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Power Transportation

With Ultralight Lithium-Sulfur Batteries, Electric Airplanes Could Finally Take Off (ieee.org) 103

Posted by BeauHD from the ready-or-not-here-they-come dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report from IEEE Spectrum, written by Mark Crittenden, head of battery development and integration at Oxis Energy: Electric aircraft are all the rage, with prototypes in development in every size from delivery drones to passenger aircraft. But the technology has yet to take off, and for one reason: lack of a suitable battery. For a large passenger aircraft to take off, cruise, and land hundreds of kilometers away would take batteries that weigh thousands of kilograms -- far too heavy for the plane to be able to get into the air in the first place. Even for relatively small aircraft, such as two-seat trainers, the sheer weight of batteries limits the plane's payload, curtails its range, and thus constrains where the aircraft can fly. Reducing battery weight would be an advantage not only for aviation, but for other electric vehicles, such as cars, trucks, buses, and boats, all of whose performance is also directly tied to the energy-to-weight ratio of their batteries. For such applications, today's battery of choice is lithium ion. It reached maturity years ago, with each new incremental improvement smaller than the last. We need a new chemistry.

Since 2004 my company, Oxis Energy, in Oxfordshire, England, has been working on one of the leading contenders -- lithium sulfur. Our battery technology is extremely lightweight: Our most recent models are achieving more than twice the energy density typical of lithium-ion batteries. Lithium sulfur is also capable of providing the required levels of power and durability needed for aviation, and, most important, it is safe enough. After all, a plane can't handle a sudden fire or some other calamity by simply pulling to the side of the road. The new technology has been a long time coming, but the wait is now over. The first set of flight trials have already been completed.
[...]
Three factors will determine whether lithium-sulfur batteries ultimately succeed or fail. First is the successful integration of the batteries into multiple aircraft types, to prove the principle. Second is the continued refinement of the cell chemistry. Third is the continued reduction in the unit cost. A plus here is that sulfur is about as cheap as materials get, so there's reason to hope that with volume manufacturing, the unit cost will fall below that of the lithium-ion design, as would be required for commercial success. Oxis has already produced tens of thousands of cells, and it is currently scaling up two new projects. Right now, it is establishing a manufacturing plant for the production of both the electrolyte and the cathode active material in Port Talbot, Wales. Later, the actual mass production of lithium-sulfur cells will begin on a site that belongs to Mercedes-Benz Brazil, in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This state-of-the-art plant should be commissioned and operating by 2023. If the economies of scale prove out, and if the demand for electric aircraft rises as we expect, then lithium-sulfur batteries could begin to supplant lithium-ion batteries in this field. And what works in the air ought to work on the ground, as well.
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With Ultralight Lithium-Sulfur Batteries, Electric Airplanes Could Finally Take Off More

With Ultralight Lithium-Sulfur Batteries, Electric Airplanes Could Finally Take Off

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  • ? or so I believed

    • The summary is just quoting the first part of an article that appeared in IEEE spectrum magazine, which is linked. But of course, you'd know that if you RTFA. Congrats on at least RTFS (mostly). That's better than many around here.

      I'm 100% down with stuff like this over more political hijinx or Facebook news. I'd rather you didn't complain when we finally get meaty tech stories, but I guess bitching about perceived Slashvertisements is a time-honored /. tradition too.

      • "The summary is just quoting the first part of an article that appeared in IEEE spectrum magazine, which is linked. But of course, you'd know that if you RTFA."

        You must be new here, welcome.

        • "The summary is just quoting the first part of an article that appeared in IEEE spectrum magazine, which is linked. But of course, you'd know that if you RTFA."

          You must be new here, welcome.

          I can't tell if you're trying to be funny or you genuinely did not read his entire comment before replying. His very next sentence:

          Congrats on at least RTFS (mostly). That's better than many around here.

          Nope, not new.

