Posts Tagged ‘battery technology’
SSBs, not as bad as they sound
Hmm – well, it’s a start
So I watched a video touching on solid state batteries (SSBs), and the difficulties involved in developing them and the promise they hold for the future of battery technology and electrification in general, in the battle for clean, renewable power generation. It was a bit nerdy, in other words way too technical for an arts-based ignoramus like me, but I do have a certain interest in learning and the future, so I want to get my head around the possibilities and the problems. So away we go.
Batteries are all about two electrodes, an anode and a cathode, with electrolytic material between them which enables charged ions to pass from one to the other. This material has generally been a liquid or a gel, but these materials have many efficiency (and flammability) problems, apparently.
So, to basics. How does a battery work? Why is it called a battery? AINL [Artificial Intelligence Never Lies] puts it this way:
A battery is a device that stores electrical energy in chemical form and converts it to electricity on demand through electrochemical cells. It consists of two terminals (anode and cathode) separated by an electrolyte, and when connected to a circuit, a chemical reaction causes electrons to flow from the negative terminal through the circuit to the positive terminal, creating an electric current.
Which raises more questions from the novice: what exactly is electrical energy, and how can it be stored in chemical form?
We have to get more basic. Energy is essentially stuff in motion, like a rock rolling down a hill, but also lightning, which is electrical. It ‘releases built-up electrical charges between a storm cloud and the ground, or between such clouds’ (AINL again). I’ve written about lightning before, quite a bit in fact, because it’s complicated. As to the term ‘battery’, it comes from Benjamin Franklin, whose early electrical experiments involved Leyden Jars, devices to store static electricity, linked together like a battery of cannons.
Anyway, no matter what I’ve written in the past, I have no idea what ‘electrical energy in chemical form’ means. Will I ever know? It has something to do with redox (oxidation-reduction) reactions, in which one chemical substance loses electrons (it’s oxidised) to another (which, counter-intuitively, is reduced, though I suppose that’s because electrons are negatively charged).
But I’m getting bogged down in the basics here – let’s accept as a given that batteries which use liquids or gels as the electrolytic material are never going to be as effective (energy-dense) or long-lasting, or safe, as those using solids (SSBs). The big issue is, why are SSBs so hard to create in a stable and effective form? Again according to AINL, it’s all about ‘high manufacturing costs, scalability, and performance issues, particularly in cold temperatures’.
Solid-state batteries being tried use lithium as the anode, from which lithium ions pass through a ceramic or solid polymer to a cathode of oxides or sulphides. Wikipedia briefly summarises the benefits and problems:
Solid-state batteries are potentially safer, with higher energy densities. Challenges to widespread adoption include energy and power density, durability, material costs, sensitivity, and stability.
These problems, or challenges, have been around for a long time, but apparently 2025 has been a year of real progress in the field, with lots of cashed-up, well-reputed manufacturers vying for SSB priority in making the crossing of ‘the valley of death’, as one expert puts it. One of these is the Chinese state-owned car manufacturer, Chery, and another is VW, in partnership with others, including Gotion, a Chinese company that has produced a battery called Jinshi. AINL again:
This advanced battery technology offers a high energy density of 350 Wh/kg [watt-hour per kilogram], which can extend the driving range of EVs to approx. 1,000 km. The Jinshi battery is also noted for its enhanced safety features, durability and ability to charge quickly.
This energy density is apparently well over that produced by Tesla so far. Gotion is claiming a 1,000 km range for its battery, with ‘stable performance between -20 degrees celsius and 85 degrees (!), and a projected lifespan of a million kilometres. They’re expecting effective mass production by end of decade. As a 69-year-old, I can hardly wait – just to see it never mind drive it.
Another organisation VW is working with is QuantumScape (how impressive is that name) in the US. They’re apparently a well known company ‘in this space’, They’re working on a lithium-metal/anode-free solid-state cell. Their lithium-metal anode is ‘formed in-situ’ during charging, it isn’t a permanent ‘built’ thing, apparently. According to ‘Just have a think”, there is no pre-existing anode:
The solid electrolyte is in fact a ceramic separator which plays a dual role: it provides a highly conductive pathway for lithium ions and it physically impedes the growth of the dreaded lithium dendrites (that we’ve looked at in previous videos).
I’ve seen images of the dreaded dendrites, which form like little tree roots on the anode of lithium batteries when charging.
Anyway, just to change the subject for a mo, what about sodium batteries? Not for vehicles though – for home. Subject for another post.
So QuantumScape are promising higher energy density – 300 watt-hours per kilogram at cell level – and improved safety and faster charging, and a longer cycle life. It might all be hype, but they have at least demonstrated one of their SSBs in a VW Ducati electric motorbike, so that’s something.
