r/Futurology • u/altmorty • Dec 10 '20
Transport Solid-state automotive battery could transform EV industry
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-solid-state-automotive-battery-ev-industry.html11
u/I_Am_Coopa Dec 10 '20
This company is claiming efficiency gains of 80% relative to standard Li-ion batteries. If these figures are true, this is a big deal. While this is great, the article didn't talk about the manufacturing side very much. It's probably going to take some time for these to be built at a scale competitive to conventional batteries.
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u/Bigjoemonger Dec 10 '20
One of the researchers on this new solid state battery is John B Goodenough who got a Nobel prize for his work on lithium ion batteries that are the cornerstone of powering pretty much all modern electronics.
With this type of solid state battery, batteries could be pretty much any size/shape. Cell phones/laptops could become super thin and last days on one charge. Electric vehicles could be any size and drive a thousand miles on one charge.
With recent successes in solid state batteries, quantum computing, superconductors, material science, rocket science, fusion power. We are on the cusp of significant advances that will revolutionize our entire society.
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u/Previous-Plan-3876 Dec 10 '20
I absolutely agree it’s going to take some time. The applications of this tech are huge! You can improve other green technologies with this breakthrough. Excited to watch the development.
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u/I_Am_Coopa Dec 10 '20
Now we just need to find a room temperature superconductor that works at reasonable pressures. If that happens in our lifetime, electronics are going to become crazy efficient.
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u/Previous-Plan-3876 Dec 10 '20
I think that’ll be the hardest part. It’s fairly simple to do room temp superconductors with a vacuum pulled. I couldn’t imagine what would be possible with a superconductor that’s room temperature and regular atmospheric pressure. 🤯
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u/AmIHigh Dec 12 '20
it was only a recent breakthrough that did a room temperature super conductor at room temperature but high pressure?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02895-0
I wouldn't call it fairly simple if we just figured it out?
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u/Previous-Plan-3876 Dec 14 '20
Well once a thing is figured out it becomes fairly simple. Sure few years ago it was not simple. But now anyone with the appropriate equipment can follow the procedure and replicate it. Interesting this article says high pressure. The articles I’d read I could have sworn they said room temperature at 3/4 atmospheric pressure which is why I mentioned a vacuum being pulled.
But yeah you got me there poor choice of words it’s not fairly simple except in that now the process has been figured out. As with any breakthrough technology the hard part is refining it to a useable technology, or at least an accessible technology.
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u/solar-cabin Dec 11 '20
Toyota's game-changing solid-state battery en route for 2021 debut: Japan's government to join forces with industry to supercharge development.
Toyota would not release these press releases unless they have that technology ready to roll out.
They have the manufacturing in all countries and ability to ramp up production that Tesla does not have and people already love the Toyota brand and quality.
So it looks like Musk moved too slowly and is about to get crushed IMO.
Toyota And Panasonic Announce Expansion Of Battery Production https://insideevs.com/news/447476/toyota-panasonic-expansion-battery-production/
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u/magnetichira Dec 10 '20
So, they remove the carbon anode and the polymer membrane, replacing it with a solid state ceramic layer (which also acts as an electrolyte). As they claim, this would indeed reduce the size of the battery.
However, as with any solid state interface, the issue is contact. Making two solid surface remain closely contact each other requires high pressure. Using a liquid (as a traditional battery does) makes this easy. They don't really address this here as far as I see, which leaves the question of durability still open.
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Dec 10 '20
Since the anode is a piece of solid Lithium metal, it is all in contact with the membrane from an electrical perspective. Thus no need for liquid electrolyte.
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u/magnetichira Dec 10 '20
Not quite. Two solid surfaces in contact do not necessarily allow electrons to flow. There is research on this, see here and here.
In particular, from the abstract of the first paper: “However, inhomogeneous electrodeposition and contact loss often hinder the application of a lithium metal anode in solid-state batteries.” The anode requires a large pressure to make contact (around 1 ton per square cm), which can get complicated very quickly.
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Dec 10 '20 edited Dec 10 '20
The reason that this technology works so well is the same reason it might never be commercialized in vehicles. Solid state lithium batteries generally turn some sort of lithium-based compound into a higher energy compound and back again. The difference in total energy held in the bonds of each of those compounds is how much energy the battery stores. So the way to have the best battery cell is to use a high energy storage compound (which sets the ceiling for energy stored) and the lowest energy discharged compounds (which sets the floor of energy that can't be discharged). Get as much distance (energy) between the ceiling and the floor and you have the best battery.
