back to article New battery boffinry could 'triple range' of electric vehicles

A new method of designing batteries, cooked up at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, could triple the range of electric vehicles, a new paper has claimed. The development, described by the article An In Vivo Formed Solid Electrolyte Surface Layer Enables Stable Plating of Li Metal (PDF) in energy journal Joule, is due to …

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  1. Not also known as SC

    Phone Batteries

    I wonder if this development can be used with phone batteries too?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Phone Batteries

      Logically, yes. The failure mode that this addresses is the same, although other failure modes exist, as Samsung know too well.

      But it is usually a seven year journey from lab to retailer, so don't get your hopes up. You'll have an iPhone 16 by the time this technology is out.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        "But it is usually a seven year journey from lab to retailer,"

        The attractive thing about this is it's a retro-fit for the existing battery chemistry.

        So relatively easy to add into batteries.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "But it is usually a seven year journey @ John Smith 19

          So relatively easy to add into batteries.

          Easy? You reckon. We have a claim from a respectable source that they've demonstrated something in the lab. What happens before that is "easily added into batteries"? The short list below is a fraction of the tasks needed, only vaguely in order:

          * Labs need to verify that there are no new failure modes or performance changes to the battery - eg energy storage at the expense of service life may not be a good trade-off in these days of sealed devices.

          * The IP holders need to establish heads of agreement with a battery and/or phone maker as to who will do what, and how rewards will be shared

          * Battery makers need to establish that the lab process could be undertaken in a battery plant - if the preparation is too onerous, then it simply may not be possible to make them other than in a lab.

          * The battery makers have to work out if it is actually economic to volume manufacture with the additional materials, and additional processing - many good ideas don't make it to the shop simply because nobody will pay the right price.

          * Battery makers have to try and source materials of the required quality and quantity (at a low price). If supply chains are constrained now or in future, that feeds back into the economics.

          * Battery and phone makers need to establish what price the market will pay - it may be economic at a basic level, but if the market won't pay more, why go to all the effort?

          * Battery makers and phone makers need to do tests that will convince their respective insurers that the technology is safe over several years - after the Note 7, they won't be in a hurry to take chances on a much higher energy density battery.

          And at every stage there's regulatory compliance, H&S, disposal and recycling. You've got new concerns that if there's three times the energy density, then the consequences of a "not at fault" failure may be far more serious than current technology - if a perforated battery gives off far more noxious fumes or explodes like a small hand grenade, will airlines permit the devices to fly? If you have much higher energy stored, does the new chemistry work and remain effective with fast chargers?

          1. eldakka

            Re: "But it is usually a seven year journey @ John Smith 19

            @Ledswinger

            You seem to have missed the word relatively in "relatively easy to..."

            Relatively easy != easy.

            Compared to having to throw out the old production lines completely and build brand new ones from scratch using new completely new processes, complete new battery chemistry, etc, to use this technology...if it ever pans out.

            1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
              Unhappy

              "Relatively easy != easy."

              Exactly. *

              Tweaking the recipe slightly. Not too expensive. Junk existing chemistry (and probably production machinery). Very expensive.

              Why is the concept of a qualified statement so difficult for people to grasp?

              *As opposed to say a Hydrofloric Acid and Cream Cheese battery with an operating temperature of 200c, which I'd suggest has f**k all chance of ever moving outside my head (where it was invented 5 seconds ago).

              But if I wanted to do something really clever....

              I'd look for a fluid I could run through the cooling jackets of heat engines, or the tubes of a boiler, and then run directly into some kind of flow battery. Turning heat directly into electricity, without generators or alternators.

              The chemistries a b**ch and the thermodynamic efficiencies seem low (but I'm not sure why).

              Making that work would require very high order boffinery indeed.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: "Relatively easy != easy."

                "a Hydrofloric Acid and Cream Cheese battery with an operating temperature of 200c, which I'd suggest has f**k all chance of ever moving outside my head " @John Smith 19

                Are you aware of the sodium-sulphur battery, with an operating temperature of 300C or more? At that temperature it's compatible with Samsung smartphones, Boeing dreamliners, and maybe more, but was more aimed at stationary storage and (for a while in the UK in the late 1970s) Transit-sized electric vehicles. Prince Philip had one in his electric Bedford CF taxi.

                Anyway, ledswinger's list of hinder factors is an interesting illustration of why business leaders and their Westminster puppets have been so keen on a bonfire of the red tape (at least pre-Grenfell, maybe it will change now). Who needs the British Standards Institute anyway (it presumably isn't gonna be ISO/CE rules much longer).

