back to article Lithium-air: A battery breakthrough explained

In the quest for smaller, longer-lasting, more powerful batteries, scientists have tried many alternative approaches to battery chemistry. One may have just produced the breakthrough we’re waiting for. The urban legend is that there was a small leak in a battery cell that chemist K M Abraham was testing in his laboratory in …

  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    No boom today

    No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. What? Look, somebody's got to have some damn perspective around here! Boom. Sooner or later. BOOM!

    Lithium Peroxide? In my pocket? No thanks.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Re: No boom today

      +1 for the Ivanova quote :)

    2. ToddR

      Re: No boom today

      Lithium Peroxide? In my pocket? No thanks.

      Why?

    3. Ian Michael Gumby

      Re: No boom today

      i'd be more worried about the iodine I3.

      What happens when mixed w ammonia?

    4. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: No boom today

      Lithium Peroxide? In my pocket? No thanks.

      I don't see this as being much worse than other high-energy-density chemical packs we blithely cart around now. Li-ion batteries in your pocket aren't much fun if they short out or break open.1 Or cigarette lighters, which aren't quite so common these days in some parts, but many people still carry. Or guns (well, ammunition).

      Broadly speaking, people are pretty unconcerned about sticking volatile chemicals down their pants because we've gotten pretty good at keeping them2 contained.

      Maybe under your personal threat model that's not an acceptable risk. That's fine. I'm more concerned about, say, auto accidents, which have a much higher casualty rate.

      1Admittedly that doesn't happen often, which is why we put up with them, but on what grounds is a battery with Li2O2 significantly worse?

      2 The chemicals, not the people. Or the pants.

  2. frank ly

    How delicate is it? etc

    The discharge process requires oxygen, which I assume would come from the atmosphere for any simple applications. Given the apparently delicate chemistry, would there be any atmospheric pollutants that might 'poison' the battery? I'm thinking about nose to tail commuter traffic.

    Given that oxygen is a consumed reactant, how much oxygen would be needed to generate adequate power for a car to accelerate in town traffic? The battery might need a compressed air supply to give adequate power for practical applications.

    The charging process generates 'waste' oxygen .... be careful.

    1. PNGuinn
      Joke

      Re: How delicate is it? etc

      I suggest you ask VW about that.

      Probably easily doable with a simple software fix ....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How delicate is it? etc

      You're getting way ahead of yourself here. If any of those things are problems, they are probably not insoluble problems*, but we're at the stage it's just a lab experiment; wait until they have a vaguely practical prototype, then you can start looking at what issues are in the way of productionising it.

      *Ok, I'll play the wildly premature speculation game, since you insist; if you need compressed air, use the tech in a gas turbine hybrid, then you have an efficient combustion engine and a compressor that'll give you as much air as you need. Contaminants? Filters. Waste oxygen? Recycle it, then you need less from the atmosphere.

    3. Chris Evans

      Source of Oxygen? Re: How delicate is it? etc

      The article mentions "...Instead it incorporates hydrogen stripped from the water (H2O) " so can't the Oxygen left over be used? I do realise the quantity available may not be enough!

      1. Chemist

        Re: Source of Oxygen? How delicate is it? etc

        "so can't the Oxygen left over be used? I do realise the quantity available may not be enough!"

        In theory it could be used but the practical problem would be storing it during charging until it was needed.for use. I mole of oxygen is 32g but occupies ~23 L A vehicle battery would require a huge storage volume or a lot of energy to compress it and a weight penalty for the cylinder. .

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Source of Oxygen? How delicate is it? etc

          can't the Oxygen left over be used?

          It will, just possibly not by the battery that produced it, or for that matter by any battery. If the battery is cracking (a small amount of) water and forming compounds with the hydrogen but not all of the oxygen, then the remaining oxygen will be exhaust. Which means it goes into the big pool of available oxygen (and other stuff) we call "the atmosphere". And something will make use of it eventually.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: Source of Oxygen? How delicate is it? etc

            >Which means it goes into the big pool of available oxygen (and other stuff) we call "the atmosphere". >And something will make use of it eventually.

            May contain upto 100% post-consumer recycled Oxygen ?

    4. 080

      Re: How delicate is it? etc

      Store the recharge generated oxygen and consume it in the discharge phase.

      1. Ragarath

        Re: How delicate is it? etc

        If we are talking cars here what's wrong with storing the fuel needed in say well a tank. You know like we do with the current car tech and petrol?

