I touched upon this grant in Candidates, Loans and Bailout thread. These are Zinc-Air batteries and research is lead by Cody Friesen of ASU (and co-founder of Fluidic Energy). Hopefully we'll see Lithium Air research covered in the next iteration: Berkeley-based PolyPlus is a good candidate and IBM of course.
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Norbert
TSLA will win
This would probably mean that "recharging" implies physically replacing the Zinc, which seems to mean that their usefulness is more for power plants, than for EVs.
It seems to be difficult to get an idea of the chances of success for the Lithium-Air projects (even for the researchers themselves). It is a bit surprising that there seem to be so few research projects for Lithium Air. According to everything one reads about it, it would be a huge "game-changer". IBM seems to be in some kind of evaluation phase of pre-researching, instead of immediately starting a full scale effort which would match its immense potential.
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AFAIK, this property was common to all metal-air chemistries for a while making such devices more "fuel cells" than "batteries" and limiting practicality (the infrastructure dilemma). However, very recently breakthroughs started to happen. In Europe ReVolt and BASF have joined forces this summer to commercialize electrically rechargeable Zinc-Air battery ReVolt developed. The rechargeability approach looks similar to ASU's: porous cathode and liquid electrolyte are used, but ReVolt/BASF seem to be further ahead.
From what I read on the topic making even a primary (non-rechargeable) Lithium Air battery operate outside of lab environment is very difficult due to metal Lithium's chemically active nature. PolyPlus developed protective coating for Lithium metal anode making a step in commercialization direction for primary type. Secondary battery with good cycle life is even more challenging, but AIST in Japan has had some progress in that area.
Potential of Lithium-Air
Hi,
While I'm waiting for my Model S, I've been reading around about batteries and I found that the Model S is expected to have around 250Wh/KG (I'm Dutch, so I use KG's
)
After some searching I found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_air_battery
The theoretical density of Li/O2 is 11140Wh per KG.
If I understand it correctly, a 8KG battery would then provide 84kWh of energy, the same as the Model S now.
Well, that seems to good to be true, so what is the catch here? I know Lithium-Air is still in the lab and currently it can't be recharged, but there must be something else here?
On Wikipedia I found that the current batteries can have around 250Wh/KG, just like the Model S will have.
Now, I'm no battery expert at all, but if a Lithium-Air battery with such density could exist, what kind of problems would we run into?
* It can't absorb energy that fast?
* It can discharge fast enough?
Again, it seems good to be true, so I'm searching for the cavecat here
Hi,
While I'm waiting for my Model S, I've been reading around about batteries and I found that the Model S is expected to have around 250Wh/KG (I'm Dutch, so I use KG's
)After some searching I found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_air_battery
The theoretical density of Li/O2 is 11140Wh per KG.
If I understand it correctly, a 8KG battery would then provide 84kWh of energy, the same as the Model S now.
Well, that seems to good to be true, so what is the catch here? I know Lithium-Air is still in the lab and currently it can't be recharged, but there must be something else here?
On Wikipedia I found that the current batteries can have around 250Wh/KG, just like the Model S will have.
Now, I'm no battery expert at all, but if a Lithium-Air battery with such density could exist, what kind of problems would we run into?
* It can't absorb energy that fast?
* It can discharge fast enough?
Again, it seems good to be true, so I'm searching for the cavecat here
Just went looking for downsides, and found this (but claims it is being solved):
http://slashdot.org/story/09/06/26/...-Battery-Delivers-10-Times-the-Energy-Density
Also:
http://slashdot.org/story/09/06/26/...-Battery-Delivers-10-Times-the-Energy-Density
Also:
So, I guess one has to investigate charging efficiency so see how much of the current you put in actually gets stored in the battery.
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Over the past few years there were so many announcements of things like ultracap breakthroughs, NiMH improvements, even massive improvements to lead/acid. I wouldn't say that Li-Ion is absolutely the only possible solution, but so far it seems to be the technology of choice among all the current generation of EVs.
It's all about the Wh/KG, the less the battery weighs, the less the cars weighs, the less energy you need to move the car. That would result in a smaller (in Whr's) battery pack.
Ultracaps are one of the things I believe could be useful, even in conjunction with a regular battery, they could provide the boost of power a EV needs when accelerating.
But it seems that LiO2 is still far away
Ultracaps are one of the things I believe could be useful, even in conjunction with a regular battery, they could provide the boost of power a EV needs when accelerating.
But it seems that LiO2 is still far away
I beleive that Ultracaps are what your regen should go into first, once filled, then the battery. It would save the battery from all of the continuous charging and discharging which a capacitor is made to do. If this design is used you should have. 1. Longer battery life 2. No annoyance of not have regen available at times. Of course this involves a more complex controller to orchestrate all of this, and more $$$$
Norbert
TSLA will win
As far as I remember, they were saying something like "too complex at this point of technical development, maybe later". (Not sure whether they were referring to capacitors or mixed battery types.)
If Lithium-Air turns out to work, I don't think mixing with other storage types would be a problem, because at that point it won't be "game changed", it will be "game over".
If Li/O2 is successful and implemented into EVs, using combined storage types may not even be necessary. IBM is also experimenting with Lithium-Air.
These articles were published > 15 months ago. Some progress must have been made since; but probably still some time before they will be ready for prime time.
A battery the size of Model S 300-mile pack would get ~ 3000 mile range.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/science/15batt.html
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22780/
It would ofcourse be great if Lithium-Air (or something else like that) would work. Right now we are somewhere around 250Wh/KG, but even 500Wh/KG would be great! You could travel twice as far on the same battery pack, but you could probably even shrink the battery, so you loose weight and increase the range again
About ultra/super-caps, they could work in conjunction with a Lithium battery which couldn't produce the Amps a EV would need to accelerate. The caps would then provide the "boost" needed to get the EV moving, but the main storage would come from the battery. Something I've done with a lot of RC cars, you could give them a nice boost function just by putting a large capacity capacitor on them.
I really do hope that when the S comes out Tesla will keep developing battery packs for it, so that after 3 or 5 years you could buy a new, upgraded pack which for example gives you a 450 mile range. (I prefer KM's btw )
About ultra/super-caps, they could work in conjunction with a Lithium battery which couldn't produce the Amps a EV would need to accelerate. The caps would then provide the "boost" needed to get the EV moving, but the main storage would come from the battery. Something I've done with a lot of RC cars, you could give them a nice boost function just by putting a large capacity capacitor on them.
I really do hope that when the S comes out Tesla will keep developing battery packs for it, so that after 3 or 5 years you could buy a new, upgraded pack which for example gives you a 450 mile range. (I prefer KM's btw
)
Norbert
TSLA will win
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