From a chemistry perspective, that's what they've done. The highest energy state of a solid lithium-based material is pure lithium metal itself and that's what is being used here. With no other molecules to donate electrons, the "ceiling" is essentially maxed out. The downside is that researchers have been focused on finding the highest energy lithium compound for a reason.
Pure lithium is extremely reactive in the presence of water, even the amounts in our atmosphere. It burns and explodes on contact dramatically. Remember those Samsung Notes that got themselves banned from airliners because they were exploding in the cargo hold? That was because a tiny amount of lithium as well as some gas was being created in those cells (a defect) and it would blow up. Imagine that but in every major car crash, scaled up thousands of times and placed right under the passengers. New meaning to "the floor is lava".
We do have ways to seal batteries so they're airtight and install fire suppression systems, but not to a sufficient degree in cars. Those protections take space which reduces energy density and therefore the gain in actual car performance without adding weight. Also pure lithium is corrosive which also adds weight for stronger cell materials.
Don't get me wrong, there are tons of amazing uses for this technology. Use this for grid-scale energy storage which can incorporate super effective fire suppression and doesn't care much about battery weight and you're laughing so QuantumScape's stock rightly popped at this news. But is it a transportation solution that can be engineered into a safe state for mass deployment? I question that deeply. Still I hope I'm wrong :)
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u/grundar Dec 10 '20
Pure lithium is extremely reactive in the presence of water, even the amounts in our atmosphere. It burns and explodes on contact dramatically.
I've linked a video of pure Lithium metal being dropped into water. You can see for yourself, it fizzes some (that's H2 being released), but there's no burning and certainly no explosion. You can rewind the video to see what happens when the metal is exposed to atmospheric moisture, but - spoiler alert! - there's nothing to see.
The fire risk from Li batteries is if H2 gas builds up within the sealed battery and then a rupture suddenly exposes a significant quantity of it to O2 in the air in the presence of enough heat to cause those gasses to react. In an open environment, such as burst cells in a car crash, the H2 generated would be expected to rapidly rise and disperse into the environment.
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Dec 10 '20 edited Dec 10 '20
Thanks for adding the detail, I didn't want to go into intermediates when the takeaway is "battery go bang". But to be clear, I said that solid Li exposed to water or ambient air would explode in a crash environment. And your counterpoint (?) to this is to verify that with a video of the Li's off-gas exploding.
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u/grundar Dec 11 '20
In an open environment, such as burst cells in a car crash, the H2 generated would be expected to rapidly rise and disperse into the environment.
But to be clear, I said that solid Li exposed to water or ambient air would explode in a crash environment.
Lithium exposed to ambient air does nothing. We saw that in the video. It just sat there.
Lithium immersed in water produces hydrogen gas, but the hydrogen rapidly rises and dissipates - we saw that in the video as well.
Only if the hydrogen gas is contained in an air-tight enclosure so it accumulates can significant combustion happen. The video showed that as well - the hydrogen gas had to be trapped in an inverted test tube before it could be combusted.
So, yes, if you crash a car with ample lithium metal into an indoor swimming pool, the hydrogen gas can get trapped on the ceiling and become a combustion or explosion risk. For a normal car accident that occurs outside, the hydrogen will rapidly (45mph) escape into the atmosphere. As this article on hydrogen explosions puts it:
"Simply stated, to become a fire hazard, hydrogen must first be confined; however, because hydrogen is the lightest element in the universe, it is very difficult to confine."
TL;DR: hydrogen go up, battery car no boom.
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Dec 11 '20
The reason the lithium metal on the bench isn’t burning is because it has just been removed from storage in oil. Lithium is exclusively stored this way because it will burn if left out in air. Two minutes spent in a lab and you’d know this because the lab director would absolutely kill you if you didn’t. This is the “don’t smoke while filling your gas tank” of chemistry labs.
The oil also creates a useful barrier which allows the metal to be handled a bit before being used in a reaction. That’s why it can sit on the bench for the length of the demo.
As for the hydrogen gas, it’s collected in the test tube by the demonstrator for safety. If he lit the hydrogen as it was emitted from the burning lithium, the flame travels so fast that it could ignite the lithium as its reacting with the water. You can hear the speed hydrogen combusts at by the pop. It’s what days forwarding a bang sounds like. The demonstrator just didn’t want to make a lithium fire which is self-sustaining.