        Dump the oxygen to the tank and suck it back when needed.

        This would obviously be a problem for something smaller but cars not a problem.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How delicate is it? etc

      The discharge process requires oxygen, which I assume would come from the atmosphere for any simple applications...

      I was wondering similarly, but more about applications such as submarine batteries for example where there is little or no 'atmosphere', or perhaps industrial environments where the atmosphere might combine other undesirable elements.

      I presume though that its just a matter of chemistry (a different method of providing the oxygen) and engineering (figuring out how the components can interact inside a durable sealed casing).

  3. Grikath

    interesting..

    however... Graphene.. still not commercially viable.

    1. Tom 7

      Re: interesting..

      Graphene wont be commercially available until the patents on it run out. Its not worth investing in researching how to make it if someone else owns your product.

      1. imanidiot Silver badge

        Re: interesting..

        production or research into production is currently not interesting because projected demand is still too low. Once the demand is there someone WILL make it (and probably making a pretty penny doing so)

      2. tony72

        Re: interesting..

        So I googled to see what the deal is with graphene patents, not being familiar with the subject, found Graphene: the worldwide patent landscape in 2015 . Wow, that's a lot of patents. Presumably the vast majority of those are related to specific applications though. What are the basic patents getting in the way of someone e.g. using some graphene film in an electrode, as with this lithium-air battery?

        1. Infernoz Bronze badge
          Coat

          Re: interesting..

          It patents net slow development of technologies (they do), then patents, say on Graphene, are not just anti-property rights, anti-capitalist, state monopoly privileges, this counter productive behaviour also rather effectively voids the social benefit myths, thus are net negative!

          I don't see the benefit of this tech. unless it can produce much higher energy density (it doesn't seem to yet) at affordable purchase and life-time cost, but use of Graphene does suggest that it may not be affordable.

          I also wonder how much longer we will have cheap enough Lithium to build more affordable batteries...

          1. TeeCee Gold badge
            Facepalm

            Re: interesting..

            It patents net slow development of technologies (they do),

            Any development of technology tends to require significant investment. That won't happen without ROI, which means some method of ensuring that the original developers are compensated for that technology's use is a prerequisite for said development to take place at all.

            As not all technologies developed prove of worth, ROI has to exceed investment by a considerable amount to keep investors chucking the cash on the off-chance of hitting a winner.

            As most people[1] are freeloading thieves at heart, some legal mechanism is required to force the buggers to compensate the developers.

            "Stopped" is slower than "slow", so they don't. QED.

            [1] and all corporate entities....

            1. Tom 7

              Re: interesting..

              Re the freeloading. The early patents on graphene come from using sellotape to peel already existing graphene from graphite. Cost - fuck all compared with applying for the patent.

              So the development costs of graphene are near zero. For someone else to make graphene in useful quantities is going to be fucking enormous and they will have to pay the patent holder if they can get a license. Not worth the risk.

              If I could produce sizeable sheets of graphene I would be very rich - but nowhere near as rich as if I wait for the patents to run out and the patent holder is not freeloading of and actual design for making the bloody stuff rather than extracting something they didnt invent from is natural source.

              1. Ian Michael Gumby

                @Tom 7 Re: interesting..

                @Tom,

                No, you wouldn't.

                He who patents first wins. So you may have something that if documented would make it prior art and then invalidate the patent, yet you would lose too.

                You would be better off setting FRAND and then work on licensing agreements that were more than just cash, but equity in their company and a share of any derivative patents they may create. You end up taking on some of the risk, but you will also end up with a larger war chest when you die.

                Look at the FOSS model. Companies like Google like it because it means that when people join the Googleplex or Chocolate Factory, they are familiar with the ideas and concepts. Read: faster onboarding and less costs to train up staff. Facebook? They fund 5 engineers, Yahoo! funds 5 engineers, etc ... so that Facebook gets to use technology from 100s of people yet they are only funding 5. Cost of development goes down. So they win. Companies like Cloudera, Red Hat, etc ... again make money from selling support licenses where they pay for only a fraction of the support costs to the code base.

                Again, we can see winners who play in the community.

                So you're better off patenting your derivative process, license the graphene base patents and then working with others.

      3. Ian Michael Gumby
        Boffin

        @Tom Re: interesting..

        You got down voted because your post doesn't make sense when you apply game theory to it.

