Aluminum batteries outlive lithium-ion with a pinch of salt

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aluminum-battery

by rbanffy • 1 year ago

234 129 1 year ago

spectrum.ieee.org

moron4hire2• 1 year ago

But before the Al-ion battery is ready for commercial applications, its energy density will need to be improved

There it is. No mention of how much. Though they do tell you how much longer it lasts! So apparently we aren't that averse to numbers.

brohee• 1 year ago

Energy density is only an issue if you move the battery around, grid storage doesn't care so a bit concerning they don't mention that usage either.

hedora3• 1 year ago

Grid storage can reuse post-consumer batteries.

Li-ion capacity fall off is a fixed percentage per year, so when your car hits 80% of original capacity in ten years, its battery pack can just be used for another ten years. It’ll provide > 64% capacity at the end of that (grid workloads are less stressful than driving workloads).

So, the alternative battery technology has to cost less than the cost difference between refurbishing and recycling old car batteries. That delta might be negative.

bArray• 1 year ago

I think grid storage does care:

* Size is important, because they need to be stored and maintained somewhere. The larger the energy storage, the more infrastructure required.

* Weight typically scales cost (the heavier it is the more it costs). If it really weighs a lot, you need to reinforce the ground too.

* Efficiency in charging and discharging. You also need to monitor the state of each cell carefully.

hamilyon2• 1 year ago

At some point scaling up you start to compete with giant pile of heated sand. And it is tough capacity/price benchmark.

_Microft• 1 year ago

The link to the paper is hidden a few links into the article (what's up with all these 'tags' that they link to?):

"A Recyclable Inert Inorganic Framework Assisted Solid-State Electrolyte for Long-Life Aluminum Ion Batteries", https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.4c01615 (Open Access)

pjc502• 1 year ago

Seems to be fluoro-chemistry; use of AIF3 and Fluoroethylene carbonate. The F ion sets off alarm bells, but I have no idea whether this is significantly more toxic than the corresponding chemistry of regular Li batteries.

IndrekR• 1 year ago

Lithium tetrafluoroborate and hexafluorophosphate are quite common ingredients in lithium battery electrolytes.

jokoon• 1 year ago

I am too lazy to copy paste the battery check list

belval• 1 year ago

For some reason people downvote you, but batteries seem to have this constant flux of N=1 articles explaining why X new chemistry is about to dethrone lithium. When it's not aluminium, it's solid state. This article itself has several red flags:

In contrast, a typical Li-ion battery retains only 80 percent of its charge capacity after 300 to 500 cycles, depending on conditions.

LiFePO4 lasts for about 3000 cycles before 80% degradation, not 300-500.

The batteries were also tested at temperatures as high as 200 degrees Celsius

Thermal runaway on LFP is 120C, not 200 but still not a temperature you will easily hit.

And finally (as always):

before the Al-ion battery is ready for commercial applications, its energy density will need to be improved

Which means it's not commercially viable.

LiFePO4 is cheap to manufacture, uses lithium, iron, phosphate, all of which are fairly plentiful and lasts for over 3000 cycles (before reaching 80% capacity).

hedora3• 1 year ago

In defense of them, 99% capacity retention after 10,000 cycles is still much better.

I wonder if they are quoting unrealistic 0-100% numbers and you are quoting realistic 20-80%. If so, and you multiply the Li capacity by 0.6, I wonder how far off aluminum's (undisclosed) density is.

On an unrelated note, I’m surprised that lithium is only 4x the price of aluminum. They’re both incredibly common elements, but lithium extraction is harder for a lot of reasons.

rbanffy• 1 year ago

Which means it's not commercially viable.

