IBM Creates 'Breathing' High-Density Lithium-Air Battery 582
MrSeb writes "As part of IBM's Battery 500 project — an initiative started in 2009 to produce a battery capable of powering a car for 500 miles — Big Blue has successfully demonstrated a light-weight, ultra-high-density, lithium-air battery. In it, oxygen is reacted with lithium to create lithium peroxide and electrical energy. When the battery is recharged, the process is reversed and oxygen is released — in the words of IBM, this is an 'air-breathing' battery. While conventional batteries are completely self-contained, the oxygen used in a lithium-air battery comes from the atmosphere, so the battery itself can be much lighter. The main thing, though, is that lithium-air energy density is a lot higher than conventional lithium-ion batteries: the max energy density of lithium-air batteries is theorized to be around 12 kWh/kg, some 15 times greater than li-ion — and more importantly, comparable to gasoline."
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:5, Insightful)
Recharge in less then 5 minutes?
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of charging the battery in the car, exchange the empty battery for a loaded one.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:4, Insightful)
This idea is going to seem ridiculously silly in the future when batteries can charge faster than a tank can fill (Even Gen. X'ers will live to see it, I'm sure). I will seem incredible forward-thinking B-)
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:5, Insightful)
Not an absolute requirement by any means. Current cars can do an 80% recharge in half an hour, more than adequate for most people. Remember that in the future the idea will be to charge your car in the car park or at home, not just on the road. If you manage to hit the 500 mile range then half an hour to recharge your own body is probably a good idea.
kWh/kg (electric) != kWh/kg (thermal) (Score:5, Insightful)
The thermal energy in gasoline has to be converted to a more useful form of energy (i.e. turning the wheels), the efficiency of this is going to be ~20% for a automobile. The battery is supplying much more useful energy, the efficiency of converting electricity to useful energy is going to be something like 90% (or more). So a battery with the same energy density of gasoline actually has at least 4 times the useful energy of the same size (weight actually) gas tank.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:3, Insightful)
So what's wrong with more charging stations? Have one at each parking spot at the station, once the infrastructure is there the individual terminals are relatively cheap.
Re:Comparable? (Score:4, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Energy_content_.28high_and_low_heating_value.29 [wikipedia.org]
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:4, Insightful)
While certainly not impossible, the strain on energy distribution and the amount of wiring (the wire has to be thick to withstand the current!) will make it cheaper to have a few dedicated charging station rather than every house on its own.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:3, Insightful)
Not tenable. Do you really want to trade the brand new battery in your brand new car for a used one with an unknown number of duty cycles? If so, I'd be happy to trade the fully charged battery in my MacBook for your brand new but empty one. Sure mine says "replace battery now" in the health indicator but it is fully charged and compatible with other laptops with the same battery form factor.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but that's the beauty of it: You don't need to know the number of duty cycles.
You exchange your empty battery for a charged battery with the assurance of the fuel station that this battery carries the charge you just paid for.
And if that one's empty, you'll replace it again.
Furthermore, you can insert some electronics to store and display statistics - no need to sell a dumb battery.
Again, a solvable problem.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, it may represent a different business model entirely.
Gas stations mostly operate on thin margins on the gasoline itself, with the profit center being trying to get people to walk in the door to by some snacks/drink/whatever. Generally only items that can be browsed and purchase comfortably in a minute or so, since the store doesn't want a car consuming a spot more than that.
However, having vehicles that require a lot longer to charge and can be safely recharged without the operator in attendance changes the dynamics. No longer do you have businesses that are places to replenish vehicle range primarily, but you have a wider variety of businesses where they want people to sit around for a lot longer time away from their car. Some may provide metered charging as a way to augment their revenue or recover cost of the service, some even may provide it for 'free' to draw people in the door. You can already see this happening. In my area, there are shopping malls with currently free charging access. There are also restauraunts with metered chargers. A number of employers are starting to mention free charging as a perk, in part to draw people in and in part to show off how 'green' they are.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:3, Insightful)
This idea is going to seem ridiculously silly in the future when batteries can charge faster than a tank can fill (Even Gen. X'ers will live to see it, I'm sure). I will seem incredible forward-thinking B-)
For a website filled with electrical and computer engineers, the entire notion that you can recharge an electric battery quick with enough energy to be able to send an automobile over 500 miles in less than 15 minutes should seem totally ludicrous.
What are you expecting to have happen, somebody figure out how to discover news laws of physics akin to discovering how to travel faster than light?
The sheer amount of energy to perform this kind of action is going to require connectors to the recharging equipment to be in the kiloVolt range, or perhaps MegaVolt and have amperage with that voltage that can only be supplied by a direct power line to a nuclear power plant. What you are talking about doing here is to deliver a huge pile of energy in a very short period of time and then claiming that delivering that energy is not going to be lethal to the people who are performing the recharging.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cant Wait........ (Score:2, Insightful)
No offense, but you sound like a typical green. Whining about a 1% problem, then whining even harder when said problem is reduced to a 1ppm problem.
Greens are like some high maintenance girls in that regard. They don't want their supposed problem solved, they just want to whine about it.
Electric Drive Train? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are assuming that EV will simply replace the current engine and fuel tank with an electric engine and battery... This is not what has to happen.
Currently engines are big and heavy so you only have one. You then have to transfer the rotational energy of the engine to the wheels. But Electric motors are very light and tiny. So why not have 4?
Put a small electric engine in each wheel and you eliminate the entire drive train... no more drive train losses and EV's are back up to 90%.
Your 72% efficiency only applies to ICE cars that have been converted to EV's.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:5, Insightful)
If your driving needs ar compatible with an EV, then you can get an EV. If an EV can't meet your needs, then you can get a gasoline car.
Exactly.
Your comment is common, and it implies that this is a death knell for EVs, like they're impractical and will fail. Not true, just different strokes for different folks.
I see a lot of EV proponents discounting the drawbacks, and arguing every which way that EVs with just a little bit of improvement will be good enough for nearly everybody. Let's face it, hipsters congregate in dense urban areas where any car is a luxury, and many just can't imagine that some of us actually live a long way away from anything ;-)
Funny thing is, I would need a lot more range to use an EV, but slow charging times would not bother me so much for a secondary car, because many times it would have multiple days to charge ;-)
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's face it, hipsters congregate in dense urban areas where any car is a luxury, and many just can't imagine that some of us actually live a long way away from anything ;-)
Have you considered that living far away from everything is a luxury too? We're going to have to give up some of our luxuries if we want to be sustainable. Rural living for those not involved in agriculture is probably one of them.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:1, Insightful)
Have you considered that living far away from everything is a luxury too?
Considered it??? I live it every day and pay the price. It's like you think I have no clue how I'm living.
We're going to have to give up some of our luxuries if we want to be sustainable. Rural living for those not involved in agriculture is probably one of them.
Fuck you. No, really, I mean it, go fuck yourself. You have no idea at all to what extent my lifestyle is sustainable or not, what effects positive or negative it has on the environment.
Re:Gasoline-like energy density (Score:2, Insightful)
Fuck you. No, really, I mean it, go fuck yourself. You have no idea at all to what extent my lifestyle is sustainable or not, what effects positive or negative it has on the environment.
This is insightful?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)