        If you're the patent holder and you're charging too much to license your patent, bad things could happen.

        1) You could in theory lose your patent. (Extreme case where the courts would decide for the greater good.

        2) You could be forced to accept FRAND. That is the courts would decide what would be a reasonable royalty payment.

        3) You patent it to protect your rights so that you can make money, so you want people to use it and expand on products that could use it. You set the licensing fees (royalties) somewhat above what some would consider FRAND or you come up with a deal where you have a stake in their innovation.

        All things run counter to your argument.

        The truth is that its still not commercially viable yet.

        Now if you could master a way to perform 3D printing using graphene and lay down ultra thin layers and then bond them... Now you have something that would be worth Billions! Hundreds of billions a year if fully exploited.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: interesting..

      Have an upvote to counter the downvotes.

      There are so many lab "breakthroughs" which depend on cheap, stable graphene production or other nanotech for commercialization. Since I can't keep up with them all I think the best strategy is to stop reading as soon as a magic word appears. But prepare to be very excited when a company develops cheap graphene and other nanotech production.

  4. Gideon 1

    Oxygen makes things burn brightly

    Recharging an electric car sized battery would release large quantities of oxygen gas, which is a major fire hazard. NASA learnt this the hard way with Apollo 1.

    1. tirk

      Re: Oxygen makes things burn brightly

      Existing lead-acid batteries produce hydrogen, which can also be problematic. Any decent battery technology will store a lot of energy in a small space, and if it fails be hazardous.

    2. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: Oxygen makes things burn brightly

      Yes - because obviously we camn't vent the oxygen into the atmosphere.

      Apollo 1 had a high pressure pure oxygen atmosphere - not quite comparable...

      1. TheVogon

        Re: Oxygen makes things burn brightly

        "Apollo 1 had a high pressure pure oxygen atmosphere"

        As pure oxygen is toxic above 0.5 atmospheres, it seems unlikely it was both "pure" and "high pressure"....

        1. Chemist

          Re: Oxygen makes things burn brightly

          "As pure oxygen is toxic above 0.5 atmospheres, it seems unlikely it was both "pure" and "high pressure"...."

          I think it was both, an initial 100% oxygen at slightly higher than atmospheric reducing to 100% at ~1/3 atm. for almost all of the flight. I think after the fire they changed to using oxygen/nitrogen.

          I didn't downvote BTW - you are quite correct about oxygen tox.

        2. Vulch

          Re: Oxygen makes things burn brightly

          As pure oxygen is toxic above 0.5 atmospheres, it seems unlikely it was both "pure" and "high pressure"

          And you'd be wrong. The spacecraft cabin was pressurised to 16.7psi with pure oxygen, the idea being that during launch the pressure would be reduced to around 5psi when in space. The crew were fully suited and breathing from a different supply.

      2. Nigel 11

        Re: Oxygen makes things burn brightly

        Apollo 1 had a high pressure pure oxygen atmosphere - not quite comparable...

        True, but merely oxygen-enriched atmospheres are serious fire hazards. ISTR that above 29% O2, burning wood becomes difficult (impossible?) to extinguish with water.

        OTOH venting O2 from battery charging to the open air would be harmless, and it can't be hard to build an O2 sensor which would let the car monitor the atmosphere around it while it is charging, and shut down the charging if some eejit has forgotten to connect the vent pipe to the car in his garage.

        Gasoline isn't totally safe, either.

    3. ToddR

      Re: Oxygen makes things burn brightly

      Can you define what a large quantity of Oxygen is?

      1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge
        IT Angle

        Re: Oxygen makes things burn brightly

        "Can you define what a large quantity of Oxygen is?"

        640K atoms. That should be enough for anybody, surely?

    4. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Oxygen makes things burn brightly

      "NASA learnt this the hard way with Apollo 1."

      What NASA learned is that 100% oxygen at 17psi (atmosphere is about 14 and partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen is about 3-4) is a spectacularly bad idea.

      At that kind of concentration velcro will burn explosively (which is what happened once a spark happend)

      Recharging a battery can release significant quantities of both hydrogen and oxygen already but basic safety precautions deal with that. Traction batteries are larger but the principle is the same.

  5. sequester

    Oh look, another magic battery technology

    Why is that even worth reporting on anymore? It feels like there's at least one "breakthrough" discovery made each month, and none of them have anything to show in terms of actual usable hardware so far.

    Neat? Maybe. Useful? Maybe in 10–20 years.

