Evolution and limit of battery energy density

[flynfrog]

I give up trying to explain this to you. You don't understand fitting a curve to a data set, its pretty hard to have a conversation about future projections based on historical data. You keep posting about new battery technology doubling current rates like it some how disproves past trends I really don't see what point you are trying to make. Maybe another member can explain it to you I'm done trying.

[Andres125sx]

Sorry flynfrog, but you´re constantly changing your arguing to find something to bash EVs. I´m still waiting for your explanation about what did you mean with the limit of electricity an atom can charge because energy density can increase more than enough.... Then you talked about historical trends and I replied saying battery development on 30´s can´t be compared with current today and provided some graphs wich show the big step forward LiS batteries will suppose. Now you talk about fitting curves wich is a nosense for the subject.... You even said "our brilliant leaders have made it all but impossible to build new power plants so we wont be able to charge them anyway"...

Looks like you´re doing a big effort looking for something to bash EVs, I only reply your argumentation, providing links and graphs to prove my points. This is a discussion forum, and we´re discussing, what´s the problem? Maybe you can´t find more arguments to explain how useless are EVs?


BTW, I perfectly understand what a fitting curve is, but please explain me what relevance does that have for battery development.

[hollus]

Because I actually like the discussion and hate being stuck in the details...

For the sake of mathematical correctness: 1.08 ^ 9 = 1.999. So that would correspond to a doubling every 9 years, not 14. With that number in mind, I am afraid you both are roughly agreeing about the rate of development.
1.08 ^ 85 = 693. Andres, you will probably agree that improvement by this amount (69300%) since the 1930 is about right, so Flyin's numbers seem to hold on long term and across technologies too...

Now if we could discuss the technological possibilities of future cars rather than the numbers (that fit both opinions!), that would be great.
My personal take on this: Limit road speeds to 120km/h, make electric cars that have only 2 passengers (OK, 3 for people with kids), and you have electric cars that cover 95% of the needs of 95% of the people 95% of the time, either now of with the next doubling. 90% of what a typical petrol car can do right now (comfort, acceleration rate, top speed, max capacity, max range) is simply superfluous most of the time (but carried along at all times). For the few times when you need more, a rental car would do. I know, I am killing all the fun in cars, but maybe I am keeping the function?

Yeah, maybe the solution is no cars at all. In many European cities with a good transit system, trains+segway is all you need (for personal transport, goods are a different story). The Segway is the ultimate "last mile" vehicle. If only segways didn't look that weird...
P.S. imagine what a Segway could do with next gen batteries!

[flynfrog]

Sorry flynfrog, but you´re constantly changing your arguing to find something to bash EVs. I´m still waiting for your explanation about what did you mean with the limit of electricity an atom can charge because energy density can increase more than enough.... Then you talked about historical trends and I replied saying battery development on 30´s can´t be compared with current today and provided some graphs wich show the big step forward LiS batteries will suppose. Now you talk about fitting curves wich is a nosense for the subject.... You even said "our brilliant leaders have made it all but impossible to build new power plants so we wont be able to charge them anyway"...

Looks like you´re doing a big effort looking for something to bash EVs, I only reply your argumentation, providing links and graphs to prove my points. This is a discussion forum, and we´re discussing, what´s the problem? Maybe you can´t find more arguments to explain how useless are EVs?


BTW, I perfectly understand what a fitting curve is, but please explain me what relevance does that have for battery development.

I am not bashing EVs I am talking about rate of development of battery energy density. You take anything short of bowing at the altar of EV as bashing and make it your personal mission to defend them at all costs. There are some real issues facing EV implementation simply glazing of them as bashing is doing a disservice the people in the trenches actually working on them. Im willing to bet I have more miles in a prototype EV than anyone on the forum I have had to deal with these issues in the real world.

As hollus pointed out your data matches mine its the same rate I have no idea how to make you see this.

Thanks Hollus I mixed up the 8% and 5% doubling rate. You are stating pretty much the point I was trying to get across. I see your segway and raise you

unlimited range and can be recharged with lager, espresso, or sandwich think of the fuel possibilities.

Although I am pretty sure I have a set of these tires in garage.



Hollus I think you will see better implementation as price drops more than you will see with increased range. Much the same way solar energy adoption came with price drop more than it did increased efficiency. Much the say way I find the Volt more impressive than the tesla. Sure the Tesla is an impressive piece of kit but they could pretty much charge any price they wanted most people buy them as a second or third car. The Volt is actually getting closer to a price point the average consumer can afford.

[Andres125sx]

For the sake of mathematical correctness: 1.08 ^ 9 = 1.999. So that would correspond to a doubling every 9 years, not 14.