      • Yeah but the IEEE article is written by the head of battery development at the company discussed in the "article". It seems like an all-too-common ad-as-article in IEEE.

        As with all the latest, groundbreaking, earth-shattering battery development announcements, I'll believe it when it becomes a product that I or my company can buy. Until then, it's firmly in the realm of vaporware to me. There has been too much hype in that field for me to take any announcement seriously.

    • Just think, with jet fuel energy storage, airplanes can already take off and have for over 100 years!!!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Other than MY COMPANY HAS AN AMAZING NEW PRODUCT THAT IS TOTALLY GOING TO REVOLUTIONIZE INDUSTRY!!!!oneoneone part, the easy way to tell that this is another snake oil salesman in this field is the claim that halving weight of batteries from lithium ion is enough to make electric aircraft viable.

      Conservative estimates are that you need at least 5 times the energy density than lithium ion to make batteries viable as an energy source for fixed wing aircraft in idea scenario. More realistic estimate is in 10 t

  • I'm not sure that ltimate success necessarally depends on integration into multiple aircraft types - you could imagine a highly successful technology that only powered, say, light aircraft, or only agricultural planes, or only large commercial aircraft, It would still be successful and useful even if there were classes of aircraft that it wasn't suitable for.

    • I can imagine a successful one that is cheaper with double the energy density of today being successful even if it only had use in cars.

      I can't tell if they're focusing so heavily on planes because they think there's more profit there (no alternatives), or because it's sexier being a new application of batteries, but either way: half the weight lower price (not sure the size), seems like a pretty big advantage even for cars.

      I'd love something like an electric GTI, 200 mile range, lighter, better balanced, a

      • I can imagine a successful one that is cheaper with double the energy density of today being successful even if it only had use in cars.

        That would basically solve every problem we have with electric cars today.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I can imagine a successful one that is cheaper with double the energy density of today being successful even if it only had use in cars.

          That would basically solve every problem we have with electric cars today.

          Only if the batteries have comparable energy density; a threefold increase in Wh/kg is useless if the batteries are five times bigger. That's energy density, not specific energy, which the owner of the company seems to have confused.

          Information on the energy density of these new batteries is conspicuously absent from TFS and TFA. However, a data sheet on the website lists a sample battery sized 187cm^3 that can hold 40Wh. This gives an energy density of around 200kWh/m^3, compared to li-ion batteries around

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AvitarX ( 172628 )
            Thanks, I was wondering what the volume of these was.
          • Wait, so these batteries are like as dense as pumice or something?

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by AvitarX ( 172628 )
            Followup, are you saying a 100kWh battery only takes 500cm^3?

            That seems unlikely based on the size of the batteries in electric vehicles to me.

            According to wikipedia they (lithium ion) approach 700Wh/L at the high end.

            This battery is 3x that size (700/40*187 cm^3 to L gives me 3.2L in google), not 1000x. It's pretty similar to the low end of lithium ion.

            This battery, 200kWh/m^3 (your number)
            Lithium Ion 250-700.

          • a threefold increase in Wh/kg is useless if the batteries are five times bigger

            You'd have to design your aircraft a bit more conservatively but by no means would huge, light batteries be a dealbreaker; build them into the wings and longitudinally along the bottom of the fuselage and call it a day.

        • And not spontaneously catching on fire. That is a bing one. Though I am most hopeful for that solid state lithium battery that was discussed in /. A couple years ago. It was not only not subject to catching on fire, but also could che charged extremely fast. Imagine stopping to recharge on a road trip and it only taking 10 minutes. Thats a bathroom break and a leg stretch.

