Degradation of Lithium Batteries Shown In Real-time (ucl.ac.uk) 58
hypnosec writes: High-Speed Operando Tomography and Digital Volume Correlation have been used by a University College London-led team to show in real-time how lithium batteries degrade as they are used. Real-time 3D images of active, commercial Li/MnO2 disposable batteries were captured using X-ray computed tomography (CT) and advanced digital volume correlation software. The images formed cross-section time-lapse videos showing the damage occurring on the electrodes inside the battery in real-time.
Sure Jan (Score:5, Insightful)
"The images formed cross-section time-lapse videos showing the damage occurring on the electrodes inside the battery in real-time."
Not sure the editors know what words are.
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Mean, but funny.
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Show me a rechargeable battery that will power my smoke alarm for 10 years.
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http://www.amazon.com/Ultralif... [amazon.com]
but they are crap - it's a lie, they don't last that long - lawsuit waiting to happen, better to keep on throwing out batteries and putting new ones in each year like our grandparents did.
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I just replaced one of those "10-year" 9v batteries in my smoke alarm. I doubt it's been there for more than two years. Probably less, but I can't remember exactly.
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They just shouldn't be considered to be "disposable". Here in Belgium there are recycling boxes in many stores, and people are encouraged to use them. Not perfect, but certainly a lot better than throwing them away. And they do last a lot longer than a single charge on a recyclable battery, making them more convenient to use. Pop one into the remote control, and you're good for several years. Better than having to recharge them every few months.
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Great minds think alike. I was about to make a sarcastic post to the same effect. The entire point is NOT showing it in real-time, which would take weeks to watch.
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you must be a lawyer or a politician with that kind of defense.
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Everything real happens in real time. There isn't much choice.
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Re: Sure Jan (Score:1)
Re: Sure Jan (Score:2)
Yeah, don't yhey degrade over the course of years? That would be a boring video!
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Haven't you heard? They start degrading in as little as two weeks!
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you're like a walking advent calendar...
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If you are going to be so fussy, keep in mind, all captured images are time lapse done in real time, no matter how short the duration of the image capture. To claim otherwise is to claim the capture of an image of a single photon, the very first photon to interact with the image capture device.
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Not really. A typical video shows images in real time: the time separating the showing of each frame is equal to the time separating their acquisition. Although an individual part of a frame might be shown slightly before or after it should be, the defining characteristic is that the interval is correct on *average*, over a perceptibly insignificant timescale.
If the interval, on average, is longer than real time, we call it slow motion. If it's shorter, time lapse.
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Not sure the editors know what words are.
Inconceivable!!
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Compare the first frame and the last frame, the white things got smaller.
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And the black things got bigger - them's the voids and they's bad
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Stop! This level of technical jargon is beyond my ken!
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I know, I know... But, I'll answer anyhow.
http://www.thefreedictionary.c... [thefreedictionary.com]
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Stop! This level of technical jargon is beyond my ken!
He should ask Barbie for help.
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That took me longer to get than it should have. :/
Re: Barbie (Score:1)
Can't wait for solid-state batteries (Score:3, Interesting)
That is, until those are commercialized and become affordable for common uses.
So many issues with today's 'wet' batteries result from having a liquid electrolyte where particles move around, distance between electrodes may very somewhat (locally, at least), substances can dissolve in one place and deposit elsewhere (or form structures that cause a short circuit), electrolyte slowly escapes through a cells' sealing or (potentially) bursts into a cloud of smoke & fire when cell is abused, etc, etc.
Move to a construction that consists entirely of solid materials, and you get more capacitor-like behavior: vastly increased # of charge/discharge cycles, possible to make much safer, wider temperature range, potentially high capacity and/or power density, short charging times, less degradation when stored in discharged condition, etc. To top it of, perhaps lower cost as well.
Would be good to have an article about current state of the art in this area.
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Better yet, miniature thermonuclear generators the size of a coin battery that will power a whole house.
They already have a coin battery that can power the whole house, in a rural village in Africa.
Re: Can't wait for solid-state batteries (Score:2)
Super capacitors that are reliable and affordable are still a holy grail from what I understand. The promise being fast charge time and high capacity. Actually that high-capacity thing is also a challenge, since you don't want millions of volts all discharging in one shot, due to failure or accident.
Re: Can't wait for solid-state batteries (Score:4, Insightful)
Super-capacitors are already extremely reliable and affordable, the problem is they can't really store a whole lot of power at present. They are used in some trucking applications in tandem with standard lead acid batteries. Some also have a minor issue with self discharging, but if their capacity could be brought up to battery levels and that self discharge limited they would likely have a major impact on the battery market. They virtually don't degrade (1 million charge/discharge cycles without degradation have been shown), they can charge very quickly and they are very simple (which should make them cheap).
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Citation - preferably a manufacturer's data sheet of something that is actually in production and tells me how many of these I'll need for what application.
I'm not sure that that means what you think it means. Any device which stores power would be a novelty. Sure we've got tons (literally) of devices that store boring old energy. but something something that stored power ... that would be n
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The manufacturers do not typically give enough information to estimate this beyond minimum and maximum values however the significant wearout mechanism involves an electrochemical reaction at high cell voltage; for every 0.2 volt increase in cell voltage, lifetime degrades by 10 times. In practice that means that lifetimes of 10 to 100 years are very fe
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There is no reason high capacity would need to involve "millions of volts". Voltage does not equal storage capacity. Consider static electricity, which can involve very high voltages but very little actual power.
Also, very high voltages aren't a good idea with capacitors because they result in more leakage across whatever dielectric is used.
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Voltage does not equal storage capacity.
It does for capacitors. Capacitors store energy as a field charge, and that charge is directly proportional to the amount of energy stored. C=Q*V, where C is the charge, Q is capacitance, and V is voltage. The only way to generate a higher charge on a fixed capacitor is to increase the voltage.
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You must have missed the youtube video of cleetus out in Kentucky building a car battery the size of a can of Spam out of six D-cell ultracapacitors for under $100.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3x_kYq3mHM [youtube.com]
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Yeah it definitely works, and they do produce enough amps and volts in the short term to crank an engine. However there's no way they can store the same number of amp-hours as a lead-acid battery.
Also they put a huge amount of strain on the alternator as they will draw a lot more amps charging rapidly than a lead acid battery typically does.
There are reasons why super capacitors aren't in widespread use in cars as a replacement for batteries, though they still hold some promise as an assistive technology.
The real surprise is... (Score:3)
Bombarding Li/ion batteries with CT-scanner x-rays may cause degradation!
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Exactly! I've x-rayed items with Li/ion batteries in them and the batteries got quite warm compared to anything else in the machine. The machine in question: http://www.nikonmetrology.com/Products/X-ray-and-CT-Inspection/X-ray-systems-for-electronics-inspection/XT-V-160-Electronics-X-ray-system/ [nikonmetrology.com]