Well, that´s the margin for 5-8%, if 8% every 9 years, if 5% 14 years (1.9799)

Andres, you will probably agree that improvement by this amount (69300%) since the 1930 is about right, so Flyin's numbers seem to hold on long term and across technologies too...

Of course I never disagreed with that. I only said that trend doesn´t have to hold during future years because circumstances have changed a lot. In 30´s batteries were barely used in general, while today everybody use batteries, some people many of them. That changes completely manufacturers view about how profitable may be investing on them

My personal take on this: Limit road speeds to 120km/h, make electric cars that have only 2 passengers (OK, 3 for people with kids), and you have electric cars that cover 95% of the needs of 95% of the people 95% of the time, either now of with the next doubling. 90% of what a typical petrol car can do right now (comfort, acceleration rate, top speed, max capacity, max range) is simply superfluous most of the time (but carried along at all times). For the few times when you need more, a rental car would do. I know, I am killing all the fun in cars, but maybe I am keeping the function?

You´ve just described current situation Hollus

120km/h is typical speed limit on most countries, if you want a 2 passengers car there´s the Twizy, or if you need a little more space the Zoe, both from Renault. I don´t have any interest with Renault, well my current car is Renault but I hate it , I´m talking about these two examples because I see them on roads frequently. I think they are the most extended EVs right now, at least around here

Yeah, maybe the solution is no cars at all. In many European cities with a good transit system, trains+segway is all you need (for personal transport, goods are a different story). The Segway is the ultimate "last mile" vehicle. If only segways didn't look that weird...
P.S. imagine what a Segway could do with next gen batteries!

Into the city, sure, no cars at all, but there´s another option I´d enjoy much better than a segway, electric bikes, IMO best option to move around the city

For example, Bicicletto






This is a snobbish one, cost more than a car ($10k ), but you get the idea. With better batteries weight will be much more reasonable for a bike, and new batteries will be much cheaper too. They provide more range than enough to move around the city, you still can pedal if want/need for an extended range or simply to do some exercise, and they can be equiped with some basket or similar to carry a bag, document case, etc.

To me this is the future city vehicle, or at least it should, it´d promote some exercise wich is really necessary on modern world where we tend to be more and more sedentary

[Andres125sx]

I am not bashing EVs I am talking about rate of development of battery energy density.

And about a hard limit related to atoms I´m still waiting for your explanation about how that affect energy density, and about how governments does not allow to build power stations so we won´t be able to charge our EVs, etc.

You take anything short of bowing at the altar of EV as bashing and make it your personal mission to defend them at all costs.

No, when you or anyone say reasonable things I can only accept it even when, as I said, I´m very interested on EVs. But if someone say hidden interest are forcing governments to stop building new power stations so we can´t charge our EVs then yes, I have to reply.

Im willing to bet I have more miles in a prototype EV than anyone on the forum I have had to deal with these issues in the real world.

Really?

What prototype?

I have some experience at the respect too, not miles in a EV as it is a drone, but I´ve designed my own octocopter to film aerial videos wich has more than 400 flights now, apart from my 20 years RC experience with planes, helis and multis, last 15 only with electric ones. My octo is feeded with two (parallel) lithium batteries (lipo), so I have to deal with their limits and problems daily. My daily routine is charging/balancing, using/flying and again to the charger this time for storage program... and that´s with 8-16 batteries each time , depending on how many flights I need to do

[flynfrog]

And about a hard limit related to atoms I´m still waiting for your explanation about how that affect energy density, and about how governments does not allow to build power stations so we won´t be able to charge our EVs, etc.

Its a physics concept I'm probably not qualified to explain in great detail. Think of it as a capacitor and a max limit to how much charge it holds until the dielectric breaks down but on an atomic level.
In the US the EPA is on a mission to shutter coal power plants. Over all not a terrible idea. But trying to get permits to build a new power plant in the US almost always results in lawsuits from environmental groups that either hold up construction for years or the builder gives up and moves on. We are installing solar and wind power at a pretty good rate but its a drop in the bucket compared to the future demand on the grid. Outlined a little better here
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/a ... -shortage/

No, when you or anyone say reasonable things I can only accept it even when, as I said, I´m very interested on EVs. But if someone say hidden interest are forcing governments to stop building new power stations so we can´t charge our EVs then yes, I have to reply.

No where did I say hidden interest the laws are on the books and pretty open. You some how take my posting of an very really challenge electric cars face and say I am bashing this is why nobody on here reply to your posts anymore.

What prototype?

I have some experience at the respect too, not miles in a EV as it is a drone, but I´ve designed my own octocopter to film aerial videos wich has more than 400 flights now, apart from my 20 years RC experience with planes, helis and multis, last 15 only with electric ones. My octo is feeded with two (parallel) lithium batteries (lipo), so I have to deal with their limits and problems daily. My daily routine is charging/balancing, using/flying and again to the charger this time for storage program... and that´s with 8-16 batteries each time , depending on how many flights I need to do

I am in the middle of building a quad what flight control are you using.

