[HN Gopher] Na-S Battery: Low-cost with four times the capacity ... ___________________________________________________________________ Na-S Battery: Low-cost with four times the capacity of lithium Author : giuliomagnifico Score : 262 points Date : 2022-12-15 12:07 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.sydney.edu.au) (TXT) w3m dump (www.sydney.edu.au) | MonkeyClub wrote: | Seems to be a legitimate advance in a long-disregarded battery | tech, I'd be very happy if this ends up reducing lithium mining. | danuker wrote: | Indeed, and it might also drive down prices. Sodium and sulphur | are much more abundant than Lithium (1150x and 260x | respectively). | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... | flavius29663 wrote: | This wiki page has a surprising graph https://en.wikipedia.or | g/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... | | The "rare earths" are actually just as common as Si. It just | shows we won't be running out of them anytime soon, it's just | a matter of finding ways to extract them. | pfdietz wrote: | Si is the symbol for silicon, which is the second most | abundant element in the Earth's crust (after oxygen.) The | REEs are certainly not as abundant as that. Si is 270,000 | ppm; cerium is 60 ppm. | flavius29663 wrote: | You're right, I'm dumb, the graph is 0 at 10^6 Si. So | rare earths are 1 million times more rare than Si. It's | similar to copper and Nickel though | squarefoot wrote: | Although, by looking at the places where they are more | abundant, I wouldn't be too optimist, at least with the | current geopolitical climate. | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/277268/rare-earth- | reserv... | ojbyrne wrote: | I'm not sure how you're interpreting that graph, because Si | (Silicon) and Na are orders of magnitude more common than | the rare earths. You might have missed that it's a | logarithmic scale. | usrusr wrote: | Is the material that ends up in the cell a significant part | of the cost? If steel was free, ICE cars could be _dozens of | dollars_ cheaper than they are. I guess material costs are a | much bigger factor in batteries, but in many other products | is so low that "much bigger" could still be tiny. | GekkePrutser wrote: | Does the 1150 take into account all the oceans full of NaCl? | It sounds a little low. | ddulaney wrote: | Sodium and sulphur are very cheap and easy to get, but not | because of this. | | Sulphur is a byproduct of lots of different industrial | processes, usually oil refining. | | Sodium is most commonly extracted from seawater. | | Frequency of elements in Earth's crust is a pretty poor | approximation for how easy they are to mine. | supportlocal4h wrote: | Imagine a desalination process funded in part by producing | battery-grade sodium. | | All you practical people who wait until there is real world | manufacturing promise are missing out on the pleasure of wild | imagination. | jfengel wrote: | Imagination is great, but there's a blurry line between | "imagine a thing and make it happen" and "tell happy stories | instead of working". | | One belongs in science journals; the other belongs in | Astounding Stories. Both have their place, and there's even | some overlap, but it's no surprise that grumpiness occurs | when the conversation crosses that blurry line too far (in | either direction). | marcus_holmes wrote: | "we're all doomed" | | "wait, there's a new battery tech that could solve some of | the long-standing problems with moving to a clean-energy | abundant civilisation, and yesterday they achieved fusion | ignition for the first time" | | "bah, these are all rubbish and will never make any | difference, we're still all doomed" | hcarvalhoalves wrote: | Yes. The electrification movement isn't any "green" if you take | into account the impact of current battery technology. | | PS: the impact of battery _technology_ - I'm not only talking | about mining but the entire cycle: usable life, reverse | logistics, disposal and recycling, dealing w / water and soil | contamination. | adrr wrote: | Lithium on earth is in salt form. Most coming from dry salt | beds in South America. Big US project is to extract it from | the Salton sea. Fracking is much worse and contaminates water | tables not to mention all the methane releases that cause | global warming. | kragen wrote: | you're out of date, half of current lithium production is | hard rock mining of spodumene in australia | ZeroGravitas wrote: | So its not fossil fuel funded climate change denial, it's | actually about the ethics of lithium mining? | raverbashing wrote: | Ah yes. | | Digging for coal or gas or oil, fracking, etc: just fine | | Mining for (significant less amount of) lithium or other | metals: "oh look they're ruining the environment" | | As most discussions go, they're heavily biased towards the | status quo | hcarvalhoalves wrote: | You have not only the impact of mining but also the problem | of reverse logistics for correct disposal and recycling of | those toxic batteries that don't even last long. Batteries | contaminate soil and water in a way that's much harder to | control if it start piling up everywhere. And today's world | can't even solve the disposal of plastic. | galangalalgol wrote: | With intelligent charging practices (which often come at | the expense of stored energy) and temperature control, | modern lithium cells asymptote to ~20% capacity loss and | stay there for, well at least since the model S came out, | still counting. Or that was the case a couple years ago | when I looked into it. The difference in the battery life | in a leaf vs a tesla is qualitative not quantitative. The | motivation to make phone batteries last longer wasn't | there at first until it provided negative press, now | intelligent charging is fairly common in phones. Thermal | management is harder. | nine_k wrote: | Lithium batteries are a great source of lithium, and | bigger of them, like laptop batteries, largely get | recycled even now, AFAICT. Lithium + iron chemistries in | particular avoid seriously toxic components. | | Both lithium and plastics are far less nasty than, say, | ash from a coal-burning plant, with its sulfur, mercury, | and radioactive stuff. Retiring these is a higher | priority thing, IMO, than improving lithium mining | cleanliness (though an improvement is always welcome). | fnordpiglet wrote: | Brine extraction of lithium leaves some waste but largely | uses solar power to operate and isn't particularly | invasive. Mining Spodumene is as bad as any other mining, | and open pit mining is common. There's some other | techniques that use large amounts of highly concentrated | acid. But it's a really hard case to make that the oil | economy is somehow a better environmental story for sure. | willnonya wrote: | Both of those can be bad at once you know... | | A lithium mine is much more devastating to the environment | than an oil well or franking. That doesn't mean either of | these are really good options despite what either side | wants to pretend. | KyeRussell wrote: | This sort of both-sidesing doesn't further the | conversation at all. Do you really think the person | you're replying to doesn't know that mining Lithium isn't | without its environmental costs? | | The person you're replying to quite correctly notes that | mining Lithium is an improvement over extracting coal, | oil, and gas. The term "green" is so nebulous snd ill- | defined that it's not worth talking about. | | The best thing humanity can do for the earth is clearly | to remove ourselves from it. Anything less than that is | compromise. Sure. But sitting here saying "there's no | such thing as ethical consumption" doesn't really get us | anywhere. | MonkeyClub wrote: | Precisely; it's not big oil propaganda to understand the | environmental effects of lithium mining, just as it's not | lithium propaganda to acknowledge the equivalent | consequences of the oil industry on the environment. | | But if we get to have a way to move at super-human speeds | (ie > 5 km/h walking and > 30 km/h running), cheaply and | without environmentally detrimental consequences, that'd | be great :) | | (Fellow cyclists, I know, cycling is an excellent | solution for single-person small- and mid-range movement. | I'm thinking here of mass transportation and goods | transportation, where it'd be hard to use cycle-powered | lorries across continents.) | scythe wrote: | >A lithium mine is much more devastating to the | environment than an oil well or franking. | | This isn't true at all. Lithium is mined in much smaller | quantities and in fewer places. In some cases (Cornwall, | e.g.), it can be obtained as a byproduct of geothermal | energy. It can also be recycled. By contrast, the | Wikipedia list of environmental disasters has an entire | _section_ devoted to oil: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disas | ter... | nine_k wrote: | What makes a lithium mine so bad? Oil wells prone to | generate lots of saltwater, too. | 1ris wrote: | Both can be bad, and both are bad. | | But it looks like a lot of people assume they are just as | bad without any quantitate or qualitative assessment. | | Lithium mining is way less bad than oil extraction in | both dimensions. If that lithium can offset oil | consumption it looks particular good. | jl6 wrote: | No doubt that mining lithium has negative impacts, but | those negative impacts feel localized in a way that can | in principle be mitigated and cleaned up, and though bad | for local communities, it doesn't pose existential risk. | This is in stark contrast to the fossil fuel cycle which | distributes pollution globally into the atmosphere, and | will be tremendously difficult to undo. | defrost wrote: | Untouched National Parks don't bounce back to pre mine | status so that's a Yes to "in principle" but a No to "in | practice". | | _Lithium exploration drilling near Litchfield National | Park raises sustainability questions_ [1] | | > University of Queensland professor of conservation | science James Watson says that mining associated with | renewable energy could cover about 50 million square | kilometres of the Earth's surface by 2050. | | > His prediction is startling. | | > "About 10 per cent will be in national parks and | protected areas, another 7 or so per cent will be in | areas that have been identified as critical biodiversity | areas to sustain species and stop extinction, and a | further 15 per cent or so will be in our last remaining | wilderness on the planet," he said. | | I've spent a few decades in mineral exploration, in | geophysics and in mapping global mineral and energy | resources. | | We have some real issues to sort out going forward with | respect to resource extraction and the rights of | indigenous people and wilderness. | | [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-13/lithium-found- | near-li... | jupp0r wrote: | What percentage of national parks will be affected by | climate change? I see your point but if we have two bad | options and one is absolutely worse than the other, | making them look equivalent because they have some | environmental impact is not helpful to protecting as much | if the environment as possible. | defrost wrote: | A surprisingly high percentage in National Parks globally | (ie. many different jurisdictions) that are also (or | adjacent to) indigenous lands with various treaties and | contracts. | | eg: The US has one ~$64 billion copper resource (leased | to Anglo - Australians) in native lands [1] which is an | as yet unresolved and sizeable can of worms, and that's | barely the start of the list (although it is the largest | global pending copper project). | | There's a nice GIS directory of such things that we (here | in W.Australia) compiled a decade ago (along with | automation to run it forward) that's now a bit paywalled | [2] | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_Copper | | [2] https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campai | gns/met... | megaman821 wrote: | These scientific advances in batteries are cool, but I don't take | them as a specific indicator of what is coming. It is a numbers | game, if there are 1000 scientific advances maybe 1 or 2 will | survive the gauntlet and make it into manufacturing in the next | 10 years. | | It seems reasonable that there will be battery options that cost | 50% as much and others that have 2x greater energy density in the | near future. That seems great to me. Batteries will be viable and | economical across most storage needs expect for aviation, | shipping and seasonal grid storage. | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | Same. If you follow articles like this you'll be constantly | wondering what happened to "x". | | ("Graphene can do everything except get out of the lab") | RGamma wrote: | Specifically for grid storage I'd like to see more attention | given to gravity batteries [0], the compressed liquid type. | | Recently saw a video (in German, [1]) in which there was back- | of-the-envelope calculation that a gravity battery built by | hydraulically raising a cylindrical landmass with 1km diameter | by 500 meters stores about 2TWh (recent yearly gross | electricity consumption of Germany is 560TWh). | | It's such a simple concept! Also, they are looking for | investors: https://heindl-energy.com/ | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_battery | | [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=pnomwGCBNAE | amalcon wrote: | Pumped-storage hydro (the cheapest and generally most | practical gravity battery) is currently responsible for | almost all grid-scale energy storage worldwide. I don't think | it's fair to say it's not getting attention. | | What's not getting attention is the use of solids for this. | The main reasons are that you'd like to re-use most of the | infrastructure of the hydroelectric dam you wanted anyway, | and that liquids make for simpler engineering in these cases. | toss1 wrote: | What is interesting about a quick look at the Heindl Energy | solution is that it looks like basically pumped hydro. | | The difference is that the water is sitting in a large | cylindrical space underground with a large (minimum 100m / | 300ft diameter) rock piston sitting on top of the water. | | Eliminates the need for mountainous terrain with a high | lake-like geometry to pump the water up out of the gravity | well -- they can build this in the flatlands | AndrewDucker wrote: | That is an obscenely large cylinder. And a large height to | raise it! | acc_297 wrote: | There are simpler technologies that already exist on this | principle pumped hydro being the main one this proposal seems | like overkill to have so much storage in a single location | RGamma wrote: | Well of course you can divide up the mass and build several | smaller installations. | | I was merely hinting at the fact that pumped hydro storage | can be made more compact and flexible by compressing the | liquid with a piston. | willnonya wrote: | While I welcome this advancement it still seems like a solution | to the wrong solution for another problem. | SamBam wrote: | Very unclear what you mean. Large-scale, cheap, safe, and | environmental energy storage is a huge issue that is nowhere | near solved yet, so more solutions are absolutely a good thing. | waynesonfire wrote: | capacity is but one of many characteristics of a successfully | battery technology. it's important to consider just about every | possible factor, | | capacity, power density, charge and discharge rate, lifespan / | shelf life, safety, voltage range, temperature ranges while | charging, discharging, cycle count. | | And, also, the performance of these attributes under various | temperature profiles. | | This list is far from exhaustive, I'm not a battery expert but | just something I came up with in a few minutes of thought. So, | gtfo with your capacity claim. Every few months a battery break- | through article comes out. I've become de-sensitize to this type | of news. | simmerup wrote: | What is your comment actually adding? | benreesman wrote: | I'm a layman as concerns batteries, but I'm old enough, just like | photovoltaics, for the prevailing view to be: this is at the | asymptote, it's not getting any better. | | I'm glad some people decided not to listen to that bollocks. | Aardwolf wrote: | For solar panels I agree, there's a hard limit of how much | energy per area the sun itself gives, and how much efficiency | you can physically get out of that. | | For batteries: biological creatures store more energy more | densily, yet safely, so there's still headroom. | ilyt wrote: | > For batteries: biological creatures store more energy more | densily, yet safely, so there's still headroom. | | Conversion losses are bigger tho | stickfigure wrote: | I'm not looking forward to cleaning my house battery's | litter box. | TheIronYuppie wrote: | I think the general thinking is that cost is going to be the | determining factor for PV. It it gets to be cheaper than | paper, for ex, you could just put it everywhere. | | But there are still lots of wins - we're only in the low 20s | for efficiency and mostly catching visible light. There's | also environmental, long life, etc ways to improve as well. | fps-hero wrote: | Solar is by far the cheapest form of energy by a | significant margin. It is already at the point where it | makes sense to put it everywhere, and have concentrated | large scale generation. | | For solar to win, we need to solve energy storage, or | perhaps the energy distribution problem. There is no amount | of solar which will give you power 24 hours in a day in a | single location. | | Energy storage is the best short term solution. If we can | capture peak solar generation and move that energy to the | peak demand period, we can have a serious discussion about | moving away from coal for baseload generation. It won't be | needed during the day, and the demand periods covered by | storage. | | However, for solar to really win, we need to think bigger | with our energy distribution networks. Think of a global | scale distribution network, like an internet for | electricity. | | If you can send an IP packet from your computer across the | world, why not energy? | | With a sufficiently large interconnected global scale | network of renewable generators, energy storage becomes | less important. We don't need gas pipelines, we need | longitudinal and latitudinal HV distribution networks. | danans wrote: | > If you can send an IP packet from your computer across | the world, why not energy? | | This has already begun in the form of the new | transmission line under the North Sea between England and | Norway, which will be used to store wind power from the | UK in pumped hydro facilities in Norway. [1] | | But sending electricity at grid transmission levels | across major ocean distances may not pencil out | economically. | | Politics also comes into play. In the US for example, the | Texas grid won't even attach to the rest of the national | grid. | | 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link | cesarb wrote: | > For solar to win, [...] If we can capture peak solar | generation and move that energy to the peak demand | period, we can have a serious discussion about moving | away from coal for baseload generation. | | Why is it always solar vs coal? The generation mix | depends on your network, but AFAIK, the world is already | moving away from coal