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Prieto Battery - potential breakthrough for BEVs?

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Another battery startup that claims to revolutionary but has nothing more to show than shiny slides without numbers.
It looks like a solid-state Li-Ion battery with thick electrodes, i.e. good power density, poor gravimetric energy density.
In short, this seems like another venture capital bait.
 
Any technology that exists at the "PowerPoint stage" or experimental stage", that was discovered in the past year, even if it works perfectly, couldn't be mass produced for years. Think about all the validation testing required for new technology.
 
Any technology that exists at the "PowerPoint stage" or experimental stage", that was discovered in the past year, even if it works perfectly, couldn't be mass produced for years. Think about all the validation testing required for new technology.

Not "discovered in the past year", but rather perfected after 4 years and pilot manufacturing facility up and running for proof of commercial production capability. Dalhousie University has developed accelerated testing regimes that correctly identify in just a few weeks, relative life-spans of various L-ion chemistries that have been confirmed accurate in multi-year cycle-to-failure tests, so it no longer takes years of testing to know how a new cell will perform.
 
Not "discovered in the past year", but rather perfected after 4 years and pilot manufacturing facility up and running for proof of commercial production capability. Dalhousie University has developed accelerated testing regimes that correctly identify in just a few weeks, relative life-spans of various L-ion chemistries that have been confirmed accurate in multi-year cycle-to-failure tests, so it no longer takes years of testing to know how a new cell will perform.

Ultra-lightweight, bendable batteries and supercapacitors in the form paper Highly Conductive Paper for Energy Storage Devices | Flexible Photovoltaics

New Aluminum/Graphite Battery Charges in One Minute | Climate Denial Crock of the Week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKnM9oRwvcc

Samsungs New Battery Is Rollable, Bendable, and Flexible | Digital Trends

Apple poaching experts from Samsungs image, signal and battery divisions - Finance Post

1000- to 1800-mile range with aluminum-air battery added | Forums | Tesla Motors

I don't usually post a ton of links in one post, but I think these provide a good time line of developments in the battery industry,
 
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Another PowerPoint (this time in video). To paraphrase Elon, show me the battery! Notice that they are seeking investors so, yes, venture capital bait.

Paraphrasing should surely be "show me the cell".

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Not "discovered in the past year", but rather perfected after 4 years and pilot manufacturing facility up and running for proof of commercial production capability. Dalhousie University has developed accelerated testing regimes that correctly identify in just a few weeks, relative life-spans of various L-ion chemistries that have been confirmed accurate in multi-year cycle-to-failure tests, so it no longer takes years of testing to know how a new cell will perform.

And on that note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qi03QawZEk

Lecture by Prof Jeff Dahn from July 30th 2013 talking about their testing approach.

If you watch it (and _everyone_ here should watch it, and I can't believe I haven't watched it before) you will note several things of importance. In particular:
... no wait, just watch the video yourself. Yes, it's 1 hour and 13 minutes, but it's shorter than a sports game (particularly anything invented in North America), and shorter than a movie and this stuff is really important.
 
While the majority of R&D in Li-ion is around the traditional liquid electrolytes very few are doing any serious work on solid state batteries.

Besides this one, the other company that has made some progress on solid state battery tech is Sakti3. Whether any of these will see the light of day remains to be seen, but if they do the impact will not be incremental but an order magnitude higher.
 
Lecture by Prof Jeff Dahn from July 30th 2013 talking about their testing approach.

If you watch it (and _everyone_ here should watch it, and I can't believe I haven't watched it before) you will note several things of importance. In particular:
... no wait, just watch the video yourself. Yes, it's 1 hour and 13 minutes, but it's shorter than a sports game (particularly anything invented in North America), and shorter than a movie and this stuff is really important.

I watched it and it is indeed very interesting. Definitely a lot to learn here. At the same time, this Prof is tooting his own horn quite a bit in this video. The method he describes isn't so fundamentally new and different. They are running all tests with extremely high precision so they can see changes, degradation and any effect that happens on the smallest scale which tests at normal precision would take longer to detect. He mostly describes trying something and then testing it. The method allows much faster test results. It's not directly research or development. He even said no one really understands what is chemically going on inside the cell. I find that statement a little hard to believe. Improving the battery significantly is probably more a matter of chemists and physicists.

We need both. The ones that come up with creative new ideas to store energy in a battery and those that can help test them quickly. And then we need people who believe in it and are willing to invest money in it. Without huge investors there would be no Tesla and no Giga factory.

And then let's not forget that now that Tesla has invested hugely into the Giga factory and getting supply of materials needed. If there was a better, very different battery technology, it would be a serious threat to the Giga factory. Once people have spent a huge amount of money, they want to protect it. So any competing battery technology will face serious criticism from Tesla regardless of how good it is.
 
Prieto battery mentioned here a few years ago:

Prieto battery, 3D Li-Ion technology?


Electric Vehicle

Prieto Battery | 3D Lithium-ion Battery Technology

PrietoInfographicLarge.jpg
 
Any battery article preceded by a claim that the battery charges in much less time should be ignored. The time to charge a battery is to first order determined by the charging method and power level applied, not by the battery chemistry. A better and more credible claim would be that the battery charges at higher efficiency, so less cooling is needed to limit heating during charging.
 
Jeff Dahn"s horn tooting must have worked. I heard recently he has a consulting gig with Tesla.

Well, I read that his group has a research deal with Tesla.

(The video noted that a former grad student of his who was one of the developers of their high-precision coulometry rig heads up Tesla's battery testing.)

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I watched it and it is indeed very interesting. Definitely a lot to learn here. At the same time, this Prof is tooting his own horn quite a bit in this video. The method he describes isn't so fundamentally new and different. They are running all tests with extremely high precision so they can see changes, degradation and any effect that happens on the smallest scale which tests at normal precision would take longer to detect. He mostly describes trying something and then testing it. The method allows much faster test results. It's not directly research or development. He even said no one really understands what is chemically going on inside the cell. I find that statement a little hard to believe. Improving the battery significantly is probably more a matter of chemists and physicists.

In order to see what's really going on, a lot of hard work needs to be done. It's not unusual to see press releases from a research group where they've "only" come up with a way to view or measure something. In the video Jeff Dahn did say that more theoretical work is needed (to understand the behavior of the electrolyte ).

When talking about battery technology, the importance of fast results can't be overstated. PEV batteries are expensive products that are expected to last for 8 years or more.