Hydro-Quebec To Commercialize Glass Battery Co-Developed By John Goodenough

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.

Re:

[NateFromMich]

It's Hydro-Québec.

Thanks for létting us know.

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[RightSaidFred99]

Yeah, I too was incredibly confused for a minute. Was about to go to Wikipedia or something to figure out what the hell they were talking about. Though maybe it was some obscure city in India or something, but GP post saved me the trip. Thanks!

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[PPH]

This is Slashdot. ThereÃ(TM)s no telling what an extended character set might look like.

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[White Yeti]

Extended? The first word in your second sentence appears to me as: ThereÃ(TM)s.
I'm guessing it's just me...

Olga Kulik/Richard Short/David Drdul

[mykepredko]

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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[Duh-People-Really]

I had a professor named Glasscock - a really nice guy. Never to his face, he was prof Brittle Dick.

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[AutodidactLabrat]

..., 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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[PPH]

His technology will soon be stolen by Boris Badenov. Where are moose and squirrel when you need them?

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[divide overflow]

Where are moose and squirrel when you need them?

They're in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Praise ZARDOZ!

[Thud457]

Excellent! Soon we may embark on construction of the Tabernacle! [readersdigest.co.uk]

What about Cathode/Anode Expansion & Contracti

[mykepredko]

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

[javaman235]

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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[marcle]

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

[Rei]

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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[mykepredko]

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

[Way Smarter Than You]

Yes I've noticed but I'm not entirely sure she's paid. She has admitted previously she doesn't even own a Tesla. I'd think a paid shill would claim to own one so she could provide personal experience about how it's the best thing ever since before fire. I think she's just some obsessed super fan girl.

Re:What about Cathode/Anode Expansion & Contra

[mbkennel]

The Braga/Goodenough battery (there is major skepticism among scientists that it really works) is apparently different enough that it doesn't use the usual intercalation mechanism (atoms being inserted in other 'fluffy' materials which then expand mechanically, giving the problems).

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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[Bengie]

I am very much a layman and I am not sure how correct what I am about to say is. I to also read that expansion and contraction cause issues, but it was presented to me not as an issue for using a fluid electrolyte, but how much and what kind of materials the anode could be made of. Much of the lithium in the anode is not actually used for storing power, but acting as structure in order to prevent expansion and contraction. It is my understanding that the talk about stuff like "polymers" is about replacing t

Glass battery

[rossdee]

Might be good for storage or energy generated by wind and solar.
Hot so good for mobile applications.

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[Guspaz]

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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[WillAffleckUW]

Most modern hovercars and jetpacks use glass batteries, I don't see why you can't too

Go, go! Go Johnny go!

[kimgkimg]

Go, go!  Go Johnny go!
Go!  Go Johnny go! Johnny B. Good.. enough!

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[weilawei]

Well played, a classic.

More malarky

[110010001000]

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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[LordWabbit2]

You need to get it to market, which would require a factory (at least) and someone interested in actually using your battery. Because even if you built a factory and churned out 2 billion batteries if no one knows about it no one will be using it and instead of your battery taking over the market it will be taking over the warehouse. For that you need to get publicity and / or funding. Which means you have to let someone know about it, otherwise known as "anouncing" it.

All that being said, this sounds

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[dehachel12]

very simple : send a sample to mr.Musk. if it works, it will be used; otherwise it will end up on /.

Re: More malarky

[Åke Malmgren]

Our current NMC, NCA, LFP and LTO chemistries were surely announced back in the day. Since batteries have grown immensely in importance thanks to those chemistries, new ones are a lot more newsworthy than they were, so we get a lot more insight in the process, including dead end and failures, and how much time it actually takes from lab to fab.

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[nonBORG]

You know he already invented a battery which is the LiFePo4 battery and is awesome for many applications. Very wide temperature range (including charging) and long cycle life and long calendar life.

Re: Flammable because it's a liquid???

[Åke Malmgren]

False. It contains lithium the same way salt contains sodium. Only non-rechargeable lithium batteries contain metallic lithium, and they are not considered fire hazards. Having a rechargeable lithium metal battery is considered a bit of a holy grail for energy density, because a lot of the mass is taken up by the material that binds the lithium in current chemistries. The current organic electrolyte has flammable properties akin to gasoline, and overheat will start a self-accelerating chemical breakdown of

Solid State batteries - maybe, graphene are NOW

[NYCandre]

These glass solid state batteries are still in the lab stage, this is highly speculative still - as Tesla's Elon Musk stated, they are happy to test any prototype the inventors are willing to send. I don't think Tesla is trying to defend any particular technology (as they proved recently in China, letting CATL provide prismatic cell batteries for their MIC (made in China, for China actually) Model 3s. Tesla is sticking for now with their Li ion technology, which they are continuously improving. Watch their

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[axlash]

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!

[JcMorin]

Don't get too excited, it's a gov agency with tons of bureaucracy. It will takes years, over budget with no result. Then more years and more money for no result. Let's hope I'm wrong.