‘Just have a think’ tells me that the two largest battery companies in the world are CATL and BYD, so let’s just have a look. CATL is a Chinese company, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, which is ‘the world’s EV and energy storage battery manufacturer’. They’re into lithium-ion and other advanced battery technologies, for EVs and other commercial applications, including aviation. BYD (‘build your dreams’) is also Chinese but it has been focussing a lot on the Australian market, so I need to learn more about their operations here, where it’s been selling cars since 2022.
As for these companies’ development of commercially viable All-SSBs, they’re generally seeking to dampen expectations, as clearly they’re meeting with obstacles. Five years from now, more or less, seems to be their prediction. I can’t wait.
Obviously I’ve just started to scratch the surface of this technology, but it’s clearly stuff that’s got a lot of smart people and companies activated. I hope to educate myself further for future posts.
References
a wee post on developments in battery technology for EVs
And now for something completely different.
An article in a recent issue of The Economist (August 26- September 1 2023) , which I read mainly for the political and technological stuff, as economics is largely gibberish to me, deals with the development of solid state Li-ion batteries for EVs, and their scaling up for a new generation of such vehicles. So this piece is for educating myself, or trying to, on solid state electrolysis and how such batteries will, maybe, hasten the end of the infernal combustion engine for families and hoons everywhere.
As the article points out, there are three main issues which might be preventing the greater uptake of EVs – range, cost and charging times. All of which can be fixed with better-performing and cheaper batteries. Easy-peasy.
Current or ‘traditional’ lithium-ion batteries took quite a while to go from the drawing-board to useful application:
Although they were invented in the late 1970s, Li-ion batteries… were not fully commercialised until the early 1990s, at first for portable electronic devices, such as laptop computers and cell phones, and then as bigger versions that could be used to power a new generation of EVs.
The solid state version of these batteries, which are potentially safer, longer lasting and more efficient, have been promised for some time, but they’re now on the point of commercial reality, or just about. But what does ‘solid state’ mean, and why aren’t current Li-ion batteries solid – and what makes them liquid?
It’s all about the electrolyte, the key component of all batteries:
… electrolytes are used in a liquid form for good reason. Ions are charged particles, and are created at one of the batteries electrodes, the cathode, when the cell is charged, causing electrons to be stripped from lithium atoms. The electrolyte provides a medium through which the ions migrate to a second electrode, the anode. As they do so, the ions pass through a porous separator that keeps the electrodes apart to prevent a short-circuit. The electrons created at the cathode, meanwhile, travel towards the anode along the wires of the external charging circuit. Ions and electrons reunite at the anode where they are stored. When the battery discharges, the process reverses, with electrons in the circuit powering a device – which in the case of an EV is its electric motor.
This explanation, from the article referenced below, requires some explaining, at least for me. So, from the beginning, electro-lysis (coined by Faraday) means cutting, or splitting, by means of electricity. Stripping electrons (negatively charged) from atoms, thus ionising them (positive charge). The level of electric pressure, or voltage, required for electrolysis to occur is called the decomposition potential.
So the question I ask myself, in my non-scientific way, is – can electrolysis be applied to any element? Presumably, with a Li-ion battery, it’s applied to lithium, which is an ‘alkali metal’. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia,
Australia has one of the biggest lithium reserves and is the biggest producer of lithium by weight, with most of its production coming from mines in Western Australia.
So, a quick look-up tells me that electrolysis can be and is applied to many elements and compounds and substances, including water (for the production of hydrogen fuel, though that’s a potentially fraught process). Anyway, it seems that, though the electrolyte in a Li-ion battery is liquid ‘for good reason’, I still don’t know what that reason is, though I’m guessing that it’s because the ions can move more readily through liquid to the terminals (cathode and anode). So, ‘the most common electrolyte in lithium batteries is a lithium salt solution such as lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6)’. Polymer gels are also used, but the development of a solid state battery has been a kind of holy grail for some time, as this would, or should, reduce flammability and increase voltage, cycling performance, strength and overall lifespan. One of the major hurdles is cost, as companies seek to develop a particular type to scale up. Over the past ten years or so, as it has become clear that EVs will be the future of motoring, the race has been on to produce effective and economic solid state batteries (SSBs). Here’s how Wikipedia puts it:
In 2013, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder announced the development of a solid-state lithium battery, with a solid composite cathode based on an iron–sulfur chemistry, that promised higher energy capacity compared to already-existing SSBs. In 2017, John Goodenough, the co-inventor of Li-ion batteries, unveiled a solid-state glass battery, using a glass electrolyte and an alkali-metal anode consisting of lithium, sodium or potassium. Later that year, Toyota announced the deepening of its decades-long partnership with Panasonic, including a collaboration on solid-state batteries.