    1. Richard 81

      Re: Oh look, another magic battery technology

      "Why is that even worth reporting on anymore?"

      Because it's likely to be interesting to people who read tech. news websites such as this one.

    2. itzman
      Go

      Re: Oh look, another magic battery technology

      No, this is not another magic battery technology, it's a small but highly significant step in the ONLY - I repeat ONLY - electrochemical battery technology that has a cat's chance in hell of competing with hydrocarbon fuels effectively.

      Lithium air has been like fusion - theoretically the energy is all there, but in practice building a practical battery has been nigh on impossible. This take the impossible to 'pretty hard and currently expensive'.

      Which is a step closer to 'cheap as chips, stable and long lasting'.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh look, another magic battery technology

        Downvote for failure to clarify: lithium ion can compete with hydrocarbon for a significant chunk of the market. The pricing trends are pretty clear on that, given that prices are already beating historic estimates.

        Something with much higher density like lithium air would be needed to cover the combination of large+heavy+time-sensitive.

      2. Ian Michael Gumby

        @Itzman Re: Oh look, another magic battery technology

        Not worthy of a down vote, but not completely correct.

        The key issue of hydrocarbons (petrol) is that you have a relatively simple engine which can turn the potential energy of the petrol in to mechanical / kinetic energy, albeit not all that efficient where a lot of energy is given off as waste heat and pollutants.

        Now if I could find an energy source which is cleaner... e.g. nuclear energy ... and I could then create a model of being able to store the energy for later use (batteries) and then be able to recharge the batteries on demand quickly... I would be able to replace the needs for petrol engines.

        Considering that most vehicle travel less than 50 miles in a day.... lets say I created a car that ran on electricity and had a decent range so that I could travel daily and recharge overnight, I would be able to replace a lot of the cars on the road. If we increase the range of the electric car to that of a tank of petrol (~300 miles) then the differences become less. If I can also decrease the time to recharge the battery so that if someone needed to extend their range, it would make the car also more viable. If the cost of the electricity is less than the cost of the petrol... even better. Less moving parts, less maintenance, lower TCO.

        Tesla does that, if you're comparing a luxury car to the Tesla S sedan.

        So if we go towards Nuclear Energy, work on fusion energy... better storage solutions make the electric car more viable. What's interesting is that FORD did a lot of earlier work on electric cars which for some reason they haven't capitalized on. They could in fact make cars for Uber or taxi fleets but that's a different conversation.

        The point is that the better storage (battery) the more viable the electric car becomes.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @Itzman Oh look, another magic battery technology

          "If I can also decrease the time to recharge the battery so that if someone needed to extend their range, it would make the car also more viable."

          And therein lies the big bug-a-boo about electric motors vs. ICE's: liquid hydrocarbon fuel is not only very energy dense but also very stable and easy to transport. It's extremely easy to fill your car with 30 liters or so of petrol or diesel; it only takes a few minutes with automated pumping systems. You can carry the stuff in anything from fuel cans to tanker trucks. No other fuel system has that level of ease of "recharging". You can't use pure electrics because that implies a physically-dangerous level of electrical flow. It's best to do it indirectly though some sort of fuel source.

        2. Peter177

          Re: @Itzman Oh look, another magic battery technology

          You have almost described the General Motors 2016 Chevey Volt the second generation model. It has an approx. range on battery of 53 miles plus with a petrol ICE backup, 400 plus mile range. With an all battery model the Bolt in 2017 with 200 mile range. The missed point about battery energy density is it does not have to equal petrol/gasoline by a long way. As an ICE is only 25% efficient so only a quarter of a tank is used. On electricity the electric motor is up at 90% plus so the battery does not need to store as much energy to go the same distance by a factor of about 3. This means approx. 3 kw/kilo Li air battery would equal a gallon of fuel. Li air has the potential for 10 kw/kilo so if this can be productionised and super fast charged then hydrocarbon fuels are dead and please do not mention hydrogen/fuel cell without doing the energy audit from well to wheel as it's truly terrible.

          1. Chemist

            Re: @Itzman Oh look, another magic battery technology

            "3 kw/kilo Li air battery would equal a gallon of fuel. Li air has the potential for 10 kw/kilo"

            Can you clarify your units - you are using power when you should be using energy.