  • Test these batteries in production vehicles such as cars, medium sized and long distance semi trailer trucks. When they're price competitive, including lifetime, longevity and safety, with Li based batteries, then maybe they might be ready for use to power aircraft.
    • That's not how expensive new technology works. High-value projects always get the cool stuff first, because they can afford it. Computers, heads-up displays, GPS, etc. went into defense and aerospace projects years before they were in consumer hands.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @11:21PM (#60421267)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        The aircraft would no longer be certified for flight if it had a different battery pack. That might work for experimental test flights, but it would probably be illegal to fly outside of highly controlled test ranges.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • So, it's just like certifying any other modification to a certified aircraft. What's your point?

            -jcr

            I don't think that's true of battery chemistry, especially if that is your primary power source. Electric motors and combustion engines and wires and materials and aerodynamics are well understood. High-density batteries are a much more recent development.

    • yes, all they need to do it buy a few different EVs and replace the battery with theirs and the BMS - that should provide a fantastic demonstration of its capability if its as good as they say. The weight saving alone will increase the range of the EV

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Or test them in various drones, and work up from there.

  • Traveling back to Discovery's Beyond 2000

    Did anything from that show ever hit the shelves?

  • Synthesizing fuel from electricity is a much better long term solution for CO2 neutral air traffic. Energy density is way too low in batteries. Same technology could be used for ships and heavy trucks, but is most obvious for planes due to weight - and the desire not buy entirely new planes.
    • Any fuels based solution for aircraft is not going to be a long-term solution. Realize that when you operate a fuel-based engine of, say, 250 h.p. in an aircraft, before the cost of fuel, you wind up spending $17,50 per hour JUST to amortize the rebuild cost of that engine. (Based on $35k typical rebuild cost over 2000 hours) Fuel costs when flying economically are 10 gal per hour at $4.50/gal = $45 The savings when using electric motors and electricity would be ten-fold or even less.
    • Nuclear Thermal Generatirs. That is where the future lies. Everyone love riding on nuclear.
    • My loose math says that it's not even close.

      Fuel 35 MJ / liter. Of the engine is 30% efficient that's still 10 MJ/liter

      Currently a 100 kwh battery is about 600 kg, so a reduction to 300 kg for 100 kwh (360 MJ) gets to about 1 MJ/kg

      With the engine getting at least 10MJ/kg out of the fuel.

      The fact that it's not losing weight is irrelevant, it's 10x as heavy already.

      I am sure there are some corner cases though where the maintenance saving, and fuel coat reduction make the heavier load worth it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The ratio doesn't matter. Electric cars are a bit heavier than fossil cars but nobody says "I'm not buying it because it's heavier."

        What matters is how far you can fly on electric power and how quickly it can recharge. There are a lot of regional routes in the 1-2 hour range that could be electrified. Will be electrified, it's just a question of how long it takes the battery technology to improve.

        • I'm really confused as to why you think performance to mass ratios don't matter for airplanes.

          • Re: Synthetic fuel is much better (Score:4)

            by q_e_t ( 5104099 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @07:07AM (#60421997)
            If the power is sufficiently cheap and the speed doesn't need to be that high to make it worth doing then you can design an aircraft that is slower with more wing area that will still fly well. I would imagine that a 400 km (250 mile) cargo run takes one hour in the air, one hour of checks, taxiing, etc., and 1 hour of loading, 1 hour of loading. So assuming a top speed of 700km/h a conventional aircraft might average 450km/h ground speed over the whole flight envelope, so total travel time 3h53m. Now if you had an electric plane with a top speed of 450km/h you might get an average ground speed of 300km/h. Total travel now 4h20m. The world can probably survive 27m longer time. If you could improve loading and unloading efficiency in a new design you might be even, although I don't know to what extent an electric design might facilitate that. One thing that is likely is that engine nacelles could likely be smaller and reduce a little bit of drag.
            • Thanks qet, that's what I was missing.

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
                See another reply and take half an hour off each of the load and unload times and recalculate. And as noted, if there is a rail route for short distance it is, of course, more appropriate in many circumstances, no argument there, but I know that for JIT shipments in Europe stuff does get flown at times when there is no direct route. If you wanted to get things from Milan to Lyon that's 8 hours via a change of trains at Turin, but a direct flight of just under 400km, so about an hour or so of flight time, de

        • The recharge time is actually extremely important for commercial flight. Battery electric flight is only really viable for low-utilization flight, despite what you may have seen from urban air mobility developers.

