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Power Earth Science Technology

John Goodenough's Colleagues Are Skeptical of His New Battery Technology (qz.com) 251

Posted by BeauHD from the finer-details dept.
Earlier this month, a research team led by John Goodenough announced that they had created a new fast charging solid-state battery that can operate in extreme temperatures and store five to ten times as much energy as current standard lithium-ion batteries. The announcement was big enough to have Google's Eric Schmidt tweeting about it. However, there are some skeptics, including other leading battery researchers. "For his invention to work as described, they say, it would probably have to abandon the laws of thermodynamics, which say perpetual motion is not possible," reports Quartz. "The law has been a fundamental of batteries for more than a century and a half." Quartz reports: Goodenough's long career has defined the modern battery industry. Researchers assume that his measurements are exact. But no one outside of Goodenough's own group appears to understand his new concept. The battery community is loath to openly challenge the paper, but some come close. "If anyone but Goodenough published this, I would be, well, it's hard to find a polite word," Daniel Steingart, a professor at Princeton, told Quartz. Goodenough did not respond to emails. But in a statement released by the University of Texas, where he holds an engineering chair, he said, "We believe our discovery solves many of the problems that are inherent in today's batteries. Cost, safety, energy density, rates of charge and discharge and cycle life are critical for battery-driven cars to be more widely adopted." In addition, Helena Braga, the paper's lead author, in an exchange of emails, insisted that the team's claims are valid. For almost four decades, Goodenough has dominated the world of advanced batteries. If anyone could finally make the breakthrough that allows for cheap, stored electricity in cars and on the grid, it would figure to be him. Goodenough invented the heart of the battery that is all but certainly powering the device on which you are reading this. It's the lithium-cobalt-oxide cathode, invented in 1980 and introduced for sale by Sony in 1991. Again and again, Goodenough's lab has emerged with dramatic discoveries confirming his genius. It's what is not stated in the paper that has some of the battery community stumped. How is Goodenough's new invention storing any energy at all? The known rules of physics state that, to derive energy, differing material must produce differing eletro-chemical reactions in the two opposing electrodes. That difference produces voltage, allowing energy to be stored. But Goodenough's battery has pure metallic lithium or sodium on both sides. Therefore, the voltage should be zero, with no energy produced, battery researchers told Quartz. Goodenough reports energy densities multiple times that of current lithium-ion batteries. Where does the energy come from, if not the electrode reactions? That goes unexplained in the paper.
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John Goodenough's Colleagues Are Skeptical of His New Battery Technology More

John Goodenough's Colleagues Are Skeptical of His New Battery Technology

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  • Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof (Score:5, Insightful)

    by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @08:09AM (#54080829)

    ... created a new fast charging solid-state battery that can operate in extreme temperatures and store five to ten times as much energy as current standard lithium-ion batteries.

    The first thing that comes to mind is extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

    I would be more worried about the folks who aren"t skeptical. Hopefully the cold fusion debacle (and others, that is just the most prominent in my mind) has taught us something about the value of scientifically reproducing phenomena. In particular, the community should be diligent regarding those phenomena that seem to defy the known laws of physics or go beyond the known boundaries. Those are most likely to a) be incorrect, subject to some sort of falsification, etc.; or, b) represent a revolutionary change in some area of science.

    • The first thing that comes to mind is extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

      Not in this case. We aren't talking about black holes or climate changes — things, that can not be easily observed and examined by experiments.

      He just needs to offer a working line of batteries for sale. Nothing extraordinary about that...

      (He can even call them "Shipstones" for all I care.)

      • Re:Stop discussing vaporware (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @09:27AM (#54081337) Homepage

        Science does not work by "sale". Science works by other labs reproducing or being unable to reproduce his findings. Right now we're not to that point; this is new.

        I'm still trying to parse the paper (ignore the stuff about no dendrites forming on the anode, there's nothing unusual about the physics of that aspect, they're just using the solid electrolyte to suppress that). The interesting part is what's going on at the cathode. As the critics have noted, this is neither intercalation nor reaction; metal is plating out on the cathode side. So the critics' argument seems to be, you have plated metal on one side, plated metal on the other side, where did the energy come from? If you were just to move the metal back from the cathode side to the anode side, you could do it again and get more energy.