            Petrol is ~32MJ/L or ~ 44MJ/kg - it's a rapidly moving target but a Li-ion is ~~ 1MJ/kg . Now I take your point about efficiency but given the very variable sources of electricity , transmission distance & losses, charging/discharging efficiency and motor losses I'd guess we are a long way from 90% overall at the moment. On the other hand it's good to see such a potential improvement.

            Just seen a report of potentially 'cheap' magnesium/iron batteries for non-traction uses :-

            http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151104095223.htm

    3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Oh look, another magic battery technology

      Reg editors, can we please have an "obligatory post that someone always makes for a story of this type" icon? And can it automatically be attached to posts about the futility of new battery technologies, excessive graphene announcements, Linux on the desktop, Microsoft's evil deeds in the marketplace, the price of Oracle's products, the uncrackability of the one-time-pad, the wretchedness of any UI change, the foolishness of Big Data, dangers of the Cloud, inherent bugginess of C, the poor value of old technologies, the callowness of new ones, and irritation with people posting the same damn things over and over?

      That'd be great. Cheers.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Did I miss the part...

    Where they talked about how much more energy these things can store? History, design, chemistry, recharge efficiency seems to be all there but how much more energy it could store was vague at best?

    1. Chemist

      Re: Did I miss the part...

      "Where they talked about how much more energy these things can store? History, design, chemistry,"

      It sounds like a fair step forward in absolute energy density but AFAIK* the output current is low for reasonable efficiency. Still these are very early days - this is a paper in Science after all.

      * writing from memory, I've read about this a week or two ago but can't find where. In fact I thought it was published in Nature. In fact Nature has just published a supplement all about batteries. It will probably tell most people far more than they want to know.

      http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7575_supp/index.html

      1. blue hawk

        Re: Did I miss the part...

        Looking at the orginal release the energy storeage is roughly 10 times higher by weight

        1. PNGuinn
          Childcatcher

          Re: Did I miss the part...

          But what will be the weight of the dirty great case needed to contain it.

          It's all about very small bombs now, you know... has to go under the driver's seat etc.

        2. Infernoz Bronze badge

          Re: Did I miss the part...

          The volume matters too, especially for slim portable devices or devices needing a lot of power; the volume difference does not appear to be mentioned and the mass/weight will increase as the battery is charged because of the added Oxygen atoms.

    2. itzman

      Re: Did I miss the part...

      Energy density is close to hydrocarbon fuels weight for weight.

    3. Paul Shirley

      Re: "how much more energy it could store"

      It's about reducing weight rather than increasing total storage. Removing metals from one electrode shouldn't make much difference to volume but shave off a lot of weight.

      This is unlikely to end up in your phone where volume is the constraint, for a car that's a lot of mass not being hauled around. The battery efficiency may be no better than Li-ion but it's energy will be used more efficiently.

  7. Richard Boyce

    Balancing

    My niece has just been learning how to balance chemical equations. I think that could've been usefully done in those diagrams.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeah, yeah that all sounds great until you learn...

    "Our batteries take *days* to charge and discharge, when you want it to happen in minutes and seconds," Prof Grey explained.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34669405

    This key fact was lacking in your write-up.

    1. Richard 81

      Re: Yeah, yeah that all sounds great until you learn...

      I'd argue that taking days to discharge is great. Days to charge is not so good.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: Yeah, yeah that all sounds great until you learn...

        Days to discharge at what rate? A watch battery can last a year, but then again the watch only sips the power. A car OTOH has some pretty significant power demands which have to be delivered in a timely manner in order to be practical. So the big money question: can you run electric cars off these batteries right now?

        1. Chemist

          Re: Yeah, yeah that all sounds great until you learn...

          "can you run electric cars off these batteries right now?"

          No

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Yeah, yeah that all sounds great until you learn...

        "I'd argue that taking days to discharge is great. Days to charge is not so good."

        Since the Prof mentions it as one of the drawbacks, I took it to mean that the discharge rate is very slow, i.e. if you have an application which requires a lot of power to be delivered quickly, this tech isn't ready yet.

  9. PNGuinn
    Mushroom

    Boom AND Bust

    So - we have a set of car batteries with a *vastly* increased capacity, (for a value of *vastly* has not been defined yet, but I digress...).

    An "efficiency" of about 90 percent.

    The need to fast charge the bugger so lots of luvverly heat.

    Lots of luvverly oxygen being produced inside the battery, and the need to vent the hot O2 to the outside, probably by means of a 100 percent relaible cheap as chips fan.

