4 the charge time that you would need for battery power cars to hit the big time. Probably within a few years actually. But I’m most concerned about oil companies buying the tech up and burying it. I don’t know how realistic of a concern that is, but I definitely don’t trust those people.

By: MightyDrunken

MightyDrunken — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0000

The Supplementary material is free to access.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n4/extref/ncomms2747-s1.pdf

The table gives energy density as high as 15 μWh/cm^2 μm for their slow discharge micro battery, less for the faster batteries. μWh/cm^2 μm are strange units but they also give a graph with other batteries on it.

This suggests that their high energy density A battery has the same energy density of a Nickel Zinc battery and less than a lithium ion battery. Not bad considering the small size but not a breakthrough in regards to energy density.

This research matches other battery breakthroughs I have seen reported recently. Nano-technology allows the batteries to recharge/discharge a lot faster; the
power density is not increased by much. Unfortunately bad reporting obscures these facts and it seems like more of a breakthrough then it is, these are super capacitor replacements.

By: Graphene Silicon Nanoplatelets Increase Lithium-Ion Battery Capacity 4 Fold | CleanTechnica

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:06:05 +0000

[…] New “Micro-Batteries” Show Great Potential, Now The Most Powerful Batteries On The Planet […]

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:20:00 +0000

Emailed.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:12:00 +0000

agreed. a ton of smart people trying to crack this nut… better & faster than anyone else.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:12:00 +0000

yeah, betting on which of these breakthrough technologies breaks through the market best is not something i’d risk my money on. several of them now. and probably several more under the radar.

By: Hans

Hans — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 12:05:00 +0000

Or write an email to one of the authors and ask for a preprint.

By: tibi stibi

tibi stibi — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:54:00 +0000

3d batteries are as a concept not new. so what is new about this article?

By: addicted4444

addicted4444 — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:48:00 +0000

Well, I know. The paper isn’t free to access. If you want that information that badly you are welcome to click the link I provided and pay the $40 yourself to find out.

By: addicted4444

addicted4444 — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:47:00 +0000

Agreed. Besides, there are way too many highly profitable industries wanting this to happen (wearable electronics, phones, cars, etc).

Like you said, something should work out. But I won’t place any bets on any individual technology.

By: Abdominal_Snowman

Abdominal_Snowman — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 03:29:00 +0000

The original question was about energy density rather than power density, The best supercapacitors are still a long way behind lithium ion in terms of energy density. It’s not going to be much use having a powerful battery if it needs to way a tonne (literally) to give you decent range. But the claims seem to be that the batteries would be about 10x smaller for the same energy (dubious) so I suppose we have to assume they’re about 50x more energy dense than the best supercapacitors.

By: Otis11

Otis11 — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:05:00 +0000

Sweet, thanks for the link!

And yeah, there’s a big difference between the lab and the real world. Regardless of how this technology turns out, some battery technology will make it in the next decade – there’s just too many people trying and too much room for improvement for battery tech not to advance.

By: addicted4444

addicted4444 — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:37:00 +0000

Here is the abstract of the paper:
“High-performance miniature power sources could enable new
microelectronic systems. Here we report lithium ion microbatteries
having power densities up to 7.4 mW cm−2 μm−1,
which equals or exceeds that of the best supercapacitors, and which is
2,000 times higher than that of other microbatteries. Our key insight is
that the battery microarchitecture can concurrently optimize ion and
electron transport for high-power delivery, realized here as a
three-dimensional bicontinuous interdigitated microelectrodes. The
battery microarchitecture affords trade-offs between power and energy
density that result in a high-performance power source, and which is
scalable to larger areas.”

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n4/full/ncomms2747.html

It’s published in Nature, so should be legit. However, PR releases tend to hype stuff dramatically, and ignore lots of the uncertainties. And, again, there are many roadblocks between doing it in the lab and bringing it to the mass market.

By: Otis11

Otis11 — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:36:00 +0000

So what’s the energy density of these batteries? “Powerful” means that it can (comparably) produce a lot of current, (at a given voltage of course) but for how long? I assume they had to make some sort of sacrifice for that…

Also, how many cycles can it do before that micro-structure disappears or degrades?

If they’re already looking into cost reductions for manufacturing they should have these numbers. (Mind asking?)