          If you can't recharge the battery in the time it takes to cycle passengers, luggage, and flight crew it doesn't matter.

          Consider something like a Dash-8 Q200 with a 3160 liter fuel capacity. At 35MJ/liter for Jet-A (let's round to 10 kW-hr) that's 31.6 MW-hr of energy. Taking into account efficie

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Yes but that aircraft has a range of 1,100 nautical miles. If you just want to do domestic flights or hop between countries in the EU you only need a few hundred miles range. Aircraft from my nearest airport regularly do 250 mile runs, for example.

            Also you can have fewer seats to reduce weight, with lower maintenance and fuel costs to keep it economical.

            So now you are down to say 2MWh of batteries and cooling for 100kW of heat which is manageable, especially as the cooling unit can be on the ground. You mig

            • Maybe that works for short-haul flights if the idea is to have an oversized battery and only recharge once every 4 flights or so. This is what the urban air folks are proposing. Maybe that will make the economics work, but I'm skeptical

              Also short haul flights spend a lot more time spending energy to climb; every 360 kg you raise 1km (~3300 ft) costs you 1kW-h, and you don't get regen in an aircraft.

              I agree with rail over air though; Joule for Joule, air travel is the least energy efficient way we have, es

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by orzetto ( 545509 )

          Electric cars are a bit heavier than fossil cars but nobody says "I'm not buying it because it's heavier."

          That's because cars do not need to hold themselves up in the air. As it is now, there are no battery technologies, present or foreseeable, that can power a passenger plane on any realistic route whatsoever: in order to fly long, they would need to fly very slow; in order to fly fast, they would have a minimal range. In both cases, waiting times at airports will make any form of ground transport faster a

          • Actually in europe short distance flight, 300km - 500km is usually cheaper than a train. In edge cases e.g. Paris - Berlin, it is significantly cheaper. And that despite the fact that half of the flight cost are taxes and fees.

            • half of the flight cost are taxes and fees.

              And where does the money go on rail?

              Not on the train crew - one driver per 1,200 passengers

              Not on the train - working life 30 years, maintenance £30k per million miles

              Not on the track - working life exceeds 50 years.

              Not on the stations - in some cases, working life 100 years, very few staff, piss all lighting, bare minimum of maintenance

              Not on the fuel - 1,200 passenger train uses similar fuel to 5 road coaches, and does 200mph top speed instead

              • I don't know, but it it is easy to verify, just try to book a flight from Paris to Berlin, and one from Hamburg to Berlin (domestic flight).

                Then do the same with www.bahn.de (german railway - yes the web site is in German, but you only need to enter two cities and click OK :D ) or www.sncf.fr (french railways, they have a small flag where you can switch to english).

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            For small numbers of passengers there are already commercially available passenger aircraft running entirely on battery power. As the technology improves the number of passengers will increase and for short haul they will become the best option.

    • Energy density is way too low in batteries.

      That depends on the range.

      Electric aircraft aren't going to replace 777s for LAX to NRT

      But they will replace helicopters for short hops and take over many routes under an hour of flight time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )

        But they will replace helicopters for short hops...

        Because electric engines will make them suddenly highly maneuverable, hoverable, VTOL aircraft? If not, then they aren't replacing helicopters for much of anything.