        However, the argument is also clearly not that simple because you can't just assume that you can move the metal for free. If I were to take the plates of a parallel plate capacitor and pull them apart, the capacitor would be storing more energy, but only because I did work on it. For the "thermodynamics argument" against this battery to hold, they need to be able to show that no work is needed to remove the lithium from the cathode and bring it back to the anode. The paper appears to be making the argument that the charge storage is a capacitive phenomenon; if so, that would invalidate the argument.

        But I'm not well enough versed in the topic to be able to assess better the quality of the arguments at hand. Capacitance in general gets weird when you're dealing with tiny structures because of the quantization of charge (there was some work a while back to build a super-powerful "quantum capacitor" based on this).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by haruchai ( 17472 )

        The world's been waiting a long time for someone to invent the Shipstone

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Whatever it is... Well it's...

        The use of an alkali-metal anode (lithium, sodium or potassium) â" which isnâ(TM)t possible with conventional batteries â" increases the energy density of a cathode and delivers a long cycle life. In experiments, the researchersâ(TM) cells have demonstrated more than 1,200 cycles with low cell resistance.

        Additionally, because the solid-glass electrolytes can operate, or have high conductivity, at -20 degrees Celsius, this type of battery in a car could perform well in subzero degree weather. This is the first all-solid-state battery cell that can operate under 60 degree Celsius.

        Braga began developing solid-glass electrolytes with colleagues while she was at the University of Porto in Portugal. About two years ago, she began collaborating with Goodenough and researcher Andrew J. Murchison at UT Austin. Braga said that Goodenough brought an understanding of the composition and properties of the solid-glass electrolytes that resulted in a new version of the electrolytes that is now patented through the UT Austin Office of Technology Commercialization. The engineersâ(TM) glass electrolytes allow them to plate and strip alkali metals on both the cathode and the anode side without dendrites, which simplifies battery cell fabrication.

        Another advantage is that the battery cells can be made from earth-friendly materials.

        âoeThe glass electrolytes allow for the substitution of low-cost sodium for lithium. Sodium is extracted from seawater that is widely available,â Braga said.

    • Re:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proo (Score:5, Interesting)

      by clovis ( 4684 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @09:43AM (#54081421)

      I read the paper.
      The actual paper describes in some detail how the battery is constructed and how it works.
      The actual paper makes no extraordinary claims. It's just a better way of making a battery.

    • The first thing that comes to mind is extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

      You obviously haven't been paying attention to US current events... :-)

    • This reminds me of the cold fusion thing that was going around a while back.

    • Hopefully the cold fusion debacle (and others, that is just the most prominent in my mind) has taught us something about the value of scientifically reproducing phenomena.

      Cold fusion is a scam. It'll never work. I, however, have been off the grid for over 30 years with my perpetual motion machine. I tried to get it patented but Big Oil stole the technology from me and buried the patent so they could make money selling black gold. Cold fusion and batteries are useless when you have perpetual motion!

  • "I'm Goodenough. I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!"

  • "The law has been a fundamental of batteries for more than a century and a half." .....I would have thought laws of physics were from the beginning of time....

    • Re:Laws of physics.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @08:41AM (#54081057)

      Those "laws of physics" were created by humans. They're merely mathematical representations of our understanding of the Universe. If we got one tiny yet-unknown detail wrong, it may invalidate or at least modify some of those laws.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by iris-n ( 1276146 )

      This claim is just slander. If the claimed technology was in fact violating the second law of thermodynamics this wouldn't be a controversy, the paper would have been outright rejected and Goodenough would be hanging his head in shame.

      Instead, what is apparently the problem is that there is some unaccounted-for surplus energy in the system, which must of course be explained if anyone is to take his experiment seriously.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
      Laws of physics are theories and models for the observable world. You must distinguish the laws themselves, which are a wholly human creation, with what they attempt to describe. We know for a fact not all of our laws are correct or complete, which inherently tells us that they are human.

    • Really, laws of physics do not prevent you to store order of magnitude more energy than conventional li-ion battary in the gram of solid substance.
      Consider how much energy is released during explosion of well-known explosive such as TNT.