Depends more on price than anything else. Maybe won't replace phone batteries, but a stationary battery for home or a utility-sized one that uses less temperamental chemistry would be very welcome.

asddubs• 1 year ago

red flag #1 is before the article even starts

picture of AA batteries

Lithium-ion batteries like these currently dominate the market, but aluminum-based alternatives could be a better solution

metadat• 1 year ago

Yes, IMHO this is the appropriate response. What is the energy density and charge retention of aluminum salt compared to a lithium ion battery chemistry? TFA doesn't bother to divulge these critical figures.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear battery technology claimant,

Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will likely fail, because:

[ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale.

[ ] it will be too expensive for users.

[ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles.

[ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels.

[ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures.

[ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable.

[ ] it has too short of a lifetime.

[ ] its charge rate is too slow.

[ ] its materials are too toxic.

[ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode.

[ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care.

[ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then.

[ ] by this time it ships li-ion advances will match it.

[ ] your claims are lies.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025969

h0l0cube• 1 year ago

It's a good list, but...

[ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable.

... only matters for mobility applications. You can forget about this one for grid storage.

megaman8212• 1 year ago

If these non-lithium battery chemistries had any chance, it would be in grid storage. As time goes on LFPs keep getting cheaper and better, and there will be little market left for alt-chemistries.

ajross2• 1 year ago

Lithium is rare enough to always be a cost barrier vs. something like Al/Cl chemistries that are literally made of dirt and brine. It's true that grid storage looks like the biggest market, but there's a lot of space in non-mobile/less-mobile energy storage that would like cheap batteries.

hedora3• 1 year ago

Lithium is not rare. It is also extracted from dirt and brine. Compare copper, lithium and nitrogen on this chart (abundance and annual production):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Ear...

The cost difference (which is only 4x vs aluminum, apparently) is due to a combination of increased demand (not enough production capacity) and probably the amount of energy/environmental impact of the two processes (you have to go through a lot less ore/brine to get the aluminum).

Also, aluminum benefits from a robust recycling infrastructure that hasn’t come online for lithium yet.

jeffbee3• 1 year ago

Lithium was $61/kg 2 years ago and now it's $14/kg. It is neither rare nor expensive.

tim3333• 1 year ago

mlhpdx• 1 year ago

As a boater, I find salt being used to reduce corrosion a bit ironic.

chris_va• 1 year ago

Or ionic? :)

On a boat, Aluminum "corrodes" and forms an oxide layer (also known as sapphire), which then protects it from further corrosion. But, said layer is not electrically conductive (or in this case does not allow Al ions to flow into the electrolyte), so you need something to prevent the protective layer from forming.

ErigmolCt4• 1 year ago

I think there's some hidden life lesson here: the same chemical process can be beneficial in one scenario and a hindrance in another

anarchonurzox• 1 year ago

It really feels like progress in battery tech is unlocking the next "wave" of hardware development. Miniaturization leading to better drones, wearables, cameras, etc., and alt-batteries with better cycle efficiency to better usage of "green" technology. I love seeing these kinds of physical and chemical engineering breakthroughs, even if they aren't quite ready for industrial use.

GuB-42• 1 year ago

Battery tech improvement has stayed mostly quiet because we never really had an impressive breakthrough, instead, we had decades of slightly better and slightly cheaper stuff, and it added up. Now we have drones, electric vehicles, grid scale storage, rechargeable batteries so cheap we put them in disposable products, battery power tools that match corded and gas options.

EVs in particular are entirely about batteries. The energy density of fossile fuels is the only thing going for combustion engines. Electric motors are simpler, cheaper, more efficient, more powerful, better for the environment, the only problem is storing the electricity needed to power them. Electric cars actually came before gas cars, that's 19th century tech! The only reason we are only starting to see them back on the roads is because until now, we didn't have good enough batteries.

I expect such research to pay off eventually in the same way. No big breakthrough, but maybe in the future, you will look into buying a new car and realize that that $10k electric car you thought would be useless actually has decent range, that the generator section in the hardware store has been mostly taken over by battery packs and that city buses do not sound the same as they did before.

technothrasher• 1 year ago

Electric cars actually came before gas cars

They essentially both came about at the same time. They were both being actively developed during much of the 19th century, with the first real marketable versions of each coming in the later half of the 1880's.