  • I'm sure her arms are tired from rowing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by knarf ( 34928 )

      Fear not, a new threat will arise which will make something like air travel the tool of the $insert_whatever_goes_for_devil_here to be avoided if you have any heart at all. Airplanes create vortexes which lead to stratified air being mixed which leads to cloud formation/suppression which leads to extinction, insects are found to be cruising at exactly the altitudes used by airplanes, sound emitted by propellers and ducted fans are proven to confuse migratory birds, take your pick. It won't be Greta doing th

  • Half the fuel of an ICE is in the air (Score:5, Interesting)

    by shoor ( 33382 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @12:33AM (#60421427)

    A battery combines 2 materials in a way that releases energy. So does an internal combustion engine. So, you could think of both materials as 'fuels'; one of which is oxygen in the case of an ICE. Since an internal combustion engine draws that oxygen from the air it doesn't need to carry it around the way a battery carries around the second material it uses. Also, as an ICE's fuel is used up it goes out the exhaust pipe and lightens the load. With batteries it's all there all the time, and I find it hard to believe that weight disadvantage could ever be overcome in an aircraft. I've heard of things like aluminum air batteries, which could also get part of their 'fuel' from the atmosphere, but they don't blow their spent oxide out the exhaust pipe as it's used up, and, I would imagine, actually gain weight as the aluminum is consumed.

    It seems like the only kind of electric power plant that might work in an aircraft would be something like a hydrogen fuel cell, which would discharge water as it was created.

    • Part of an aircraft's performance is predicated on the reduction in weight from burning fuel. The longer the flight, the more efficient it is because it weighs less, therefore must create less lift and drag.

      You'll lose a lot of performance/range by having a 'static' weight during the entire mission profile.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        Part of an aircraft's performance is predicated on the reduction in weight from burning fuel. The longer the flight, the more efficient it is because it weighs less, therefore must create less lift and drag.

        There's also the fact that aircraft generally need a lower gross landing weight than takeoff weight. Otherwise it can be very difficult to slow down and they can end up running off the runway. Most commercial aircraft already have some type of reverse thrust capability, but I imagine that an electric aircraft that doesn't bleed weight in flight would need a relatively much stronger system than most aircraft have.

      • What must be compared is battery weight vs. the average weight of the fuel at start and at end of the flight. Then there is also the difference in cost between fuel and electricity.
    • That kind of thinking - if we dump the exhaust into the environment, we can be very efficient - is the problem that needs to be fixed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      For domestic flights electric aircraft will eventually be practical, it's just a question of when battery technology reaches the necessary weight/energy density.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by olau ( 314197 )

      If you are thinking about this from first principles, you need to look at the whole picture.

      Combustion engines aren't terribly efficient compared to chemical batteries and electric motors. Most of the energy in the fuel is wasted as heat, and due to a couple of thermodynamic laws there's no getting around that.

      And batteries are actually sufficient in theory, the chemical bindings can store the needed energy. It's an ongoing research and engineering problem how to do it - cheaply enough. There's a lot of mon

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amorsen ( 7485 )

      Electric cars are not winning because they are lighter than fossil fuel cars. Similarly electric planes do not have to beat fossil fuel planes on weight. They just have to be light enough to actually fly, then the vastly lower running costs will make them take over the market. Fossil fuel planes will still be lighter, and no one will care.

      • For ground vehicles weight only really factors in to power requirements when it comes to accelerating, decelerating, or traveling uphill, and good regenerative braking can offset that quite a bit. An airplane, by contrast, must continually expend energy to keep itself in the air. The more your power source weighs the more power you need just to lift it, which leaves proportionally less lift for passengers and/or cargo.

        As for "vastly lower running costs", only about 15% [travelandleisure.com] of the cost of a commercial fair goes to pay for fuel. The largest share of the cost is labor, which is not going to be reduced by requiring more planes and more routes to transport the same amount due to lower lifting capacity.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by amorsen ( 7485 )

          Electric planes with a certain lifting capacity are going to replace fossil fuel planes with the same lifting capacity. The electric plane will be heavier, but no one cares about gross weight. The amount of routes will expand a bit since costs are going down, leading to some previously unprofitable routes becoming profitable. The routes which benefit the most from the largest planes will be the last to go electric. (Well, possibly. It is possible that very busy airports like Heathrow will allow electric tak

    • It doesn't need to be lighter, it just needs to be cheaper over the cost of the flight.