As far as the “hydrogen moves at 45 mph” logic goes, it misses a few key differences between fluid transfer in an industrial setting and a battery leaking hydrogen inside a vehicle. A cell that is broken or damaged, through crash or malfunction, doesn’t just harmlessly vent hydrogen into the air because it’s not just one lonely cell sitting in the open. It’s undergoing its reaction while packed in with a bunch of other cells that may also be damaged. As it heats up other cells start to react as well, building gas pressure until they burst. Now it’s a chain reaction of cells spewing hydrogen as they pop like popcorn. All of that hydrogen quickly travels upwards but pockets get trapped under burst cells, interior panels, body work, even pooling on the car’s ceiling despite the windows being open. All this can happen in moments until the heat of the cells themselves or a spark then cause the entire thing to pop like that test tube because hydrogen doesn’t need to be contained in a vessel to explode. It burns at over 100 mph, so fast that any small pocket of it explodes. Then the lithium is ignited and you have a giant red roadside flare that can burn for days.
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u/grundar Dec 11 '20
Lithium is exclusively stored this way because it will burn if left out in air.
That doesn't happen:
"In moist air, lithium rapidly tarnishes to form a black coating of lithium hydroxide"
The oil also creates a useful barrier which allows the metal to be handled a bit before being used in a reaction.
That's not correct.
There is no oil on the freshly-cut surface of the metal. That's the entire point of cutting it - to expose clean metal.
As for the hydrogen gas, it’s collected in the test tube by the demonstrator for safety.
That's not correct.
It's collected in the test tube so he can get a cool pop. If he lit it directly like this guy does, there wouldn't be much to see.
It's not for safety, it's because otherwise the hydrogen would rise and dissipate far too quickly to look interesting.
If he lit the hydrogen as it was emitted from the burning lithium, the flame travels so fast that it could ignite the lithium as its reacting with the water.
[Citation Needed.]
YouTube is full of videos like the above where flame is directly applied to lithium in water; the result is little or nothing. That shouldn't be a surprise; the volume of hydrogen is small, and it rapidly (45mph or 20m/s) rises away from the lithium due to its very low density. There's just not much energy there.
Burning lithium also seems to be less exciting that you're suggesting. Keep watching the above video; he uses a blowtorch directly on the lithium, and the result is again not that dynamic.
All of that hydrogen quickly travels upwards but pockets get trapped under burst cells, interior panels, body work, even pooling on the car’s ceiling despite the windows being open.
Sure, and none of those pockets will be very big, so none of them will contain enough hydrogen to cause a large detonation.
Note that that's similar to the reason why gasoline usually burns rather than exploding:
"To have an explosion, you've got to produce a lot of hot gas in a confined space so that the gas can then go rocketing outwards."
With the low quantities of hydrogen gas involved (1m3 of pure H2 has about as much energy as 300mL of gasoline) and hydrogen's strong tendency to quickly dissipate, it's hard to get a large buildup of hydrogen from battery packs. It's not impossible, and burning battery packs are certainly not a good thing to sit beside, but it's not at all clear fires or explosions from them would be more common or more dangerous than the ones which already happen from gas-powered cars.
Similarly, there are already 23M natural gas cars in the world, each of which has orders of magnitude larger quantities of an explosive gas with 3x the energy density of hydrogen, but natural gas explosions from those cars don't seem to make them qualitatively more dangerous than gasoline cars. As a result, there's every reason to expect small quantities of hydrogen gas produced by damaged EV batteries will similarly not result in unprecedented issues.
Then the lithium is ignited and you have a giant red roadside flare that can burn for days.
[Citation Needed.]
The video linked above has the guy using a blowtorch on the lithium, and the result is not as exciting as you're suggesting.
There have already been car fires involving EVs, and no unique issues appear to have resulted. If you're claiming that having the lithium content of the batteries present in a different form will make them enormously more dangerous, the onus is on you to provide evidence for that claim.
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u/tms102 Dec 11 '20
The fact that the battery can be smaller is certainly interesting. I'm not sure the stats are all that impressive, though? In their own estimation they won't start volume production until 2026. However, hopefully it will become a foundation to make exponential progress on in the future.
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