ErigmolCt4• 1 year ago

Absolutely! Battery advancements seem to be the bottleneck for so many emerging technologies

squeedles• 1 year ago

I thought one of the biggest barriers to Al-ion use was large dimensional change with charge state introducing mechanical stresses. No discussion of that, but a viable solid state electrolyte is pretty sweet.

elihu2• 1 year ago

It's mentioned in the article. They say it doesn't change dimensions all that much when charging/discharging.

jillesvangurp2• 1 year ago

A bit of inaccuracy in the article:

a typical Li-ion battery retains only 80 percent of its charge capacity after 300 to 500 cycles

That's off by 10x at least. Typical LFP batteries that are widely used now have thousands of cycles. Over 5K in some cases. Some of the solid state batteries that are coming to production in the next few years might do better. 300 to 500 is more typical of some older chemistries. Even NMC batteries used in e.g. Teslas have cycle life spans of at least 1500 or so cycles.

And for reference, if you charge and full de-charge your car that would be 1 cycle. A decade is only 3653 or so cycles (there might be 2 or 3 leap years). Most car vehicle owners don't charge nearly as often or so completely. A typical Tesla that is partially charged maybe once a week or so is not going to need a battery replacement until the 2040s or so.

Anyway, the article carefully avoids talking about energy density. Which is of course the key thing here. Together with other things like charging speeds. Operational temperatures, etc. These all matter.

This is a university study, not a plan to get this to production. Promising and interesting but probably well over a decade away from any serious applications. By that time we might have all sorts of other battery tech that is sitting a bit higher on the technological readiness scale on the market.

radlad3• 1 year ago

I find it interesting that my 2021 MBP's "health" was down to about 85% after the first year, but has only decreased to 82% after two additional years. I have 653 cycles now.

Assuming that's accurate, and batteries spend a majority of their usable lifetime around this capacity, perhaps battery estimates should be based off of the 80% capacity mark.

peer2pay• 1 year ago

80% SoH is the de-facto industry standard for EoL/replacement. Mostly because after that you will eventually get a "knee-point" in your degradation curve at which operation is risky and largely inefficient.

Without knowing specifics, your MBP might have had issues with an individual cell such that initial capacity dropped significantly until the cell was disconnected.

thefourthchime• 1 year ago

I use https://apphousekitchen.com to only charge to 80%

codemiscreant• 1 year ago

The number is, I believe, simply peak voltage. And personally I find the measure grossly misleading: an iPhone with an 80% battery has an almost useless runtime. It definitely isn’t 80% of the original runtime.

ksec2• 1 year ago

600 cycles in 4 years is pretty high IMO. Do you carry it around all the time without it being plugged into socket ?

kccqzy• 1 year ago

Typical LFP batteries that are widely used

It depends on the use case. I believe LCO batteries are still more widely used since they are popular in small electronic devices rather than electric vehicles. These do not achieve the thousands of cycles you mention.

In general I don't like articles that simply talk about specs of Li-ion batteries as a whole without specifying the exact chemistry. Apple has different incentives when they choose a battery as compared to say Ford.

hnuser1234562• 1 year ago

High discharge rate + high energy/mass density optimized chemistries usually have the worst charge cycle degradation. LFP doesn't have top discharge rate or energy/mass density, it trades some of that off for improved long term stability.

morserer• 1 year ago

Li-ion != LFP.

LFP is incredible, but LFP batteries are 5x larger than li-ion. The two aren't comparable. You won't find LFP batteries in cars nor smartphones.

hnuser1234562• 1 year ago

It would appear LFPs are making their way into EVs, despite having about half the energy/mass density.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery

dgacmu2• 1 year ago

There are a lot of LFP model 3's on the road, and my understanding is it was only canceled because of manufacturing location effects on tax rebates.