    • If you've ever flown a small, non-turbo charged ICE plane you know that your power goes down drastically above 10,000 ft. Batteries don't have this limitation although with batteries you can't trade fuel for useful loads for short trips unless you can remove some of them.

    • Battery power has a number of dynamic properties going for it over conventional fuel.
      1. The energy density is increasing. (Carbon fuels are as good as they are going to get.)
      2. The expendable part (the electricity) is weightless. As technology improves you can cram more and more fuel on board with no payload penalty.
      There is never any need to take off with less than a full "tank", to be more efficient, or

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shotgun ( 30919 )

      The other tradeoff is that to use an ICE engine, you have to have an ICE engine.
      The Corvair I use weighs about 215lbs. The electric engines I've seen are closer to 50lbs.

      That weight difference doesn't get you all the way there, but it is a big help for the batteries.

    • I'm strictly a layman about this stuff. But I'm glad I posted my speculations about batteries and weight because of all the useful insights in the responses.

    • Beam power to planes, microwaves or laser.

  • Bullshit advertorial (Score:5, Informative)

    by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @03:07AM (#60421639)

    Our battery technology is extremely lightweight: Our most recent models are achieving more than twice the energy density typical of lithium-ion batteries

    That's meaningless: weight has nothing to do with energy density. Maybe lithium-sulfur has much better energy-to-weight ratio than lithium-ion as well, but that's not made clear in the description.

    The energy density of jet fuel is about 44 MJ/kg. The energy density for lithium-ion is about 0.3 MJ/kg. Twice as good would be 0.6 MJ/kg, so still about 73 times worse than jet fuel.

    A 747 can carry up to 229,980 liters of fuel. At 840 g/l, this works out to 193,183kg. To fly the same distance with batteries, it would need to carry 14,102,373kg of batteries, which is about 31 times more than its carrying capacity of 448,000kg.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pz ( 113803 )

      You've exactly expressed one of the important aspects of gasoline vs batteries in energy storage: energy density. Gasoline, it turns out, is a really, really good fuel because it is largely benign in liquid form (despite what Hollywood would have you believe) and has incredibly high energy density. When you are filling up your gasoline-fueled car, you are transferring power at MW rates --- that's how safe it is. Can you imagine holding on to a cable that is passing MW of electricity?

      Getting to anywhere n

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by nasor ( 690345 )
        The newest V3 Tesla Supercharger stations charge at 250 kw per car with a single cable. 1 MW doesn't seem so hard to imagine...
    • You are correct for long-haul flights. Turbofan jets(e.g. 747s) are VERY efficient at cruising. During takeoff, at slower speeds, and at lower altitudes, turboprops are more efficient(which is why short-haul flights are rarely jets). Piston engine planes start to make more sense when you look at VERY short haul flights because they are much simpler than turboprops. Electric propeller planes `should` be the simplest design of all.

      I could see these batteries making electric planes rivaling piston engine pr

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Darkelf ( 30761 )

        Why not hybrid?

        One that uses electric motors to handle takeoff (with say, conta-rotating props) and getting close to cruise altitude, then flip on the turbofans for the majority of the cruise portion of the flight.

        It may even be feasable to bleed off some of the power being generated by the turbofans while cruising to partially charge the battery.

        This could have a twofold benefit of a quieter airport while saving on fuel for longer-haul flights. Spooling up those turbofans to get a stationary plane moving

        • Hybrid would certainly be a very complex engine... Aviation is pretty risk adverse. I could maybe see a diesel generator as a power-source for electric engines, but not a full dual-drive system.

    • I think your numbers are a bit out of date. Wikipedia lists lithium ion batteries as ranging from 0.36 to 0.875 MJ/kg [wikipedia.org]. Existing batteries are already better than your twice as good numbers. If they can get double the density of existing high end batteries, that will be 1.75 MJ/kg.

