Yesterday, the East Coast was hit hard by a tropical storm that left millions without power.
That got me thinking (and searching) about off-grid alternatives, which led me to jehugarcia’s video on his home DIY Powerwall project.
Battery technology has come a long way and has an even longer way to go.
Subject Zero Science explains a recent innovation from Samsung.
Samsung research was led by Yong-Gun Lee for an All-Solid-State-Battery (ASSBs). Their goal was to eliminate dendrites formation and increase coulombic efficiency. To do that they sandwiched layers of Lithium Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese-Oxide (NMC for short) mixed with a Sulfide Solid Electrolytes (SSE, show formula on screen), on top of nanocomposite-layer of Silver-Carbon.All of this is located in between a foil of Aluminum and Stainless steel as the current collectors.The idea behind this was to remove lithium foil from the mix and have all lithium atoms part of the NMC and SSE. This approach diminishes the costs of the overall battery manufacturing since handling lithium usually needs an oxygen free environment due to its high reactivity. This is important for a few reasons, in conventional lithium batteries, the anode comprised of lithium moves freely towards the positive electrode during discharge.Dendrites are formed during the charging process when lithium moves back to its initial location thanks to the free movement enabled by liquid or gel electrolyte.This is the main limiting factor of how much energy can be store in these batteries since to control this, the amount of lithium available in the system has to be caped, limiting the energy density.
Tech for Luddites’ Sira talks about the latest developments in battery technology – a technology sorely in need of innovation.
The Verge ponders why battery technology has lagged behind the remarkable innovations in smartphone technology.
This amazing 3D-printed graphene supercapacitor electrode could be a remarkable breakthough in a technology that is holding us all back: battery technology. Think about it, everything from electric cars, resilient power grids, renewable energy, and our smartphones all rely on energy storage technology that are decades if not centuries years old.