towards natural gas; and solar is | often complemented by wind. | Gasp0de wrote: | But afaik, solar panels currently convert only 20% of the | energy to electricity, can you explain why this is close to | the theoretically or practically possible maximum? | benreesman wrote: | I'm the wrong kind of an engineer to have a cogent thought | / argument about that. | | My remark was more of an anecdote that these things are | getting better in spite of a great deal of pessimism about | them over my lifetime. | [deleted] | Aardwolf wrote: | There's a theoretical limit of 55% for unconcentrated, 85% | for concentrated sunlight. I'm not sure about the exact | thermodynamical reasons for those numbers. | | But claims of "1000x better" can physically never be true, | unlike for batteries (e.g. antimatter, no matter how | impractical, has millions times more energy density) | perlgeek wrote: | Solar panels still have some dimensions along which they | could improve, for example: | | * efficiency in low-light situations | | * efficiency when parts of the panel are covered | | * cost | | I guess the inverters could also be improved... | gumboza wrote: | Time will tell. All new battery technologies solve one problem | but create two more. | | Edit: I'm not necessarily talking about technology problems. | There are geopolitical and environmental problems too :) | qwertox wrote: | https://www.energy-storage.news/basf-takes-sodium-sulfur-bat... | sylware wrote: | How do you process them once they run out of reasonably efficient | cycles? | | Reconditioning facilities? wastes? etc? | Tagbert wrote: | Considering the main ingredients are sodium and sulfur, | recycling should not be a major problem. Those are commonly | used elements and not particularly toxic. | | This question is always asked about EV batteries. Their | recycling is something that is being developed but is still in | prototype phase. Actual production scale recycling is not | feasible yet because the number of retired EV batteries is too | small to be efficiently recycled. That will eventually change | but since EV batteries are generally lasting for a decade or | more, it will take several years before we start seeing | significant numbers needing to be recycled. I would expect that | the same story would apply to these batteries if they are | deployed. | sylware wrote: | "recycling should not be a major problem", well, this is | where more details would be more than welcome. | microjim wrote: | Would love to hear from domain experts here. Reading the article | one finds that they only created very small cathodes rather than | anything close to a 'consumer sized' battery. | | (The full text of the paper is available for free at | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202206828) | scythe wrote: | I'm not a battery expert, but I have looked into Na-S before. | While it's a great rhetorical bludgeon in arguments about what | batteries can do in theory -- we'll never run out of sodium or | sulfur -- actual costs of Na-S installations are consistently | much higher than lithium or other battery types. For example, | this review cites a present system cost of over $400/kWh: | | https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/13/3307 | | A new scientific development can be cool, but it won't directly | reduce costs, since it's not actually an industrial process. A | lower operating temperature might simplify construction. But | all that remains to be seen. | | EDIT: if you read the original paper in TFA you will find that | molybdenum, an extremely rare metal, is key to the cathode, | though only at 1.2% by weight. Interpretation unclear. | jpm_sd wrote: | It's just more science by press release. Wake me up when | there's a real manufacturing process developed. | app4soft wrote: | > _Reading the article one finds that they only created very | small cathodes rather than anything close to a 'consumer sized' | battery_ | | There are few articles on 'consumer sized' _18650_ sodium-ion | (Na-S, Na-ion) battery (aka NIB): | | October 2019: _Developing O3 type layered oxide cathode and its | application in 18650 commercial type Na-ion batteries_ [0] | | May 2022: _First 18650-format Na-ion cells aging investigation: | A degradation mechanism study_ [1] | | August 2022: _Remaining useful life prediction for 18650 | sodium-ion batteries based on incremental capacity analysis_ | [2] | | [0] | https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336562138_Developin... | | [1] | https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359078973_First_186... | | [2] | https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362754837_Remaining... | Tade0 wrote: | I wonder how does it stack up against non-flow zinc-bromide | batteries, which apparently are already being produced and are | aiming for the stationary storage market: | | https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2022/09/30/gelion-unve... | | The 2MWh/yr plant is very small, but reportedly it's a repurposed | lead-acid facility because the production process is similar | enough. | m3kw9 wrote: | With batteries is that there are way more factors than just | capacity. You need thermal run way, cold/hot weather perf, heat | generated, charge time, numb cycles before capacity is 80%, | weight power ratio, scalability and cost | thehappypm wrote: | Some applications are easier than others. Grid storage, for | example, can be in climate controlled warehouses, do optimal | charging cycles to maximize longevity, don't care about weight, | etc. | dreamcompiler wrote: | Sodium-sulfur batteries are already in use for grid storage [0] | [1]. They're large and they have to be kept hot, so they won't | work for mobile applications. This article seems to be describing | one that works at room temperature. | | [0] https://www.energy-storage.news/uae-integrates-648mwh-of- | sod... | | [1] https://www.bestmag.co.uk/worlds-largest-sodium-sulphur- | ess-... | jojobas wrote: | Li-S is already 2.5x the energy density of TNT. | | Before you say "petrol", petrol is typically not carried in the | form petrol/oxygen fizz and its energy density is therefore zero. | foxhill wrote: | likely because the logistics of handling and utilising an | energy source that can materialise the entirety of its stored | energy instantly has some safety concerns. | | requiring air is not a limitation, it's a feature. | jojobas wrote: | I'm saying I'd rather not be near a 100kW-h Na-S battery. | Current Li-Po batteries