    Lots of finely divided carbon inside.

    Lots of lithium around.

    Lots of heat being generated inside the pack during the charging process. (oh - I already said that - never mind)

    Nothing could possibly go wrong there, could it? Nothing left to see here - move along please....

    Can I interest any of you in my recent patent for a new Thermite battery??

    1. Nigel 11

      Re: Boom AND Bust

      Nothing could possibly go wrong there, could it?

      I'm sure they said the same thing about letting members of the general public muck around with gallons of gasoline.

      And have you every seen what happens if you short out a lead-acid battery with a spanner?

      Lots more R&D needed but not a can't-be-done attitude.

      1. roytrubshaw
        Pint

        Re: Boom AND Bust

        "And have you every seen what happens if you short out a lead-acid battery with a spanner?"

        Yes. Very exciting!

      2. Sprismoid

        Re: Boom AND Bust

        "And have you every seen what happens if you short out a lead-acid battery with a spanner?"

        Yeah. My father shorted out two big batteries on his boat once - not funny and he was lucky the flying spanner didn't kill him. It did make a fine mess of his face though (just barely missing an eye), and knocked him unconscious. He recovered fine though.

        Peter

    2. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: Boom AND Bust

      I can imagine the fan/suction device will be incorporated into the charger and the exhaust hose connected directly with the charge plug.

    3. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: Boom AND Bust

      How about an engine making use of the thermal properties of superheated gaseous H2O? Perhaps with mineral derived carbon as the energy source?

  10. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    Water?

    If you need water as a solvent and an atmospheric airflow you'll need a method to stop it drying out or having it topped up (like lead acid batteries - even most 'sealed' ones dry out over time). Also you'll have to carefully control electrode temperatures to prevent out gassing and rapid charging tends to produce very high temperatures.

    Still sounds like an interesting lab experiment in a petri dish to me. It'll be interesting to so if it can be practically implemented.

    1. Chemist

      Re: Water?

      "If you need water as a solvent and an atmospheric airflow you'll need a method to stop it drying out or having it topped up"

      "The last important ingredient is a small amount of water." - the solvent is dimethoxyethane (b.pt. ~85C) (in this case).

      But yes lots of hurdles to overcome.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    yawn

    Yet another vapourware improved battery story that will amount to sod all. Just as ALL the previous "breakthroughs" have amounted to....

    1. Nigel 11

      Re: yawn

      just as ALL the previous "breakthroughs" have amounted to....[sod all].

      Apart from every successful battery technology now in production, you mean.

      First, there's a breakthrough in electrochemistry. Then there's a huge load of R&D aiming at commercializing it. Then either (a) they've tried everything they can think of, and give up, or (b) a new battery technology arrives. Like NiMH. Or the sort of NiMH that holds its charge for over a year. Or Lithium batteries. Or rechargeable lithium batteries - we're now on the Nth generation, not sure what is N.

      Pharmaceuticals have an even higher failure rate.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: yawn

        The problem is that all the temptation amounts to crying wolf. Wake us up when one of these technologies actually hits the market and is actively undergoing real-world use. Until then, what use is it for us to know about something that may never pan out?

        1. James Hughes 1

          Re: yawn

          What's the point of knowing?

          Shit. If you don't know the answer to that, well, despair would be one way of putting it.

  12. drand
    Boffin

    Check out this cool new battery hack!

    I'm off to attack the battery in my phone with a screwdriver to let some air in!

    1. Pookietoo
      Boffin

      Re: Check out this cool new battery hack!

      Don't forget the iodine.

  13. Chris Evans

    How much better than the current best?

    It may be to early to tell but the only benefit quoted is "this saves a lot of weight". To some people 10% is 'a lot'. It would be great if this does result in more efficient batteries but it seems to early to say if the pro's are going to outweigh the cons. I wish them well.

  14. another_vulture

    Closed cycle

    Produces oxygen when charging, consumes oxygen when discharging. Just store the oxygen, probably in another chemical compound, and you have a closed cycle, just as with most rechargable batteries.

    I'm not a chemist, so I don't know the best way to store oxygen reversibly in a chemical for this particular cycle.

  15. Anonymous Git
    Mushroom

    someone invent flubber already...

    http://quib.ly/media/admin_upload/latest.png

  16. Stoneshop
    Coat

    So

    this is a case of the beneficial effects of accupuncture?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lots of complaints that this doesn't improve energy density

    but that doesn't seem to be the problem being solved although it may improve this a bit. The benefit of this technology seems to be that it is far more resistant to "wearing out" like a mobile phone battery.