      That's still a long way from jet fuel, but there are other factors. Jet engines are very inefficient. Electric motors are about three times as efficient, so you only need to store a third as much energy. They also are a lot l

    • I think what they mean is if you take, for example, a current 100kWh battery, they could empty the old tech and would only have to put 50% back using their formula and still get the same driving/flying range or put the same weight back using only their formula and they would have doubled the range.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nasor ( 690345 )
      No one is suggesting replacing a long-haul 747 with an electric airplane. But there are plenty of short-haul puddle jumpers that take off with 40% fuel, fly 40 or 50 miles, and land with 32% fuel. For those sorts of flights, electric could be far more economical.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @03:16AM (#60421657)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      For a cargo plane it's going to be on the ground for a couple of hours unloading and loading again. If it becomes possible to charge it in that time for short hops (circa 400 km, maybe) then it'll be fine. Even for passenger flights they have to do some level of sanitisation.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        For a cargo plane it's going to be on the ground for a couple of hours unloading and loading again. If it becomes possible to charge it in that time for short hops (circa 400 km, maybe) then it'll be fine. Even for passenger flights they have to do some level of sanitisation.

        For hops that short you are very likely going to be using a smaller aircraft that would have a very quick turn around, and certainly not hours. Passenger aircraft can have turn times of as little as 30-35 minutes. Hell, I know from personal experience it only takes about 20 minutes to fully load the cargo bin of a 757 with loose cargo-and when I say fully load, I mean I was having to sit on the lip of the bin door. And that was for a flight to Puerto Rico. Larger aircraft that use palletized or canned c

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
          I was guessing with what I thought were reasonable numbers. Thank you for correcting my guesses!

  • Don't hold your breath. It's possible. So what?

  • ... with lots of time to recharge.

    This is it. The flying car. Woo hoo!

  • Puncturing a lithium ion battery is bad enough. Add sulfur to the mix, and imagine that explosion.

    Airlines don't allow lithium batteries in the cargo hold today, there is no way (even if they solved the weight problem that apparently still exists per other posters) they will allow these bombs onto a plane in the US.

  • How do you charge the thing? How long does that take to charge to 100% (not the B.S. 80%)? Does the system have to be balanced like other lithium-based batteries?
    What does it cost compared to other power sources? I know from experience that for small electric vehicles e.g. scooters or golf carts, the cost of a lithium battery is three to four times that of a lead-acid battery and the capacity is the same. Yes, it weighs less but that weight savings translates to about 10% better range. Not worth the co

  • Still a sorry joke, compared to hydrocarbons, which do a better job when used with fuel cells and recycling of CO2.

  • The Tech may be Legit, But the Business plan... (Score:3)

    by boley1 ( 2001576 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @11:15AM (#60422811)

    "...today's battery of choice is lithium ion. It reached maturity years ago, with each new incremental improvement smaller than the last."
    I'd like to see the data that shows that.

    "Three factors will determine whether lithium-sulfur batteries ultimately succeed or fail. First is the successful integration of the batteries into multiple aircraft types, to prove the principle. Second is the continued refinement of the cell chemistry. Third is the continued reduction in the unit cost."

    Try reversing that order:
            First - reduction in cost. Make the battery attractive in many applications - especially EV's and Storage where demand is already scaled.
            Second - Refine the chemistry. You have customers now, try to keep them happy.
            Third - Successfully integrate the batteries into multiple aircraft types. You have scale now, in EV's and Storage and you are light enough for flight. This part is easy. Hundreds of companies will do this for you. They were just waiting on your battery.

    It's that first one(in my suggested order), Cost, for nearly every use case, that has to be solved first before these new battery technologies will ever have a chance to scale. Meanwhile Li-on keeps getting cheaper and better.

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