[Andres125sx]

Its a physics concept I'm probably not qualified to explain in great detail. Think of it as a capacitor and a max limit to how much charge it holds until the dielectric breaks down but on an atomic level.

I know, I got it first time you taked about it. But I´m afraid it´s you who don´t get that limit is so far it is not a problem.
That´s the reason I started talking about future batteries. LiO batteries have the potential to improve current energy density by a factor of 10, so obviously that huge improvement would be within the limit you´re talking about, what basically means the physics concept you´re talking about is irrelevant because a half of that would be more than enough to retire ICEs.

I´ve never questioned that limit, I´ve questioned its relevance

In the US the EPA is on a mission to shutter coal power plants. Over all not a terrible idea. But trying to get permits to build a new power plant in the US almost always results in lawsuits from environmental groups that either hold up construction for years or the builder gives up and moves on. We are installing solar and wind power at a pretty good rate but its a drop in the bucket compared to the future demand on the grid. Outlined a little better here
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/a ... -shortage/

In that case I must agree, here in Spain we´re building a lot new power plants using renewable energies, but not closing traditional ones... yet

I´d love to close all coal plants, but anyone with a brain know you can´t do that until there are enough power to replace them, so closing old power plants without any other replacement is simply absurd

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~nscentra ... ionweb.jpg

What batteries does it use? Because I guess there must be some battery to ensure continuous operation with any sun condition...

But sincerely, that can´t be compared to production cars, power demands must be too different. I know nothing about solar cars, but I´d bet its power setup must be closer to some of my RC planes than to any production car

I am in the middle of building a quad what flight control are you using.

Mikrokopter, but I don´t recommend it if you´re not a freak like myself. It is one of the best if not the best, but only if you have the time to learn about the 70 parameters you can change

For a plug&play solution DJI is the most extended and easy to use alternative

Do you want to build it yourself? Because Phantom 3 and Inspire 1 are really cool copters if you don´t need DSLR quality. I´ve been watching an Inspire in detail and that´s a piece of art. Both include even HD transmitters and their gimbal estabilization are simply asthonishing, and I can state that can be a PITA if you try it by yourself. With no experience you will never get comparable results if you try it by yourself, period. Heck, even with experience you´ll struggle to get similar results, zenmuse is a really really good product in stabilization field

[flynfrog]

Solar car batteries in that particular car were Lithium but I for the life of me I cant rember the manufacture I want to say they were A123 cells but I don't remember its been a few years. Maybe if I get some time ill see if I can dig up some old notes.

The car before that (2003) had kokam lipos in it, pretty similar to the ones in your multicopter. The car before that one (we are back to 2001 or so) had a melt down with a very early lipo pack (I can't remember the supplier they were large cells and white in color) then switched to some lithium Ion cells I think that we're mil surplus. It was probably one of the first street "legal" cars with a Lithium pack in the States.


For my quad I was planning to run Multi Wii on a scratch build quad ( think I have some old Kokams in the garage I could shove in it. )

[Andres125sx]

A123 have the advantage they can be discharged to 0volts without damaging, but their energy density is lower than lipos, higher weight

Those kokams, if not storaged at 40-45% charge, are ready for recycling. And multis force batteries quite a bit, they´re discharged in 10 minutes, so not sure if you could use some old ones, they are probably low discharging rate, and that also is the main parameter affected by time, the older a battery pack is, the lower dischrage rate

Sorry but can tell you nothing about multi wii, don´t know it. Just in case you don´t know it, RCGgroups is the RC wikipedia, if it´s not there, it doesn´t exist. I´ve used the advanced search thousands times

RCG Multirotor sub-forums

[flynfrog]

A123 have the advantage they can be discharged to 0volts without damaging, but their energy density is lower than lipos, higher weight

Those kokams, if not storaged at 40-45% charge, are ready for recycling. And multis force batteries quite a bit, they´re discharged in 10 minutes, so not sure if you could use some old ones, they are probably low discharging rate, and that also is the main parameter affected by time, the older a battery pack is, the lower dischrage rate

Sorry but can tell you nothing about multi wii, don´t know it. Just in case you don´t know it, RCGgroups is the RC wikipedia, if it´s not there, it doesn´t exist. I´ve used the advanced search thousands times

RCG Multirotor sub-forums

They were definitely LiPo or LiOn. Multi wii has a pretty big following it was originally made to use an arduino and some wii controler parts. Its sense grown to be a pretty nice package with lots of add on options. I have been on RC groups since I was a kid.