A lot of BYDs cars use LFP. And they sell a -lot- of cars.

The 2024 Mach-E is LFP. The Kia EV5.

And so on. I think you have an outdated model of lfp tradeoffs.

Many of the extended range models still use higher-density chemistries. But LFP is making amazing strides.

avtolik• 1 year ago

I read last week that about 40% of the electric cars produced now are with LFP batteries.

CorrectHorseBat• 1 year ago

LFP batteries are Li-ion though

NovemberWhiskey• 1 year ago

Lithium-ion is an umbrella term that properly includes common cell chemistries like lithium iron phosphate (LFP), lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) and lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide (NCA).

It doesn't make sense to compare LFP vs. lithium-ion, because the first is a sub-type of the second.

Animats• 1 year ago

BYD has raised lithium-iron phosphate Wh per liter up to lithium-ion levels. Wh per kilogram is still maybe half that of lithium-ion.

BYD "Blade battery 1": 168 Wh/kg. 448 Wh/L. Shipping now.

BYD "Blade battery 2": 210 Wh/kg. Announced for 2025. [1]

Tesla current lithium ion battery: 260 Wh/kg. 416 Wh/L[2]

(Tesla also uses lithium iron phosphate, in their lower-end cars.)

Close on size, big difference on weight. Weight differential is narrowing.

At this point, all fixed installations should be lithium iron or better. There's no excuse for big lithium-ion battery fires such as Moss Beach and the Port of Los Angeles any more.

Solid state batteries with better density are coming along, but nobody has those in volume production yet.

(Incidentally, if you ask questions like this to search engines that use an LLM, the results may be bogus, as they tend to pick numbers from the wrong places. Check the references.)

[1] https://electric.guide/renewable-energy-storage/byd-blade-ba...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery

elihu2• 1 year ago

LFP is a type of lithium ion battery. Modern LFPs perform pretty well, though they're a bit worse than "regular" lithium ion, in part because they run at a lower nominal voltage of 3.2 volts rather than 3.6 volts. They're used in cars all the time, just not usually in the United States.

I've never heard of an LFP smartphone battery, but that doesn't mean it isn't done. I wouldn't be surprised if it was common in China.

Psyonic• 1 year ago

While most cars are not LFP, your claim that you won't find LFP batteries in cars is incorrect:

Rivian switched to LFP: https://insideevs.com/news/720396/2025-rivian-r1s-r1t-lfp-ba...

Some Teslas use LFP: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/2464/tesla-lfp-batteries-c...

Reason0775• 1 year ago

"Li-ion != LFP."

No, LFP is one form of Li-ion battery, along with other chemistries like NMC, NCA, LMO, etc.

"LFP is incredible, but LFP batteries are 5x larger than li-ion."

Nope. Today it's more like 20-30% less energy density. And the gap has been closing over time.

"You won't find LFP batteries in cars"

Absolutely false. The vast majority of Chinese-built EVs (brands like BFD, NIO, MG, XPeng, Geely) use LFP in many models. Most Chinese-built Teslas use LFP packs. Tesla's Powerwall 3 home storage batteries use LFP. Western automakers are also increasingly looking to LFP to reduce costs and improve stability and safety.

In fact, I'd say the significant majority of all EVs shipping in the world today contain LFP batteries.

throw-qqqqq• 1 year ago

You won’t find LFP batteries in cars

That’s not correct.

The MG4 uses LFP. So does some Model Y and Model 3s from Tesla.

See a long list here: https://evdb.nz/ev-battery

gruturo• 1 year ago

You won't find LFP batteries in cars nor smartphones

Bold statement. Quite incorrect too. My car has one, and I'm pretty sure Tesla sold them to other people too, not just me (M3 RWD 2022)

Johnny555• 1 year ago

You won't find LFP batteries in cars

Cars with LFP batteries: https://evdb.nz/ev-battery

CyberDildonics3• 1 year ago

LFP batteries are 5x larger than li-ion

This is completely wrong. Anyone who has bought a single LFP cell knows they are close but not quite as energy dense for the weight as regular lithium ion batteries. They are very common in all sorts of applications like medical devices and cars at the very least.