Various solids are being trialled, including ceramics and solid polymers. The US company QuantumScape has teamed with Volkswagen to mass-produce lithium metal batteries, which use metallic lithium as an anode. My mind is glazing over as I try to understand the technology involved, but here’a a quote from QuantumScape’s website:
QuantumScape’s technology platform is designed to pair with a variety of cathode chemistries — with the potential to significantly improve the energy densities of today’s Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) and Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP)-based battery cells. This capability enables optimization for diverse energy storage applications and gives our platform the flexibility to benefit from future cathode chemistry advancements.
They’re hoping for commercial availablity of their product by the end of next year, apparently. The same webpage tries to answer a number of FAQs, such as the benefits of solid state lithium, re weight and volume, the effects on EV range, the nature of the separator material, and co-existence with other current and emerging technologies.
I think that’ll do for my amateur analysis, for now, but I do hope to keep an eye on this technology, and the rise of EVs and surrounding infrastructure going forward.
References
‘The race to build a superbattery’, The Economist, August 26 – September 1 2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_mining_in_Australia
notes on the electrification of air travel
Air travel has become noticeably more popular over the past few decades – due largely to affordability. Even I can afford to catch a plane occasionally these days. And yet …
I realised something was out of kilter when I discovered that, in Europe, you can fly relatively cheaply from one major city to another by plane, whereas travelling by train costs more (sometimes much more) while being more efficient in terms of carbon emissions. So why is that, and what can be done about it?
Planes are generally more costly to run and, especially, to maintain than trains, and labour costs, too, are higher. Yet some of the larger airline companies are prepared to lose money on high-demand short-haul flights to maintain their profile, knowing they can gain on international flights. They can also be (or are) more flexible with their pricing, as this article points out, so that they can get bums on seats at suddenly slashed rates, filling their aircraft for each flight, unlike trains, which have basically operated under the same half-arsed system for over a century.
So, with the steady increase in domestic and international flights, and the lack of government oversight – e.g. taxation – of international airlines that transcend political borders, the carbon footprint of air flight (if that makes sense) is growing. A 2018 report on CO2 emissions stated that ‘using aviation industry values’ there was a 32% increase in aviation emissions in the previous five years. Which of course raises the question – how do we solve the problem of over-use of costly, environmentally-unfriendly jet fuel? The answer, of course, is electric propulsion. No? An electric motor is far simpler and easier to maintain than a jet engine (a turboprop engine has between 7000 and 10,000 moving parts). Energy costs are also cheaper, once a few problems are worked out – ahem.
The biggest problem, of course, is the battery. I’ve heard that AA batteries mightn’t be enough. Nor are the current generation of lithium-ion batteries, though innovation and research in this area is being driven by electric cars hoho. Clearly electric aircraft have to start small and short-haul, and they’re already doing so. I’ve written about this before, but it’s time for an update. Some of the companies involved include Pipistrel, Harbour Air and Eviation, but this is still extremely small-scale stuff as everybody waits for the battery boffins to perform the next miracle. Meanwhile, as with the motor vehicle industry, hybrids have been developed as a kind of stop-gap for larger capacity flights. Another company, Ampaire, has developed small hybrid aircraft with which it hopes to start daily operations in Hawaii in the near future. It’s also working in Norway, where they’re hoping to have all flights of 90 minutes or less to be be either fully electric or hybrid by 2040. I’m glad to hear that my birth country, Scotland is also investing in electric and hybrid planes for similar purposes. If these planes could be shown to be economically viable, then larger aeroplane companies will surely invest in them, as they tend to lose money on regional routes (small turbine engines being very inefficient). This could be the real game-changer, providing reason to invest in battery and other technology for longer electric flight. Changes in technology, combining standard aircraft design with helicopter design, are likely to make air flight more personalised in future, with less need to depend on airports. Of course this will come with regulatory and other issues, but it all makes for a more interesting future in the sky….
References
Electric aircraft? It’s happening, in a small way
I no longer write on my solutionsok blog, as it’s just easier for a lazy person like me to maintain the one site, but as a result I’ve not been writing so much about solutions per se, so I’ll try to a bit more of that. The always entertaining and informative Fully Charged show on YouTube provides plenty of material about new developments in renewable energy, especially re transport, and in a recent episode, host Robert Llewelyn had a bit to say about electric planes, which I’d like to follow up on.
