Hydro-Quebec To Commercialize Glass Battery Co-Developed By John Goodenough (ieee.org) 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: A rapid-charging and non-flammable battery developed in part by 2019 Nobel Prize winner John Goodenough has been licensed for development by the Canadian electric utility Hydro-Quebec. The utility says it hopes to have the technology ready for one or more commercial partners in two years. Hydro-Quebec, according to Karim Zaghib, general director of the utility's Center of Excellence in Transportation Electrification and Energy Storage, has been commercializing patents with Goodenough's parent institution, the University of Texas at Austin, for the past 25 years.
As Spectrum reported in 2017, Goodenough and Maria Helena Braga, professor of engineering at the University of Porto in Portugal, developed a solid-state lithium rechargeable that used a glass doped with alkali metals as the battery's electrolyte. (The electrolyte is the material between cathode and anode and is often a liquid in today's batteries, which typically means it's also flammable and potentially vulnerable to battery fires.) Braga said her and Goodenough's battery is high capacity, charges in "minutes rather than hours," performs well in both hot and cold weather, and that its solid-state electrolyte is not flammable. Hydro-Quebec's Gen 3 battery "can be glass or ceramic, but it is not a [lithium] polymer," Zaghib said of the Goodenough/Braga battery's electrolyte. "So with Daimler (which is also working with Hydro-Quebec to develop a second-gen lithium solid-state battery), it's an organic compound, and with John Goodenough, it's an inorganic compound. The inorganic compound has higher ionic conductivity compared to the polymer."
"That means the ions shuttle back and forth more readily between cathode and anode, which could potentially improve a battery's capacity, charging speed, or other performance metrics," adds IEEE Spectrum.
We interviewed John B. Goodenough soon after his solid-state battery was announced. You can read his responses to your questions here.
As Spectrum reported in 2017, Goodenough and Maria Helena Braga, professor of engineering at the University of Porto in Portugal, developed a solid-state lithium rechargeable that used a glass doped with alkali metals as the battery's electrolyte. (The electrolyte is the material between cathode and anode and is often a liquid in today's batteries, which typically means it's also flammable and potentially vulnerable to battery fires.) Braga said her and Goodenough's battery is high capacity, charges in "minutes rather than hours," performs well in both hot and cold weather, and that its solid-state electrolyte is not flammable. Hydro-Quebec's Gen 3 battery "can be glass or ceramic, but it is not a [lithium] polymer," Zaghib said of the Goodenough/Braga battery's electrolyte. "So with Daimler (which is also working with Hydro-Quebec to develop a second-gen lithium solid-state battery), it's an organic compound, and with John Goodenough, it's an inorganic compound. The inorganic compound has higher ionic conductivity compared to the polymer."
"That means the ions shuttle back and forth more readily between cathode and anode, which could potentially improve a battery's capacity, charging speed, or other performance metrics," adds IEEE Spectrum.
We interviewed John B. Goodenough soon after his solid-state battery was announced. You can read his responses to your questions here.
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It's Hydro-Québec.
Thanks for létting us know.
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This is Slashdot. ThereÃ(TM)s no telling what an extended character set might look like.
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I'm guessing it's just me...
Olga Kulik/Richard Short/David Drdul (Score:2)
My mother was always angry that she wasn't give a middle name. When she was in school, teachers asked students to put their answers up on the board along with their initials. She got sent to the office repeatedly because she put "OK" by her work.
In university, one of my classmates, a Mr. Short, had the unfortunate first name of "Richard", which at the time was always reduced to "Dick". When the class pictures were published it was always last name first, first name last - So he was listed at the school a
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I had a professor named Glasscock - a really nice guy. Never to his face, he was prof Brittle Dick.
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..., one of my classmates, a Mr. Short, had the unfortunate first name of "Richard", which at the time was always reduced to "Dick"...., Mr. Drdul's name got butchered by a professor during attendance and he was forever known as "Drool".