You won't find LFP batteries in cars

This is also not true at all. Here is a list of 42 car models with LFP batteries including telsa model 3, model Y and the ford mustang.

https://evdb.nz/ev-battery

Where were you seeing your information?

dragontamer• 1 year ago

LFP is 3000 cycles last time I checked.

NCA, a very common LiIon chemistry, is only 500 cycles as the article rightfully claims

The article is anywhere from 'correct' to off by 600% depending on which LiIon chemistry. But that's the nature of such a wide chemistry, there's so many LiIon out there it's hard to generalize.

NCA / NMC is common for phone and even EV applications though. So it's not necessarily wrong and both have similar endurance specs.

Anyway, the article carefully avoids talking about energy density. Which is of course the key thing here.

No one cares about density in utility scale applications. It can be heavy as all heck but as long as it's cheap it will be an effective solar or wind battery.

megaman8212• 1 year ago

Also for utility uses, why is 80% the benchmark? It seems likely that batteries will be used down to 60% capacity; so double the number of cycles for a reduced capacity.

ziga• 1 year ago

You can't really generalize cycles based on chemistry alone. Battery management and usage matters. But two examples with NCA/NMC chemistry:

- The Tesla Powerwall 2 battery warranty[1] is for effectively 3650 cycles (daily cycle for 10 years).

- Many cases of Tesla cars at 200k mileage (~1000 cycles, depends on battery size) with less than 15% capacity loss[2].

And these batteries didn't die after reaching the high number of cycles, they just retained less capacity.

[1] https://energylibrary.tesla.com/docs/Public/EnergyStorage/Po...

[2] https://insideevs.com/news/723734/tesla-model-3y-battery-cap...

Qwertious• 1 year ago

Energy density indirectly matters in utility scale applications, since it implies the cost is more dependent on raw materials and therefore it limits how low the cost of production can get.

In contrast if the raw materials are dirt-cheap per watt-hour (because you don't require as much mass) but the manufacturing process is expensive, then over time the manufacturing process can generally be made cheaper and you can expect the batter to get cheaper quicker.

LUmBULtERA• 1 year ago

FWIW, Apple's current batteries are stated to last 1000 cycles until they reach 80% capacity. [0]

Anecdotally I have 98% capacity at 248 cycles on my 15 pro. I use an 80% charge limit as I don't use that much battery in a day.

[0] https://9to5mac.com/2024/02/20/iphone-15-battery-lifescyle-s...

CyberDildonics3• 1 year ago

3000 for LFP is a common number, but there are some that are now claiming 6000 cycles. Of course like everyone has mentioned, battery management matters and charging temperature, discharge temperature, charge and discharge limits matter.

hinkley• 1 year ago

The last aluminum battery discussed here only had about 40% of the volumetric density of Lion and did not mention wh/kg, just w/kg. Which sounds a lot like lying with statistics.

moron4hire2• 1 year ago

Oh, but they should be able to get that time down to a few months if they just use an LLM.

Melatonic3• 1 year ago

When people say Li-ion they typically are talking about Lipo batteries (unfortunately). LFP obviously are much better longevity wise.

jillesvangurp2• 1 year ago

No they are not, they are talking about batteries that contain a lot of lithium. Aside from battery nerds, the finer points of most chemistries are lost the vast majority of people and I doubt even experts would agree with your very narrow definition.

In any case, my point was that the car industry and the storage industry is dominated by a wide variety of batteries (most of them lithium based of course; some might say lithium ion even) that have way better longevity than the article suggests is the key selling point of this new battery chemistry.