require quite some shielding at tiny | a fraction of the energy density if you don't want to burn. | gruturo wrote: | TNT has actually pretty low energy density - lower than | chocolate chip cookies if I remember correctly. It's only used | because of its ability to deliver it all in one go - something | cookies lack. Energy density alone is a fairly inadequate | metric to decide how dangerous some material is, and what | precautions to take handling and transporting it. | jojobas wrote: | Just as petrol, cookies have energy density of zero until | mixed with oxygen. Just like TNT, or more like black powder, | batteries have all components required to yield energy in one | enclosure, which is why there are battery explosion videos | and no cookie explosion videos. | Robotbeat wrote: | They don't mention the actual specific energy of the completed | cells in Wh/kg. Also, "four times of WHAT?" They need to compare | like-to-like, which would mean comparing to an equivalent Li-S | cells. | | Li-S cells usually have much higher specific energy than regular | lithium ion. I doubt these cells are better, considering sodium | is heavier than lithium. | | The highest lithium ion cells you can get now are Amperium cells | at 390Wh/kg, plus the metal anode Licerion cells at over | 400Wh/kg. That's not counting lithium sulfur which can get to | 650Wh/kg (but are still stuck in the lab). | mikeyouse wrote: | They tested the drawdown at 1V with cells over 1,000 mah/gram | so >1,000wh/kg if that voltage is their operating voltage. | deng wrote: | They say the charge capacity is 1017 mAh/g. That is about four | times the value of a typical (good!) Li-Ion battery. | dev_tty01 wrote: | Not useful without the cell voltage. Need both to figure out | the energy storage. Anyone? | mikeyouse wrote: | Cell degradation was tested at 1V - so conveniently right | around 1,000wh/kg. | bjarneh wrote: | Isn't that quite close to the magic number which makes | electric planes a viable option? 1 kW = 1 kg; Musk said | something about that in a podcast I think... | termain wrote: | That's specific power, not specific energy. Do you mean 1 | kW*r/kg? | bjarneh wrote: | Yes of course, I meant to say 1 kW*h = 1 kg; but I'm not | certain if I remember correctly now; I could be off by a | factor of 10 I guess. It was either 1 kg battery weight = | 1 kW*h, or perhaps he said 10 kW*h had to be contained in | a 1 kg battery to allow all types of air travel. | | I think the 100 kW*h Tesla batteries found in the Model | S/X weigh around 750 kg; so I guess electric air travel | is still difficult unless a battery breakthrough happens; | at least in terms of weight. | danw1979 wrote: | ... assuming the cell voltage is the same ? | | A quick google suggests Na-S cells at high temperatures are | ~2.1V nominal (as opposed to 3.2V for LFP), but I lack the | physics chops to parse the paper in the article to validate | this. Anyway this sounds like a tiny experimental cell and | for real world applications you'd want to see the Wh/kg for a | fully packaged product. | deng wrote: | > for real world applications you'd want to see the Wh/kg | for a fully packaged product | | Oh, absolutely, there's still a lot of stuff that could | prohibit this technology from ever becoming an actual | product. AFAICS, they also don't say anything about | dependence an ambient temperature, for instance. It might | be that this thing disintegrates as soon as it's freezing. | Or, actually the most likely: that it's simply not possible | to build this thing at scale with reasonable cost. | mikeytown2 wrote: | Let me know when I can buy 30kwh worth of energy storage so I can | compare it to Lifepo4 costs [1] | | [1] $10,500 https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-ll-lithium-batteries- | kit-48v-... | aidenn0 wrote: | LiFePO4 batteries are really magical; mostly made of easy-to- | find materials, good density, long lifetime, hard to make | explode. | kennydude wrote: | This would be great also if, during damage situations they are | less harmful than Lithium Ion batteries (which cause very hot, | self sustaining fires for hours and hours!) | galangalalgol wrote: | I would think any dry cell would have this as a problem? If you | stuff a kWh into a box and get it back out without adding | anything, there is a kWh in that box, and I think all these | sorts of reactions proceed faster at higher temperatures, so | wouldn't runaway always be a possibility? | ajross wrote: | This is all FUD, and I wish people would stop repeating it. | Battery fires in vehicles (which I assume is what you're | talking about) are _objectively safer than gasoline fires_. | They just are. | | It's true though that they have to be fought differently, | because they can't be extinguished by flushing the fuel away as | you can for liquid fires. So the "hours and hours" bit is sorta | true, I guess. But having to keep people away from a battery | fire for a while while you hose it down is an annoyance, not a | safety concern. | | In any case the battery under discussion is a molten | electrolyte thing intended for grid storage, not vehicles. | ilyt wrote: | > This is all FUD, and I wish people would stop repeating it. | Battery fires in vehicles (which I assume is what you're | talking about) are objectively safer than gasoline fires. | They just are. | | They just happen way more often, petrol tank is smaller | tucked in usually somewhere in the back of the car, VS | battery cell where just puncture can start a fire where | gasoline can "just" leak without catching fire. Althought I | imagine chance for that grows a lot with old cars, once they | start to rot from corrosion | cesarb wrote: | > petrol tank is smaller tucked in usually somewhere in the | back of the car | | I think most car fires are not from the fuel tank leaking, | but instead from a short somewhere in its electric system, | or from a leaking hose spraying flammable liquid (fuel, | oil, etc) onto a hot surface (like the motor). Compared | with an ICE vehicle, an EV should have less hoses with | flammable fluids, but more parts on its electric system. | ajross wrote: | > They just happen way more often | | I don't think that's true either? Obviously the FUD angle | means that it Makes Big News when EVs burn. But gasoline | cars burn all the time. | | Look, if there's evidence for battery safety issues then | let's discuss it. But there isn't. There are millions of | EVs on the roads now. Can we even name one accident where | someone was injured by an EV fire? It's just not there. | This is wrong. What you're repeating is wrong. | gamblor956 wrote: | Today I learned that a fire that cannot be put out with water | or by smothering it, and which must be left to burn for hours | on end, and which produces a variety of gases more toxic than | those resulting from gasoline combustion, is safer than a | gasoline fire that burns out in a few minutes. | | Mind blown. | ncann wrote: | Sorry, I can't resist the urge to repost this classic comment on | a thread about new battery technology: | | Dear battery technology claimant, | | Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary | battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to | existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner | from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will | likely fail, because: | | [ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale. | | [ ] it will be too expensive for users. | | [ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles. | | [ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels. | | [ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures. | | [ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable. | | [ ] it has too short of a lifetime. | | [ ] its charge rate is too slow. | | [ ] its materials are too toxic. | | [ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode. | | [ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care. | | [ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then. | | [ ] by this time it ships li-ion advances will match it. | | [ ] your claims are lies. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | I find it tiresome empty snark. | | Better batteries are a really big deal. Is every promising | technology gonna work out? Of course not. But there's valid | reasons to be interested and excited. I _like_ that these | stories appear on HN so I can keep a rough understanding of how | research is progressing. And usually there 's some comments | here from people who know the field a lot better. But to find | those gems I have to scroll past a whole crowd of people | posting this self congratulatory snark. | pessimizer wrote: | > I have to scroll past a whole crowd of people posting this | self congratulatory snark. | | Has this comment ever been posted more than once in a thread? | | edit: and I honestly can't understand what is self- | congratulatory about a list of issues created by somebody who | is obviously interested in batteries, and has seen a lot of | press releases with the same flaws. It gives laymen a | sensible list to check the newest claim against. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | It's not as bad in this thread, it's more that every single | thread in this topic area has this sort of snark, if not | the exact text template, as the number one or two comment. | | Sure it's fair to say I should just ignore it. But I find | it lowers the quality of discussion in a way I want to | protest, so I'm doing so. It's a zero effort "dunk" posted | reflexively. | | If you'll let me ramble a little bit, part of why I push | back on this sort of behavior is because of growing up | around evangelical extremists. A huge part of their | behavior is using and re-enforcing what I call "thought | ending cliches." These are one size fits all rhetorical | quips that function to shut down conversation. "Well it's | all part of God's mysterious plan" being the most basic | famous one. Climate change? "It goes in cycles." You get | the idea. | | This kind of empty reflexive contrarian snark does the | exact same thing, so no, I don't see it in a positive | light. It's not just a joke, it's a joke intended to shame | people into stopping discussion. | PaulHoule wrote: | From a young age I've combed the shelves at public libraries | and found handbooks on battery technology. | | Often 1/3 of the book is devoted to ordinary batteries and the | other 2/3 are devoted to "reserve batteries" which are able to | deliver a high power density for a short time to power a | missile or something like that. There was a huge amount of | research on those and I think it's easier to make a battery | work if it doesn't have to last very long. | | NiMH batteries seemed to come out of nowhere. I remember Sony | licensing the technology for "InfoLithium" batteries that | eventually took over the world. | | The market for batteries is bigger than it ever was. Grid scale | batteries relax many constraints: molten salt batteries might | be practical there. The South Africans thought this kind of | battery might be relevant for cars in the late 1970's and | 1980's | | https://www.afrik21.africa/en/south-africa-the-zebra-salt-ba... | | and it might be again with electric cars legitmized and if oil | is out of reach. | DebtDeflation wrote: | >NiMH batteries seemed to come out of nowhere. | | My initial thought when I saw your post was "weren't these | just a relatively contemporaneous improvement on NiCad | batteries?" | | Checked Wikipedia and nope: | | NiCad - Invented in 1899 and commercialized in 1910. | | NiMH - Invented in 1967 and commercialized in 1989. | | I had no idea there was such a long gap between the two. | acdha wrote: | I wonder if there was some kind of economic inflection | point -- it felt like that in my memory, too, where it felt | like NiCad was advertised more as new thing in the 80s | before getting replaced with NiMH. I wonder how much that | perception was steered by what was common in the car | battery space since that was probably the most known | rechargeable battery for a long time. | ahartmetz wrote: | I thought of it as well, with the same result: this one looks | like it could actually work for a change...? | ksec wrote: | Nothing wrong with reposting it. As a matter of fact I think | this should be posted every time there is a new battery | announcement so we can all do the tick boxes. | | [ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures. [ ] | it is too likely to catch fire or explode. [ ] it is | impractical to manufacture at scale. | | These are the only three I see as problematic or unknown. Which | is not that bad. | ReptileMan wrote: | True ... but we need new order or two of battery performance | improvements, so the breakthrough must come from somewhere. | Tade0 wrote: | I have a very simple criterion: Do they have a production | process designed for this new technology? That's the final step | to commercialization and is