No More Lithium! NEW Sodium-Ion Battery To BEGIN Mass Production

[PTmowerMech]

If battery technology continues to advance, there's a pretty good chance the small engine business will be a thing of the past in a couple of decades. I'm not a fan of battery powered lawn equipment or vehicles. But with this new battery technology, maybe it'll solve some of these problems. 1, being that things like EV's and lawn mowers won't be as expensive, because of the lowered price that comes with Saline ion.

 

[sgkent]

they still have a ways to go. The people who sell new technology always try to make their ideas sound like the new future. I am old enough to remember when turbines cars were going to replace the internal combustion engine - then that passed and all engine bocks would be made of ceramics. The list is endless.

 

[PTmowerMech]

they still have a ways to go. The people who sell new technology always try to make their ideas sound like the new future. I am old enough to remember when turbines cars were going to replace the internal combustion engine - then that passed and all engine bocks would be made of ceramics. The list is endless.

I like the idea of hydrogen powered vehicles. Hydrogen is abundant. Getting it to a consumer level for things like cars and even small engines is still to expensive.
But powering certain things that are controlled by nearly a monopoly (like oil and gas) can't be bad.

Good idea's have been bought up and squashed by it's competitors (hemp being one of the largest). One can only imagine how many of those good ideas that have vanished for the same of one company's (industries) profit.

 

[sgkent]

it takes more energy to produce hydrogen that is usable than the energy it can produce. Find a way to harvest the surplus heat in the oceans for less energy that it takes to concentrate it, and you will not only help mankind but be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. Right now we do it by hydro electric from the evaporation it causes, and wind collection.

 

[bertsmobile1]

It takes more energy to create than you get out from any fuel as scrap heat is always part of the reactions and nothing is 100% efficient.
It is just a case of what type of energy and when it was used
Remember what you were taught in physics !
Energy can not be created nor destroyed it just gets converted from one form to another
Oil comes from decaying vegetable matter that started with solar energy going into the plants to grow + some chemical energy then more energy for the bacteria to break it down then more again to compress it to form a liquid by pinching some hydrogens from the surrounding rock.
When I was at uni 60's & 70's the entire physics building was lit by solar power, directly in the day light & from a hydrogen powered turbine using hydrogen & oxygen electrolised from water connected to another bank of solar cells overnight .
That same building is now 100% solar powered using both the generator & some batteries of differing chemistries.
The problem with Hydrogen is purely the size of the H2 molecule, it is so bloody small it is near impossible to keep it contained .
Then when you add the very high energy & high volatility of hydrogen leaking becomes a big fire / explosion risk.
Thus currently it's use in transport is limited to things where the heavy weight of the containers needed to store it are a benefit like busses, trains & earthmoving equipment .
Hydrogen passes through steel like a hot wire passes through butter.

The conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is far superiour than converting chemical energy to mechanical energy so from an energy effiency point of view electricity is way out front .
What puts the brakes on it is the energy density of the batteries used to convert chemical energy into electrical energy

Thus eventually batteries will be the future, there is no two ways around it and the planet will be the better for it , if & when we can find a benign battery and that is the problem
Right now the flow cell battery is head & shoulders above any other technology for battery back up as it is a forever battery than has removable ( thus replaceable ) electrodes and an electrolyte than can be pumped out , reconditioned then replaced .
Really big ( grid sized ones can have electrolyte reconditioning systems built in ). They have 2 downsides , first they are nearly 2 times the size of a Li battery per Ah of capacity and secondly the electrolytes used for any chemistry are highly toxic .

We have become so used to disposable battery that we fail to appreciate them for what they really are
A high density of chemical energy packed inside a container, which is the description of a bomb .
And that is the problem.
The more energy a battery can store, the more energy that can be released as an explosion .

And until we find the "magic" battery chemistry & it becomes a world wide standard we are on a hiding to nothing
Just think about the past 20 years
Just how many different types of batteries have we seen and because all of them have different cell voltages none of them are compatiable with the products made for a different battery chemistry
Then when the 3.1V Li battery became the standard we went from 3V to 6V to 12V ( because they were already made to run off car batteries ) to 18V to 24V and now the 48V tools are slowly hitting the market.
None of them are backwards compatible so all of the older stuff becomes landfill which is good for Stanley / B & D but not for any one else or the planet
Oh and Li cells come in a variety of voltages from 3.1V to 3.7V which is one reason why you get battery fires when charged with the wrong charger .