                You know which icon goes here, innit.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "But it is usually a seven year journey @ John Smith 19

            @Ledswinger: "if a perforated battery gives off far more noxious fumes or explodes like a small hand grenade"

            Are you saying there are potential military applications? Their research budget has just tripled.

          3. mistersaxon

            Re: "But it is usually a seven year journey @ John Smith 19

            Three times a phone battery is not a hand grenade, by any stretch of the imagination (except yours and possibly a H&S inspector now, thx).

            As for ingredient cost - did you see the article? Nothing expensive and the membrane is self-applying.

            Anyway I'd settle for twice the life and a bigger antenna, as the ones we seem to have now couldn't hold a signal if it had big brass handles on it.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "But it is usually a seven year journey @ John Smith 19

            Just imagine inventing the steam engine under modern H & S rules.

            Or even inventing fire....

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "But it is usually a seven year journey from lab to retailer,"

          That is assuming that it scales without problems.

          There has been a large number of battery tech improvement over the years but non of them made their way into production for various reasons - what works in the lab under controlled conditions does not necessarily work out in the world.

        3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: "But it is usually a seven year journey from lab to retailer,"

          "So relatively easy to add into batteries."

          I wonder if there are patents involved and how much the licensing fees are? Or will this be made freely available to all since it's a minor step change (even if the effects are more major)

      2. LeoP

        Re: You'll have an iPhone 16 by the time this technology is out.

        I will most definitly not.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: You'll have an iPhone 16 by the time this technology is out.

          Indeed not. It will be a SameDung Universe 18.

      3. gudguy1a

        Re: Phone Batteries

        7 year journey...? Not necessarily - as assistive/peripheral technologies (used to help with this battery problem) also gain ground in their own realms - the time line becomes shortened, making a 'possible' market introduction in 3 - 5 years. Maybe... fingers crossed

    2. Adam 1

      Re: Phone Batteries

      > I wonder if this development can be used with phone batteries too?

      No. Phone batteries are designed in such a way that any potential capacity improvement is converted into "let's put a smaller battery in so we can make it thinner".

      1. Blank Reg

        Re: Phone Batteries

        @Adam 1

        I'm afraid you are correct. Personally I'd much rather they make the phones 2mm thicker. Given how thin the batteries are now, adding 2mm is probably a 50%+ boost in capacity.

      2. mosw

        Re: Phone Batteries

        >> any potential capacity improvement is converted into "let's put a smaller battery in so we can make it thinner".

        Recently heard from Siri: "Does this battery make me look fat?"

    3. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: Phone Batteries

      Plus, any improvement in battery technology is subsumed by the device using more power than the previous generation due to a bigger screen, faster processor, extra-loud speaker or whatever the new generation of phones are touting.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Phone Batteries

      I wouldn't hold your breath, as yet, every story re battery improvement technology has, so far, failed to deliver.

      1. Kiwi
        Facepalm

        Re: Phone Batteries

        I wouldn't hold your breath, as yet, every story re battery improvement technology has, so far, failed to deliver.

        I know. It's a bloody nightmare having to cart those earthen jars around that're full of (insert suspected acidic chemicals of choice here) just to get a tiny amount of power from each one.

        Don't get me started on the piles of them needed to crank the car engine over!

        (Perchance you're too young to remember the "phone batteries" from many decades past - huge cylindrical things that would be somewhere around the size of a milk bottle IIRC (pint bottle, give or take), which would give a tiny bit of power for a small fraction of the time you wanted it to last for? Today's batteries do exactly the same, only for about 1/1000th the size!)

        1. katrinab Silver badge

          Re: Phone Batteries

          My first phone ran on 3 AA batteries.

          It had many great features, including

          an Alarm Clock

          Text Messages

          the ability to make phone calls

          and

          That's it.

      2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Coat

        "every story re battery improvement technology has, so far, failed to deliver."

        IOW "It ran out of juice" ?

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Phone Batteries

        "I wouldn't hold your breath, as yet, every story re battery improvement technology has, so far, failed to deliver."

        Seriously, batteries ARE much better now than 10 years ago, than 10 years before that, etc,etc. What YOU mean is that we keep hearing of 300% improvement in capacity that charges in 1/10th the time.... and it is not making it into devices. But simple AA rechargeable batteries DO have 400% of the capacity that they had 30 years ago AND charge in 1/10th the time. So improvements are, in fact, made. But reading a hype article like this ... having read hype articles like this for the last 10 years... gets old. If they were all to be believed, we would have triple the triple the triple the range of a battery 10 years ago by now. And then we read another article like this...

