Solid-State Battery Could Extinguish Fire Risks (thestack.com) 53
An anonymous reader writes: "Researchers have designed a new type of battery that, unlike traditional models containing liquid or gel electrolytes, consists purely of solid chemical compounds and is non-flammable, representing a huge boost for improving battery safety," reports The Stack. "Responding to dangers linked to traditional lithium-ion batteries, the team based at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, has built a solid alternative which contains only solid-state electrodes and electrolytes." The battery is constructed with a layer of highly conductive lithium garnet, which works as a solid electrolyte between two electrodes. The researchers applied the material of the negative pole in viscous form, which allowed it to seep through the porous electrolyte layer. The team was able to temper the battery at 100C. "With a liquid or gel electrolyte, it would never be possible to heat a battery to such high temperatures," the study claims.
Paper link (Score:5, Informative)
Because I had to click through three pages to get to the actual source:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com... [wiley.com]
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Was the second link added after your post? It goes to the same spot you linked.
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.... I think it was? But now I'm second-guessing myself.
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My forecast (Score:1, Insightful)
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You may well be right. "Lithium Garnet" sounds a bit expensive to make. So it may be reserved for specialty applications.
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Solid state battery (Score:1)
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They're pretty obscure, you probably haven't heard of them.
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Not anymore, now we have suddenly created a peak in the search for that technology.
Energy density? (Score:3, Informative)
Unless I'm missing something they were a little vague as to the energy density of this battery technology. The one detail they did appear to provide is that the batteries only function decently at over 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Unless they're dirt cheap or can make some major leaps in their specs I don't think we'll be seeing this technology in any real use for a while.
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This answers my instant question of whether they'd be viable or not...
Re: Energy density? (Score:4, Funny)
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the batteries only function decently at over 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
showcasing the difference between "won't catch fire" and "won't catch other things on fire".
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It's on the obscure Fahrenheit scale, so it's still below the boiling point for water. Unless it comes into contact with some highly volatile stuff it won't be a fire hazard, just uncomfortable to touch. Unless you are a finn and runs into that temperature on a daily basis in the sauna.
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The energy density per se depends mostly on the electrode materials used. This battery uses conventional electrode materials, so in principle it can achieve the usual energy density of Li-ion cells.
The cells use Li4TI5O12 at the negative electrode, which means that they most likely operate at a lower nominal voltage than traditional Li-ion cells (somewhere around 3V as opposed to >4V), however since the electrodes can be made much more dense (because the liquid electrolyte does not need to penetrate in t
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He's an idiot anyway. The GPL would only require the release of his code if he was trying to "steal" someone else's code.
I am sceptical (Score:1)
Anything tiny that stores a couple of amp hours is going to do violent things when shorted out.
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Solid state, which means that it's not liquid, gas or vacuum state.
But vacuum state has a tendency to produce a nice comfortably glow when operating.
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"Lithium batteries are not inherently dangerous"
Open it up and lick it.
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So, it's "inherently dangerous" unless I'm willing to open it up and lick it? By that standard, the ceramic batteries you mentioned below are also "inherently dangerous". For that matter, so is their inventor.
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Do you not know what inherent means?
"existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute."
It's still lithium. There is still an inherent danger.
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Sorry, but ever since reading about a developer who was across the room while his laptop exploded while charging *I've* considered them dangerous. If you want to say that charging your laptop is "misuse or abuse", then I have to think you are asserting the batteries are worthless.
Some people have said "There must have been a manufacturing defect.". This is a reasonable hypothesis, but since as a user I have no way of detecting such a defect that doesn't remove them from the dangerous category.
To say the b
Could? Or does? (Score:2)
If they have made this battery you know. Does it or doesn't it?
Super Soaker Inventor Has Better (Score:3)
This tech is much, much more promising than what Sweden is working on. [johnsonbatterytech.com] It also has the benefit of being made by someone with a history of actually bringing products to market, as well as said person having been a NASA engineer.
Yet another 'Venture Vulture'(tm) battery story (Score:2)
They obviously are looking for gullible investors..
On one hand; on the other (Score:2)
Good: batteries that won't catch fire.
Bad (but possibly good): batteries outgas lysergic acid during operation.
Non-flamable lithium? (Score:1)
The issue is not one of liquid or gel construction -- which is an issue, to be sure... leaks, evaporation, boiling, etc. The issue with such technology is spelled:
L-I-T-H-I-U-M.
Lithium based batteries react rather poorly to being exposed to the atmosphere. Unless they've created a non-reactive lithium electrolyte, there's really nothing new here. (hint: that's not new, either.) So they've brought "AGM" to li-po technology.
What do bombs and batteries have in common? (Score:2)
They try to store as much energy as possible at least space as possible.
That's the problem, why batteries are always dangerous. There is just a lot of stored energy in there. For example enough to start a fire or to explode.