 

[sgkent]

It takes more energy to create than you get out from any fuel as scrap heat is always part of the reactions and nothing is 100% efficient.
It is just a case of what type of energy and when it was used
Remember what you were taught in physics !
Energy can not be created nor destroyed it just gets converted from one form to another
Oil comes from decaying vegetable matter that started with solar energy going into the plants to grow + some chemical energy then more energy for the bacteria to break it down then more again to compress it to form a liquid by pinching some hydrogens from the surrounding rock.
When I was at uni 60's & 70's the entire physics building was lit by solar power, directly in the day light & from a hydrogen powered turbine using hydrogen & oxygen electrolised from water connected to another bank of solar cells overnight .
That same building is now 100% solar powered using both the generator & some batteries of differing chemistries.
The problem with Hydrogen is purely the size of the H2 molecule, it is so bloody small it is near impossible to keep it contained .
Then when you add the very high energy & high volatility of hydrogen leaking becomes a big fire / explosion risk.
Thus currently it's use in transport is limited to things where the heavy weight of the containers needed to store it are a benefit like busses, trains & earthmoving equipment .
Hydrogen passes through steel like a hot wire passes through butter.

The conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is far superiour than converting chemical energy to mechanical energy so from an energy effiency point of view electricity is way out front .
What puts the brakes on it is the energy density of the batteries used to convert chemical energy into electrical energy

Thus eventually batteries will be the future, there is no two ways around it and the planet will be the better for it , if & when we can find a benign battery and that is the problem
Right now the flow cell battery is head & shoulders above any other technology for battery back up as it is a forever battery than has removable ( thus replaceable ) electrodes and an electrolyte than can be pumped out , reconditioned then replaced .
Really big ( grid sized ones can have electrolyte reconditioning systems built in ). They have 2 downsides , first they are nearly 2 times the size of a Li battery per Ah of capacity and secondly the electrolytes used for any chemistry are highly toxic .

We have become so used to disposable battery that we fail to appreciate them for what they really are
A high density of chemical energy packed inside a container, which is the description of a bomb .
And that is the problem.
The more energy a battery can store, the more energy that can be released as an explosion .

And until we find the "magic" battery chemistry & it becomes a world wide standard we are on a hiding to nothing
Just think about the past 20 years
Just how many different types of batteries have we seen and because all of them have different cell voltages none of them are compatiable with the products made for a different battery chemistry
Then when the 3.1V Li battery became the standard we went from 3V to 6V to 12V ( because they were already made to run off car batteries ) to 18V to 24V and now the 48V tools are slowly hitting the market.
None of them are backwards compatible so all of the older stuff becomes landfill which is good for Stanley / B & D but not for any one else or the planet
Oh and Li cells come in a variety of voltages from 3.1V to 3.7V which is one reason why you get battery fires when charged with the wrong charger .

Just as an FYI, I read a scientific article last week where they now understand why dendrites form. Now that they understand, they are working on solutions to stop it. Dendrites are the biggest reason all the lithium ion and nickel cad batteries fail. It starts with micro cracks in the matrix that eventually grow into dendrites. if they can avoid that, true 10 - 20 year life expectancy in batteries becomes possible - and that changes the number needed as well as the over all cost factor on a battery powered anything. I am 72 and not holding my breath on this conversion to batteries on everything. Fact is that in 100 years when the 1% own it all, to expand their business model, they will be hyping the convenience of dino fuels.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I was trained in metallurgy
We have known how dendrites form in metals for better than 200 years.
Controlling dendrites, size, shape & orientation is the cruxt of good foundry practice.
The reason why rolled aluminium products are so good now days is we use ultrasound to break up the chill dendrites to promote internal nucleation and reduce dendritic separation of the alloying elements during solidification and a similar technology has allowed very thin walled castings in both steels & alloys .
So it is not the why or how they form but the how to control / prevent that is the problem
Tesla itself is about to release the Mn cell battery in the next "generation" ( not model ) of their cars and even while they are moving away from Li they have bought into nearly every Li mine in Aust and have signed a deal to manufacture Li batteries locally however what they will be used for a bit vague as no freight company will ship them from Aust to the USA
The rumour is that Musk is building a battery powered container ship & will ship them himself but if they go to Mn that boat won't be needed
FWIW, a dendrite is nothing more than a crystal where the ions that create the crystal join along a specific orientation which is the lowest energy point.
As each ion joins into the lattice the lowest energy point moves so another one will settle in that spot which shifts the lowest energy point in the lattice again.
This continues while there is enough energy ( thermal in the case of molten metal ) for the atoms/ ions to be selective about where they join into the main lattice .
Easy to calculate for crystals growing in a solidifing metal but in batteries where the energy level is always changing and the polarity is perpetually being reversed it becomes a super computer job.

 

[sgkent]