  2. GBE

    How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

    It seems like every week or two for the past 5-10 years somebody announces some discovery/invention that "could" double/triple/quadruple battery capacity while simultaneously making them safer, smaller, cheaper, lighter, and fresher smelling.

    Somehow "could" never turns into "does"...

    1. DavCrav

      Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

      "Somehow "could" never turns into "does"..."

      And yet batteries continue to get better in real-world devices. How does that work?

      1. GBE

        Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

        And yet batteries continue to get better in real-world devices. How does that work?

        Mostly it seems to be through continuous, incremental improvements rather than "breakthroughs" involving carbon nano-tubes or in-vivo-formed-membranes that provide a 2X-3X jumps in capacity.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

          In my lifetime there have been thre general battery breakthroughs.

          1/. Nickel cadmium. Developed in WWII this enabled secondary cells to rival primary cells for the first time. And made portable power tools possible, And indeed electric model aircraft.

          2/. Nickel metal hydride. Not as robust as NiCd, but doubled energy /weight.

          3/. Lithium Ion. At a stroke, yet more energy density. Making today's range of portable electronics and electrics all possible.

          All of these are fundamentally about getting a chemistry that was known to work just about safe enough and stable enough to mass produce.

          There is no better chemistry than lithium.

          All the advances since are from fine tuning lithium chemistry, and this is another such fine tune.

          There is probably one more technology to go - lithium air. Because it can utilise atmospheric oxygen, its about 3 times lighter than existing lithium (batteries), especially when charged. Back of envelope calculations show that a lithium air battery could, if it could be got to work, take an airliner across the Atlantic. With passengers. Just.

          But as far as chemical batteries go, That's it. One might be better off making synthetic diesel from nuclear power stations derived electricity and running a conventional diesel or jet engine.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

        yeah but when has it ever tripled like we are always hearing? It is always the gradual improvement that one would expect, these outlandish promises never come true

        1. Keith Oborn

          Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

          Well, for EVs at least (and given the commonality of technology, most other Lithium battery uses as well) the last 7 years has seen about 5x reduction in $/kwh cost and maybe 3x increase in kwh/unit volume.

          Exactly what has made this possible is only really known to the battery manufacturers, and I doubt they want to discuss it much. It's most likely a combination of a few step changes (although not on the "3x better" scale) and lots of little tweaks.

          Most technologies don't usually experience huge overnight jumps, but if you wait a few years and look back--. Look at semiconductors for instance.

          1. eldakka

            Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

            the last 7 years has seen about 5x reduction in $/kwh cost
            That has as much to do with the economies of scale gained with the increased volume production of lithium-based batteries and the usual attendant benefits as it has to do with battery chemistry changes/enhancements.

      3. rreed2000

        Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

        Doubling/tripling/quadrupling capacity? Really?

        We do see modest increases in capacity, but all the while keep hearing of massive capacity breakthroughs that never seem to make it into production.

        1. DainB Bronze badge

          Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

          Because it is simply not possible.

          "cheap, safe, long-lasting batteries" and "much more range in their electric vehicles" are two mutually exclusive things as range requires nothing else but higher energy density. Or lower power consumption. Or more batteries.

          If you try even triple energy density of Li-Ion battery (0.875MJ/kg x 3) you're right next to gunpowder which has energy density of 3 MJ/kg. If you want increase it 5 times you're now in TNT territory (4.6 MJ/kg).

          Would you prefer car that can do half the range or the one that goes further but literally has 500Kg of TNT under your ass ?

          1. GerryMC

            Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

            Would you prefer car that can do half the range or the one that goes further but literally effectively has 500Kg of TNT under your ass ?

            FTFY

            Unless you mean that you do carry half a tonne of TNT with you. In which case the FBI or MI5 or equivalent may want a word with you...

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

              "Unless you mean that you do carry half a tonne of TNT with you."

              Does the term "energy density" mean anything to you?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

                @Doctor Syntax

                "Does the term "energy density" mean anything to you?"

                Nup! Not a thing!!

            2. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

              Re: @GerryMC, literally

              Give up the fight, mate

              https://xkcd.com/1108

          2. Adam 1

            Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

            > If you try even triple energy density of Li-Ion battery (0.875MJ/kg x 3) you're right next to gunpowder which has energy density of 3 MJ/kg. If you want increase it 5 times you're now in TNT territory (4.6 MJ/kg).