      • Yeah, I'm trying to figure out where Quartz is getting "perpetual motion" from "this battery stores a crapton of energy". Skepticism is fine, but it just comes across as lazy and misleading writing.

      • Exactly. It's just controlling that release, and repeating it without the whole assembly being destroyed or otherwise ruined that is the trick.

  • First it was "literal isn't literal" and now Goodenough isn't good enough?

  • 1) I don't understand this, so it must be crap.

    2) Anything that is so useful would have already been invented, probably before 1900, so this must be bogus.

    Nice try, Mr. Fancy Pants Professor, with your oh-so-impressive track record.

    (everyone knows numbered points are irrefutable)

  • Powering (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @08:33AM (#54080991) Homepage

    Goodenough invented the heart of the battery that is all but certainly powering the device on which you are reading this

    I had no clue there was a li-ion battery powering my desktop.

  • Really? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Maury Markowitz ( 452832 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @08:37AM (#54081017) Homepage

    "For his invention to work as described, they say, it would probably have to abandon the laws of thermodynamics, which say perpetual motion is not possible,"

    I read this section of the article several times, and I cannot make heads nor tails.

    The entire invention, assuming it is real, replaces the normally plastic-and-liquid electrolyte with a glass sheet. The major result of this change is that it prevents ion movement across layers, which suppresses dendrite growth. As a result, you can replace the electrodes with pure metal, which you can't do in a conventional design because this massively promotes dendrite growth. Using pure metal electrodes allows higher voltages.

    That's it. It's a huge advance, if true, but there's certainly no new physics in here.

    So when I real people not understanding the presence of pure electrodes, I wonder what they are thinking. There are lots of batteries with pure electrodes, not the least of which is the common dry cell, and on the other end things like ZEBRA which have pure sodium as one of the electrodes. The ZEBRA is a good example, because it too uses a solid electrolyte (beta something). I don't recall anyone saying it breaks the 2nd law.

    Yet, reading the article, that appears to be the argument for this statement.

    • What I want to know is the maximum amount of joules per cm this thing can hold "safely". Like if yo take a hammer to it fully charged will it just return a large voltage spike or turn into a small emp explosion. The Samsung already showed us what a 3500 mAh can do if improperly designed. I don't expect him to answer these questions in this teaser paper, I just thing rather than storage we just need a faster way to charge.

    • Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @08:49AM (#54081131) Homepage Journal
      It explains it:

      "But Goodenough’s battery has pure metallic lithium or sodium on both sides. Therefore, the voltage should be zero, with no energy produced, battery researchers told Quartz. Goodenough reports energy densities multiple times that of current lithium-ion batteries. Where does the energy come from, if not the electrode reactions? That goes unexplained in the paper. The unstated physics would lead to creation of a battery that, once charged, requires no further energy in order to keep pushing out electricity—violating the laws of thermodynamics."

      The batteries you mentioned have DIFFERING materials on each side. This one doesn't. Hence the mystery. Sound like BS to me. If you have something, prove it.

    • Let's suppose that the energy density is as fantastic (by comparison) as the authors imply. Let's suppose the ambient operating environment is as flexible as is implied. Let's suppose that these storage cells are actually both reproduceable, and at a reasonable cost.

      I'm a happy person as a result, although nothing in the post implies citations of anyone having actually built one. And so, like many keen inventions, I'll patiently wait for the proof of reality. I hope we find out soon.

  • Prototypes already seen in the wild (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @08:38AM (#54081023)

    I believe this technology was being tested in the Galaxy Note 7.

    • I thought that was a trinitrotoluene cell.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by arth1 ( 260657 )

        I thought that was a trinitrotoluene cell.

        TNT doesn't hold a lot of energy, and not an order of magnitude more than Li-Ion batteries, which is promised here. What TNT has going for it is the ability to release the energy very quickly, but a BLT sandwich has far more energy than a stick of TNT.

  • Con or Confirm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BoRegardless ( 721219 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @08:40AM (#54081049)

    Goodenough & Helena Braga surely know they were going to be painted bright orange as frauds without additional proof.

    They surely know they had to follow up with a public display of a cell under charge, then discharge cycles with component weights and measurements to confirm the claims.