Everyone knows that plane travel has been on the up and up haha for decades, and you may have heard that these planes use up a lot of fossil fuel and produce lots of nasty emissions. According to the Australian government’s Department of Infrastructure and Many Other Things (DIMOT – don’t look it up) Australia’a civil aviation sector contributed 22 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions in 2016. That’s of course a meaningless number but safe to say it’s dwarfed by the emissions of the major aviation countries. I assume the term ‘C02-equivalent’ means other greenhouse gases converted into equivalent-impacting amounts of CO2. For aircraft this includes water vapour, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, lead and other atmosphere-affecting nasties. More innovative and less polluting engine designs have failed to halt the steady rise of emissions due to increased air travel worldwide, and there’s no end in sight. It’s really the only emissions sector for which there is no obvious solution – unlike other sectors which are largely blocked by vested interests.
So, while few people at present see electric aircraft as the big fix, enterprising engineers are making steady improvements and trying for major breakthroughs with an eye to the hopefully not-too-distant future. Just a couple of days ago, as reported on the nicely-named Good News Network, the largest-ever hybrid-electric aircraft (it looks rather small), the Ampaire 337, took flight from Camarillo airport in California (of course). The normally twin-engine plane was retrofitted with an electric motor working in concert with the remaining fuel engine to create a ‘parallel hybrid’, which significantly reduces emissions. After this successful test run, there will be multiple weekly flights over the next few months, and then, if all goes well, commercial short-haul flights are planned for Hawaii.
Of course, here in Australia, where electric cars are seen by power-brokers as some kind of futuristic horror set to destroy our way of life, there’s no obvious appetite for even wierder flying things, but our time will come – or perhaps we should all give up and invade western Europe or California. Meanwhile, Fully Charged are saying ‘there’s no shortage of aircraft companies around the world [including Rolls Royce] developing electric aircraft’, as well as converting light aircraft to electric (the Ampaire 337 mentioned above is actually a converted Cessna 337). A Canadian airline, Harbour Air, is converting 3 dozen seaplanes to electric motors, with first passengers flights expected by late 2021. These will only be capable of short flights in the region of British Columbia – range, which is connected to battery weight, being perhaps the biggest problem for electric aircraft to overcome. Again according to Fully Charged, there are over 100 electric aircraft development programs going on worldwide at present, and we should see some results in terms of short-haul flights in five years. Perfect for Europe, but also not out of the question for Adelaide to Melbourne or Port Lincoln, Canberra to Sydney and so on. Norway has a plan to use electric aircraft for all its domestic passenger flights in the not-too-distant future.
A name dropped on Fully Charged, Roei Ganzarski, seems worth following up. He says ‘By 2025, 1000 miles in an electric plane is going to be easily done. I’m not saying 5000 miles, but 1000 miles, easily.’ Ganzarski is currently the CEO of magniX, an ‘electric propulsion technology company’, based in Seattle. His company made the motors for the Ampaire 337, I think.
It should be pointed out that UAVs (unmanned – or unpersonned? – aerial vehicles), aka drones, are small electric aircraft, so the principle of electric flight is well established. It’s also worth noting that electricity doesn’t have to come from batteries, though they’re the most likely way forward. Solar cells, for example, can directly convert sunlight into electricity, and in 2015/16, using two alternating pilots, Solar Impulse 2 became the first fixed-wing, piloted, solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the globe. Fuel cells, particularly using hydrogen, are another option.
At the moment, though, hybrid power is all the go, and the focus is on light aircraft and short-haul flight. General aviation is still a long way off because, according to this Wikipedia article, ‘the specific energy of electricity storage is still 2% of aviation fuel’. As to what that means, I have very little idea, but this steal from a Vox piece on the topic helps to clarify:
The key limitation for aircraft is the energy density of its fuel: When space and weight are at a premium, you want to cram as much energy into as small a space as possible. Right now, some of the best lithium-ion batteries have a specific energy of 250 watt-hours per kilogram, which has already proved viable in cars. But to compete on air routes up to 600 nautical miles in a Boeing 737- or Airbus A320-size airliner, Schäfer estimated that a battery would need to have a specific energy of 800 watt-hours per kilogram. Jet fuel, by comparison, has a specific energy of 11,890 watt-hours per kilogram.
So, specific energy is essentially related to energy density, and I know that getting batteries to be as energy-dense as possible is the holy grail of researchers. So, until that ten-fold or 100-fold improvement in energy density is achieved by the battery of batteriologists beavering away at the big plane problem, we should at least push for light aircraft and short-haul flights to go completely electric asap. Ausgov, do us proud.