            > Would you prefer car that can do half the range or the one that goes further but literally has 500Kg of TNT under your ass ?

            I heard that there are some nut jobs out there that attempt to drive vehicles with 43.1MJ/Kg. Won't catch me near a diesel though. That must be, by the arguments above, 10x more dangerous than TNT.

            1. Captain DaFt

              Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

              Won't catch me near a diesel though. That must be, by the arguments above, 10x more dangerous than TNT.

              Good point. If I recall correctly (and I'm just now too lazy to confirm) a chocolate bar has a higher energy density than than the equivalent weight of nitroglycerin.

              What a lot of people fail to appreciate is that energy density, and the speed the energy can be released, are two entirely different things. ☺

              1. inmypjs Silver badge

                Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

                "chocolate bar has a higher energy density than than the equivalent weight of nitroglycerin"

                Yes because a chocolate bar burns with about twice its weight of oxygen from the air while explosives (and most batteries) need to be self sufficient.

              2. Deltics
                Coat

                Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

                Any problem can be solved by the misunderstanding of the application of explosives.

              3. katrinab Silver badge

                Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

                Yes, if the chocolate bar is pure sugar, then it is 17MJ/kg.

                If it is pure fat, then it is 37MJ/kg

                Nitroglycerin is 6.38MJ/kg.

            2. DainB Bronze badge

              Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

              May I leave it to you to figure out why wood which is 4 times as energy dense as TNT does not produce same result when it is releasing all that energy ?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" @ DainB

                May I leave it to you to figure out why wood which is 4 times as energy dense as TNT does not produce same result when it is releasing all that energy ?

                Because wood usually exists as a discrete physical block, and that prevents the fuel from being exposed quickly to the oxidising agent fast enough to cause an explosion. However, that's for a lump of wood. If you have wood dust it most certainly is explosive because the oxidising agent and the fuel can be mixed to the perfect proportions. Operators of wood pellet power stations and sawmills know this, often from costly experience, and there's Youtube videos of real world wood dust explosions (coal, flour, corn dust, even sugar will do the same). Scan to 30 seconds into this:

                https://youtu.be/4hS6IGO2tdA?t=38

                TNT and most other explosives don't rely on atmospheric oxygen, they contain their own reagents, and so does a battery. Given the sort of explosions a conventional lithium battery can achieve if short circuited, I wouldn't want to be around one with three times the energy density.

          3. rsjaffe

            Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

            "If you try even triple energy density of Li-Ion battery (0.875MJ/kg x 3) you're right next to gunpowder which has energy density of 3 MJ/kg. If you want increase it 5 times you're now in TNT territory (4.6 MJ/kg)."

            And yet we drive around with even a larger bomb in our vehicles every day. Gasoline has an energy density of 45.7 MJ/kg

            1. handleoclast

              Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

              @rsjaffe

              And yet we drive around with even a larger bomb in our vehicles every day. Gasoline has an energy density of 45.7 MJ/kg

              Oh no it doesn't. I guarantee you it doesn't.

              A gasoline/air mix, where the two are intimately mixed, does indeed have that sort of energy density. Gasoline by itself, nope. Which is why a tank of petrol is relatively safe. Fill a tank, drop in a lighted match and you'll get a pretty flame in the filler pipe. Do the same with an empty tank, where there are plenty of fumes, and you'll get a bang, but not much of one because the fumes don't have a lot of gasoline.

              Despite what Hollywood wants you to believe, cars don't explode unless they are first subjected to the sort of abuse that creates a fuel-air mixture.

              1. aqk
                Mushroom

                Re: How many battery "explosions" is that this year?

                I guarantee you that a gasoline/petrol tank ONE THIRD full of gasoline is indeed extremely dangerous.

                If you do not believe me, try splashing some on your lit BBQ.

              2. itzman

                Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

                cars don't explode unless they are first subjected to the sort of abuse that creates a fuel-air mixture.

                Those of us who have flown and crashed planes powered by Li-ion batteries can assure you that they, however, do.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

            > Would you prefer car that can do half the range or

            > the one that goes further but literally has 500Kg of

            > TNT under your ass ?

            If you drive a petrol car, that's exactly what you currently have, give or take a spark.

            (As "arse" is spelt donkey-like, for "petrol" read "gasoline".)

          5. Bill B

            Re: How many battery "breakthroughs" is that this year?

            @DainB ... we should definitely avoid any energy source that is around 45 MJ/kg .. especially as a full tank could be around 40 kg of the stuff.

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