  18. Charles Manning

    Hey! Where's my flying car!

    Been waiting for the "before 2000" flying car since I was a pup in the 1960s.

    While this new chemistry has some interesting potential, I doubt we'll see any of it in real production before 2025 or later.

    There's such a lot that actually has to be made to work in the real world that far too many of these "breakthrough technologies" just never get anywhere useful.

    Interesting - yes, promising - maybe, breakthrough - no.

  19. Gordon 11

    Lithium Peroxide? In my pocket? No thanks.

    Lithium/air batteries (non-rechargeable) are already used in hearing aids...

    1. Pierre Castille
      Headmaster

      Hearing Aid Batteries

      I think you will find that they use zinc air batteries. Long life and very low discharge rate.

  20. Terje

    While better batteries is of course good, I feel that "people" tend to forget some of the issues with a mass use of electric vehicles.

    1. How do you generate all the electricity to charge all the vehicles. It's not just a few wind turbines we are talking about here, it would be a significant chunk of all the current electricity generated.

    2. Assuming we have all that extra production, how do you distribute it? The existing grid will not be able to handle it, it would need extreme upgrades and rewiring to handle.

    My solution to the second issue is to simply bypass it and focus research on better fuel cells and produce hydrogen (something that is comparatively easy to transport) close to the electricity generation source.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Indeed

      If by "significant chunk" you mean "at least double what we currently generate".

      Transport uses a heck of a lot of energy.

  21. a_yank_lurker

    Recharging time

    The real problem with all current rechargeable batteries is the recharging time which is relatively long due to current density limitations during the recharging cycle. If this issue is solved so recharging times are minutes instead of hours for a car then EVs will be truly practical and a niche product they are today.

    1. TWB

      Re: Recharging time

      When this issue is mentioned I find it odd that no-one thinks that maybe electric cars will run on standardised rechargeable batteries which get swapped at charging stations - probably replacing the petrol station network over time.

      So you drive up, the charge in your batteries is measured, a machine removes them, puts in new ones and you pay for the amount of top up charge that you have just been given - less what you had removed. Could be done in less time it takes to fill a petrol car. Obviously this would not work with current EVs as the manufacturers are still experimenting with vehicle design, but if the battery mounting/compartment(s) was standardised on every new EV, this should be straightforward. Lots of problems, but nothing the reg readers could not imagine overcoming (this is what proper engineers do)

      The charging station itself would be automated and slowly charging all the depleted batteries (or maybe collecting them for sending off to much larger automated charging stations. In either case grid power consumption could be dynamically controlled to help control demand to the generators and grid (maybe by dynamic pricing! Ughhhh...) Maybe you could have up to 100 batteries on charge at a time, but if demand needs to be reduced that would get signalled and it can be reduced to 50, 20, 10, none etc.

      With a standardised battery, manufacturers could 'sell' their vehicle as having 1, 2, 3 or more slots. 1 battery for small economy EVs. 2 batteries for general use (small hatchbacks). 5 batteries for show offs (high performance willy extensions)

      Also as battery technology improves (I am an optimist) new better/higher capacity would filter down, older 'worn out' batteries could be serviced/recycled by large efficient factories.

      1. Known Hero

        Re: Recharging time

        exactly what I always wonder.

        Plus side, is that Hollywood gets to keep their explosive service stations !!!!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Recharging time

        It's been considered, but as the market is new right now, all the manufacturers are competing to be the standard-bearer. Until this battle settles down, no one will put forth a standard to which others will agree because they want to be ones in the other's shoes.

        There's also the matter of infrastructure costs. For example, fuel right now is transported only one way: from the sources eventually to the sellers, so having a recycling leg would be a new leg to that supply chain and that will entail additional costs. Same for charging in place, as that's going to take some serious juice to be able to charge them in a reasonable length of time in order to keep supplies up.

  22. DCFusor
    Holmes

    CO2 issue

    In my lab, where I do use some lithium (not for batteries, vacuum depo physics stuff) we find that any lithium hydroxide quickly absorbs CO2 from the air and becomes LiCO3. This is why old NiCd flooded cell batteries (as used on locomotives) had to have a layer of oil floating over the NaOH/LiOH/water electrolyte. They didn't mention that problem.

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