[Edis]

A123 have the advantage they can be discharged to 0volts without damaging, but their energy density is lower than lipos, higher weight

Those kokams, if not storaged at 40-45% charge, are ready for recycling. And multis force batteries quite a bit, they´re discharged in 10 minutes, so not sure if you could use some old ones, they are probably low discharging rate, and that also is the main parameter affected by time, the older a battery pack is, the lower dischrage rate

Sorry but can tell you nothing about multi wii, don´t know it. Just in case you don´t know it, RCGgroups is the RC wikipedia, if it´s not there, it doesn´t exist. I´ve used the advanced search thousands times

RCG Multirotor sub-forums

They were definitely LiPo or LiOn. Multi wii has a pretty big following it was originally made to use an arduino and some wii controler parts. Its sense grown to be a pretty nice package with lots of add on options. I have been on RC groups since I was a kid.

Lithium polymer isn't a specific battery chemistry, but simply a lithium ion battery having a polymer electrolyte (these are in practice often a hybrid). They are mostly used for their form factor, since they are suitable for making pouch cells.

Currently, all lithium ion batteries use a lithium metal oxide cathode, a graphite anode and a separator (electrolyte) capable of transfer lithium ions to the graphite anode.

The most common cathode materials are lithium cobalt oxide, lithium iron phosphate, lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide, lithium manganese spinel and lithium titanate. Most electric car manufacturers tend to prefer lithium iron phosphate or lithium manganese spinel due to their good safety while Tesla prefers lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide due to its higher energy density.

To offer a more significant increase in energy density the basic chemistry of the battery must be changed, the most likely candidate is a replacement of the graphite with silicon due to the low capacity of graphite anodes. However, the high expansion of silicon during charging and a low life expectancy are limiting factors.

Batteries which contain metallic lithium (like lithium-sulfur) tend to have safety issues, and problems with dendrite growth.

[Andres125sx]

New manufacturing approach slices lithium-ion battery cost in half

In addition to streamlining manufacturing enough to cut battery costs by half, Chiang says, the new system produces a battery that is more flexible and resilient. While conventional lithium-ion batteries are composed of brittle electrodes that can crack under stress, the new formulation produces battery cells that can be bent, folded or even penetrated by bullets without failing. This should improve both safety and durability, he says

[MOWOG]

Here's more on the 24M technology by a writer I hold in the highest personal regard.

http://ecomento.com/2015/06/29/24m-batt ... echnology/

You should be aware that Chiang is the same fellow who founded A123 battery, a company that was a little too far ahead of the curve and went belly up.

[FW17]

New Nickel-Lithium Battery Has Ultra-High Energy Density

Researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have succeeded in making the world’s first Ni-Li battery, a formulation that holds more than 3.5 times the energy of Li-ion batteries and doesn’t run the risk of catching fire.

By including a membrane made of the recently developed glass-ceramic film called LISICON between two otherwise incompatible electrode materials, each electrode can be bathed in its own substance-specific liquid electrolyte solution which is at the same time prevented from coming into direct contact with the other. Thanks to the unique properties of LISICON, the separated electrolyte solutions are readily able to pass electrons across the membrane, and so the entire unit still functions as an operational cell.

Reasoning that by combining the best properties of NiMH batteries with those of a Li-ion battery they could obtain an “ultrahigh” energy density, the researchers placed a nickel hydroxide cathode in a liquid electrolyte and the lithium metal anode in an organic electrolyte separated by the LISICON glass, and Eureka! The World's first Li-Ni battery was born!

The new cell has already obtained a “practical energy density” of about 194 watt hours per pound of battery material, or 3.5 times the density of a typical Li-ion battery (at about 55 watt hours of energy per pound of battery).

Using the Tesla Roadster for comparison purposes, the car's current Li-Ion battery which weighs 1000 pounds and contains 53 KWh of energy, can propel the car about 200 miles in normal use. By contrast the same weight of Ni-Li battery would hold 194 KWh of energy for a range of approximately 700 miles!

The implications for electric vehicle design and adoption are obviously tremendous, but several issues need to be overcome to bring this technology to market.

For instance, recharge time for such a battery on standard U.S. household current would be several days. And the cell itself is structurally more complex than current cells, no doubt making it more expensive to manufacture. Additionally, the Lisicon glass barrier is an unknown in terms of long-term durability. A cell design would need to be produced that preserves this membrane for the life of the battery.

Nevertheless, in comparison to the hurdles to commercialization faced by other Super-battery and/or capacitor technologies, these issues seem relatively straight forward; In the race for the elusive EV energy-storage breakthrough, the Ni-Li battery may have suddenly moved to the pole position.

Nov 3, 2009