    Anything else would be a lifelong purgatory in an engineering gulag of con artists.

    • It seems like something really stupid to lie about. We're talking engineering here, not politics.

      If it turns out not to work, I would assume error, not fraud. And in science there's no harm in being wrong. The entire enterprise is based on admitting that you are wrong and are attempting to become less wrong.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Khyber ( 864651 )

        "And in science there's no harm in being wrong"

        Nuclear accidents. Dimethyl mercury accidents. Florine accidents. Manned Rocket Explosions. What were you saying?

        • You know what I meant. If you publish a paper and others point out the flaws and you say "ah, yes, I was wrong, here's a better solution" you don't lose your career. That's a feature of science, not a bug.

    • If he hadn't been so fucking atrocious in citing previous research there would be no controversy about the plating type lithium copper battery, there's a ton of recent research on it. Pretending all that research doesn't exist might have been done for patenting reasons though.

      Development of an Easily Recyclable “Lithium-Copper Rechargeable Battery"
      The Development of a New Type of Rechargeable Batteries Based on Hybrid Electrolytes
      Lithium–air and lithium–copper batteries based on a polymer

  • ...that is Goodenough for me.
  • Goodenough's work is not good enough.
  • Some people use desktops. There may be a small lithium cell in mine that keeps the firmware alive but the power comes from the wall socket.
  • R Good Enough

  • Comment breakdown (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dixie_Flatline ( 5077 ) <vincent@jan@goh.gmail@com> on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @09:56AM (#54081523) Homepage

    10% Asking for clarification on the issue
    5% Explaining their understanding of battery tech
    8% People talking about the story without reading it
    77% 'Good Enough' jokes

  • "For his invention to work as described, they say, it would probably have to abandon the laws of thermodynamics, which say perpetual motion is not possible," reports Quartz. "The law has been a fundamental of batteries for more than a century and a half." Quartz reports
    It actually is not fundamental. And if people come up with the law of thermodynamics it would be nice to mention which of the 3 or 4 laws they refered to. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] or perhaps a better link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    The only law of thermodynamics that is remotely elevant for batteries is the second one, simplified and summarized as: "entropy will increase over time". In a battery that means the small charged particles are at some point to widely distributed over the substrat that they can not hold a charge anymore.

    And exactly this problem the team of Mr. Goodenough and Braga is tackling with a solid state substrat, because there the ions/charged particles have it much harder to distribute themselves over the whole sustrat.

    The rest of the "break through", like charging time and charge, has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with thermodynamics.

  • "the heart of the battery that is all but certainly powering the device on which you are reading this" This I learned - my desktop computer runs off a battery! Guess I'll just unplug this useless power co

  • Nobody writing the article actually read the paper (Score:3)

    by tp1024 ( 2409684 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2017 @04:11PM (#54084277)

    You can read it here:

    https://docs.wind-watch.org/br... [wind-watch.org]

    If you choose to actually read it, you will find out, that there are absolutely no extraordinary claims in there.

    1) The energy density is stated relative to the amount of pure Lithium and they need about 8.5Wh per gramm of lithium or about 120 Gramms of Lithium per kWh. Which is in line with ordinary lithium batteries. The difference is merely, that lithium-ion batteries mostly consist of anything but lithium. The graphite anode alone is about 10 times as heavy as the lithium it can store.

    2) The concept is a Lithium-Sulfur battery, in which the cathode consists of lithiumsufide. This is a well known and established concept, that has some major problems with liquid electrolytes, as some of the polysulfides that form as the cathode releases lithium ions are actually liquid themselves. Which causes parasitic discharges and damages in to the cathodes. This battery has a solid electrolyte.

    It is also not a panacea. There is a reason why the title isn't "A safe rechargeable battery with insane capacity" but "Alternative strategy for a safe
    rechargeable battery". It is a new approach to develop a practical battery with this technology and it looks rather promising, but far from perfect. If you read it, the battery cycled for 1000 hours. Where each cycle consisted of 10 hours charging and 10 hours discharging - so it releases its energy rather slowly (as well as taking it up). There were also only some 40-ish cycles in total.

    I don't know who wrote the article or whom they interviewed to write it. But they never read or understood the article that Goodenough actually wrote.

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