often the barrier that prevents new | chemistries from entering the market. | cstross wrote: | The key word that's almost submerged in the article is _molten_. | | Like previous sodium-sulphur batteries this one relies on a | molten salt electrolyte, meaning you won't see it in your phone | or laptop any time soon! | | However, as it's being developed with the idea of grid-scale | smoothing/backup, that's much less of a problem. (The square-cube | law means that as you increase the volume of your molten salt | cell, the surface area grows more slowly -- and thermal losses | scale with surface area, so really big cells are cheaper to | maintain at operating temperature.) | koliber wrote: | That also jumped out at me when I read it. However, later on | they state that this reaction works at room temperature: | | > Using a simple pyrolysis process and carbon-based electrodes | to improve the reactivity of sulphur and the reversibility of | reactions between sulphur and sodium, the researchers' battery | has shaken off its formerly sluggish reputation, exhibiting | super-high capacity and ultra-long life at room temperature. | | This is confusing. Can someone make some sense of this? | red_trumpet wrote: | The title of their article[1] is "Atomically Dispersed Dual- | Site Cathode with a Record High Sulfur Mass Loading for High- | Performance Room-Temperature Sodium-Sulfur Batteries". | | [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.20220682 | 8?u... | marcosdumay wrote: | Just to add, yes, that paper is about solid state | batteries. | dahfizz wrote: | > exhibiting super-high capacity and ultra-long life at room | temperature. | | Maybe this is just bad writing? The battery (at operating | temp) has high capacity, and (at room temp) can be stored for | a long time? The wikipedia page indicates that it is normal | to store charged molten salt batteries at room temp when not | being used. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery | jacoblambda wrote: | I think it might literally mean "operates at room | temperature" as in 25-35 degrees C. Not really sure how it | works but there seems to be a distinction between high, | intermediate, and room temperature for the Na-S battery's | operating conditions. | | Quote from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21 | 663831.2022.2... 1.1. History of Na-S | batteries Research on Na-S batteries | originated in the 1960s, with the first research focused on | High-Temperature Sodium-Sulfur (HT-Na/S) batteries, which | operate around 300-350 degC. A molten Na anode (melting | point=98 degC), a molten sulfur cathode (melting point = | 118 degC) and ceramic b'-Al2O3 as solid electrolyte are | assembled into the HT-Na/S batteries [11]. HT-Na/S | batteries avoid the dendrite problem and have high | electrical conductivity. However, it also has the defects | of high working temperature, high risk, low energy density | and high operation cost. And then, the Intermediate- | Temperature Sodium-Sulfur (IMT-Na/S) batteries were | innovated in the 1970s and operate between 120-300 degC. | The IMT-Na/S batteries also eliminated the dendrite | problem, but the electronic conductivity and the | utilization of sulfur also decreased. Researchers have been | intensively investigating Room-Temperature Sodium-Sulfur | (RT-Na/S) batteries, which operate around 25 degC-35 degC. | RT-Na/S batteries can completely convert S8 to Na2S, so | they have a high theoretical energy density (1274 Wh kg-1) | Valgrim wrote: | Maybe they found a way to mix it into an eutectic mixture? | The article doesnt say much on the specific chemistry of the | liquid salt. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutectic_system | uoaei wrote: | That is not and never was the point -- sodium is in the same | column as lithium on the periodic table, but it is | significantly heavier than that, so mobile applications (cars, | phones) are out of scope. Sodium is promising for _stationary_ | , community- or grid-level storage. | Tuna-Fish wrote: | There are many good reasons to expect sodium batteries to | beat li-ion batteries in specific energy. Yes, a sodium | charge carrier is ~3.2 times heavier than a lithium ion, and | yes, it holds a bit less charge, but none of this has to be | relevant because in a normal li-ion battery less than 1% of | the total mass is active charge carriers. | | If you went by the simple properties of charge carriers | alone, you'd expect lead-acid batteries to be at least 15 | times worse than li-ion ones. However, the best lead-acid | batteries are only ~8 times worse than the best li-ion | batteries. Because even though the charge carriers are so | much worse at doing their job, the chemistry is otherwise | much more simple and easy to work with that it lets you pack | a lot more charge carrier and lot less support infrastructure | into the same battery. | | Sodium is similar, in that if you have a viable electrolyte, | you can expect to utilize a lot more than 1% of the mass of | your battery for usable charge carriers. This is why it's | absolutely possible for molten salt batteries to have | specific energies much higher than the best lithium-ion ones. | As far back as 2014 there was a lab-scale prototype that beat | every li-ion battery then in existence. The big downside of | course is the molten part -- these are stationary batteries | not due to low specific energy, but the fact that they have | to be heated above ~110C to operate, and it is much more | economical to make such batteries as large as possible. And | in that segment, the chase is not for the highest specific | energy but the lowest cost per Wh. | walnutclosefarm wrote: | The work describes a room temperature battery that uses an | electrolyte of Na (sodium) in a propylene carbonate liquid | carrier with electrodes made of graphene flakes with Mo and S | embedded in the graphene framework. I don't know what the | author of the article posted was trying to say when referring | to molton Na-S, since it is not part of the battery described | in the research, nor part of the manufacturing process. | Probably the author did a search on Na-S for background, and | not understanding how this differed, stuck it in. | passwordoops wrote: | Nope, the PR was poorly written (maybe the Department is | experimenting with chatGPT ?). | | Surprisingly the publication is freely available, and yes it's | all room temp: | | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202206828 | passwordoops wrote: | My supervisor's wife was working at a pharma company back in | the 2000s. Her job was to reproduce promising publications | related to any conditions they were involved in. The | reproducibility rate was something like 25%, which is higher | than some other estimates I've seen looking across many | fields, but still.... | | Incentives matter and right now they're the wrong ones | Someone wrote: | The paper's title is _"Atomically Dispersed Dual-Site Cathode | with a Record High Sulfur Mass Loading for High-Performance | Room-Temperature Sodium-Sulfur Batteries"_ (https://onlinelibra | ry.