I will now top all three examples
U.S.A.F. 1974-1980 had a flight commander named Col. Penis. Pronounced Pen'-is. Night debrief one day was an A1C with 3 years, female, 5'10" blonde with green eyes. She mispronounced his name. Red to the roots. I had to deal with the Col.'s aide, a D. Rape. After 30 seconds I said "NCO club? I'll buy"
At the end of the 3rd beer I worked up the courage. "Seriously, Sgt. Rape, did you get even ONE girl to date in high school? I mean, you're an O.K. Sgt. but as a kid..."
"Nope"
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His technology will soon be stolen by Boris Badenov. Where are moose and squirrel when you need them?
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Where are moose and squirrel when you need them?
They're in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.
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Praise ZARDOZ! (Score:3)
What about Cathode/Anode Expansion & Contracti (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice to see the research moving forwards towards a safer battery with better capacity and faster charging but this leads me to the third most important metric - number of cycles the battery can withstand which, I believe, is a function of the expansion/contraction of the anodes and cathodes during the charging/discharging process.
I was told that liquid electrolytes were used in Lithium batteries to minimize the mechanical stresses of expansion and contraction (and is a big issue with other battery chemistries, namely sulfur).
This wasn't mentioned in the article, anybody have any information on how a fully solid state battery avoids this issue?
Re: What about Cathode/Anode Expansion & Contr (Score:4, Interesting)
I have followed this story closely, and the information is really weird on that with the researchers reporting very high cycle numbers, plus even improved performance with use, which other researchers said violates some law, so there is a lot of murk around this whole thing.
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I have followed this story closely, and the information is really weird on that with the researchers reporting very high cycle numbers, plus even improved performance with use, which other researchers said violates some law, so there is a lot of murk around this whole thing.
There's been a lot of buzz about this only because of Goodenaugh's former accomplishments, but it's been secretive and hand-wavy so far. It would be great if this were some substantial improvement in battery tech, but it would be nice to see it out in the real world.
Re: What about Cathode/Anode Expansion & Contr (Score:4, Informative)
Here's some of the criticism: Part 1 [lacey.se], Part 2 [lacey.se] (Part 2 also includes an addendum re: Goodenough's response to Slashdot's questions). It's pretty harsh, and I have trouble seeing things in any other way than Goodenough's claims are bunk. Not on purpose, just due to bad experimental design by Braga.
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Thank you for the links to Matt Lacey's blog posts - I don't pretend to understand what's being discussed there, other than at a superficial level but it sounds like there are a lot of unanswered questions (and relying on unpublished information).
Re: What about Cathode/Anode Expansion & Cont (Score:1)
Re:What about Cathode/Anode Expansion & Contra (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, it has properties of a supercapacitor in that it uses a ferroelectric (like ferromagnetic material but with electric dipoles instead of magnetic dipoles) glass electrolyte and thus has a very high dielectric constant, so that energy is also stored in this form.
It's sufficiently different in design and mechanism of operation from any other known battery that the technologies for a succesful practical application and the failure mechanisms aren't understood well. And I'm not aware of an independent replication either.
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Glass battery (Score:2)
Might be good for storage or energy generated by wind and solar.
Hot so good for mobile applications.
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Why not? There's glass in your car, your phone, your watch, in aircraft, in boats... What mobile use case is a battery using glass not practical?
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Most modern hovercars and jetpacks use glass batteries, I don't see why you can't too
Go, go! Go Johnny go! (Score:2)
Go! Go Johnny go! Johnny B. Good.. enough!
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Well played, a classic.
More malarky (Score:1)
I don't know what attracts these type of people to batteries and electricity. A bunch of loons. If the battery worked you wouldn't need to "announce" it. It would just take over the market.
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All that being said, this sounds
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Re: More malarky (Score:2)
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Re: Flammable because it's a liquid??? (Score:3)
Solid State batteries - maybe, graphene are NOW (Score:2)
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Wow! That is quite a dizzying array of battery technologies.
I wonder which ones will eventually dominate the market...
Don't expect much, it's gov! (Score:2)