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202206828?u...), so I guess you | misread that. | tremon wrote: | _you won 't see it in your phone or laptop any time soon_ | | I know it's (probably) a compound and doesn't have the same | properties as the individual constituents, but still I wouldn't | feel entirely comfortable carrying around sodium and sulphur in | my pocket all day. Maybe I'll let other people prove its safety | over a few years first. | cantaloupe wrote: | Is there any particular reason? Seems pretty naive to make | any assumptions about the properties based on its elemental | composition. Lithium is incredibly reactive and toxic in its | pure form but you surely carry that around. Do you ever | consume table salt, a compound of reactive sodium and toxic | chlorine? | bunabhucan wrote: | The Wikipedia article mentions two types, molten and room | temperature, each with their own pros and cons. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery | | The paper mentions making the battery at 300c (oven | temperature) but the text talks about "room temperature" or | "RT": | | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202206828 | | "...thermally treated at 300 degC for 12 h. The Mo mass loading | of S@MoS2-Mo1/SGF was [?]1.2 wt.%, measured by ICP-OES. The | synthesis procedure of S@MoS2/SGF was the same as | S@MoS2-Mo1/SGF but the thermal treatment was extended to 24 h. | To prepare the S@SGF, pure SGF was used to replace Mo1/SGF. | S@Mo1/SGF was prepared by pyrolyzing the mixture of Mo1/SGF and | S at 155 degC for 12 h." | | The only mentions of higher temperatures are for | thermogravimetric analysis where they heat it to 800c and | measure the amount of S as it varies with temperature. | marcosdumay wrote: | The paper, that red_trumpet posted down on the replies is about | solid state NaS batteries. | cpfohl wrote: | I (incorrectly it seems) assumed that "molten" was just part of | the manufacturing process. This take makes more sense. | bluelightning2k wrote: | Very important detail. Thanks for highlighting. | | Not only does this limit practicality for phones, cars, but it | limits practicality _at all_. Some of the larger utility scale | solar-collector designs ended up failing because of the | challenges of maintaining elements that involve molten salt. | deng wrote: | No, these are room-temperature NaS batteries. They use some | special electrolyte, but I have no idea how this really works. | Their main drawback so far was longevity, but this battery has | a capacity fade of 0.05% per cycle, which is on par at least | with a poor Li-Ion battery. LiFePo4 is still superior in that | regard, but the much higher capacity and hopefully lower cost | (if they can be manufactured efficiently) might make up for | that, hard to tell. | analog31 wrote: | A somewhat shorter lifespan might be a decent trade if the | materials are much more recyclable and if mining is produces | less pollution. | marcus_holmes wrote: | also if the batteries are cheap enough they can be | considered "partially rechargeable" and swapped out when | the capacity fades too much | analog31 wrote: | I suppose partially worn out batteries can also find new | uses, such as stationary power reserves, where they're | not being cycled a lot. | davrosthedalek wrote: | Is it 0.05% of the remaining capacity, or of the initial | capacity? | ksec wrote: | > but this battery has a capacity fade of 0.05% per cycle, | which is on par at least with a poor Li-Ion battery. | | 20% lost at 400 cycles. This isn't so bad _if_ it really | offers 4x the capacity. In terms of usage it will last 1600 | cycles comparatively speaking. Which is still far better than | Li-Ion. | deng wrote: | No, Li-Ion batteries can be twice as good: | | "In 2003 it was reported the typical range of capacity loss | in lithium-ion batteries after 500 charging and discharging | cycles varied from 12.4% to 24.1%, giving an average | capacity loss per cycle range of 0.025-0.048% per cycle." | | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_loss) | | And that was twenty years ago, things probably have | improved. I think you have a wrong impression what is meant | with "a battery lasts X cycles". That does not mean that it | will be at zero capacity after 'X' cycles, but usually that | it is down to ~70% of the initial capacity. | | EDIT: Sorry, I missed the "comparatively speaking", so you | mean when including the 4x capacity. You are right, of | course. | [deleted] | abdulmuhaimin wrote: | The faster battery life deterioration might even be | desirable for those manufacturers with planned obsolescence | in mind, especially phone manufacturers | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | Can they be recycled to get back close to 100% capacity? | splitstud wrote: | dachryn wrote: | My LifePo4 battery has a 6000 cycle guarantee at 60% | capacity. | | So its not even close yet | Retric wrote: | The question is more how many kWh can you store and | extract over a lifetime at a given cost rather than how | many cycles can it take. | | If the 5999th charge is only holding appropriately 60% of | a LifePo4 battery you don't get 6,000 cycles * full | battery capacity. | deng wrote: | > So its not even close yet | | Yes, if you compare just capacity fade, that's true. But | the longevity of LiFePo4 comes with a lower charge | density than Li-Ion, about 170 mAh/g. This NaS battery | currently has 1017 mAh/g, so almost a factor of 6. If the | capacity is higher, you don't have to cycle as often, but | of course, mileage depends on the use case. | cogman10 wrote: | That lower capacity comes at a cost cut and a huge | materials advantage. LFPs are made of highly available | materials. (Lithium, iron and phosphate). | | The higher capacity NMC batteries are constrained on | nickel production. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-15 23:01 UTC)