I think it's a bit misleading or sloppy. I'd expect better from IEEE.

ikigai_sign• 1 year ago

I got so burned on QuantumScape stock I haven't been able to think about solid state batteries since then.

toss1• 1 year ago

You are not alone, sadly.

amatecha2• 1 year ago

LFP !== Li-ion.

If you "full de-charge" your car battery that battery is toast, so that's not a useful comparison.

gnabgib• 1 year ago

LFP is certainly a Li-ion battery chemistry (and also a Lithium Iron chemistry).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery

kvakerok• 1 year ago

Came here to ask about energy density, but it seems the article answered it without answering it.

lightedman• 1 year ago

"300 to 500 is more typical of some older chemistries."

And this is almost purely a function of the very first charge cycle the battery receives. If the initial charge cycle is fairly aggressive, you can actually pull something like 1500 cycles out of those older chemistries, at the cost of actual capacity. We're running tests on this right now in a lab in San Diego. Almost all non-solid-state Li chemistry batteries are similarly affected.

jve• 1 year ago

And there is such thing as DoD (Depth of Discharge) - Doing 4x 25% charges (1 cycle) is much much much better than 1x100% cycle.

You'd lose 27% of capacity vs 8% capacity over a cycle test that lasted 2,5 years. https://youtu.be/i31x5JW361k?si=93KYNqKFVJRgSbKs&t=1216

hilbert42• 1 year ago

Spectrum: "…its energy density will need to be improved, the researchers say."

"Anyway, the article carefully avoids talking about energy density. Which is of course the key thing here."

I agree. And as you say, there's a bit of inaccuracy in the article. In fact, it's more than just a little—not to mention the omissions.

What's so annoying about this article is that it's from the IEEE's magazine Spectrum where one expects the best—the most authorative, factual and most current—technical information available at publication time but it's often not the case.

Unfortunately, in recent years, the IEEE has been unduely influenced by commercial interests which has affected or slanted the accuracy of its reporting of science and engineering news. As Spectrum is the main face of the organization and its principal news outlet this is where the policy shift has been most obvious.

I could give other instances of bad or overly enthusiastic reporting of new tech where known downsides were either not reported and or downplayed but I'll refrain here as I don't have the issues of Spectrum immediately to hand to give specific references. Suffice to say, I became so disillusioned with stuff I was reading in Spectrum† that I terminated my 20-year-plus IEEE membership some while back.

My main criticism of this story is—as you correctly point out—carefully avoids talking about energy density, which has to be a crucial aspect of any story about new battery tech that's posited as a potential competitor and or replacement for Li-ion. That's damn obvious. If the researchers did not provide numerical comparisons (experimental and or theoretical) of the energy densities between their Al-ion prototypes and Li-ion in their paper/press release then Spectrum's editor should have provided a side/footnote on the matter.

Most of us already know that Li has a larger electrode potential‡ than Al, so Al is already coming from behind Li in this regard, but of course that's far from the end of the story as there are many other factors involved in addition to those benefits as promulgated by the researchers, namely recharge cycles, safety and cost. For example, how does Al stack up against Li as far as electrode surface area (spongy metal surfaces, etc.)? We know from long experience with electrolytic capacitors that Al can be treated to have very large effective surface areas, in fact they can be enormous. If Al has the potential to be much better than Li in this regard then this new tech could certainly be a winner. As this is an obvious factor, Spectrum's editor should have mentioned it amongst others even if not mentioned in the original paper (in fact, Spectrum should have criticized its omission if the case).

In summary, one would hope this research leads to much better and safer batteries but the IEEE—as the premier representative for electrical and electronic engineering/engineers—has done precious little in providing us with information that actually matters.

† Whilst I've strong criticisms of the IEEE not all are negative, many of its specialist publications are quite excellent including Proceedings of the IEEE.

‡ From Wiki: Standard electrode potentials:

Li: Li+ + e− ⇌ Li(s) -3.0401V

Al: Al3+ + 3e− ⇌ Al(s) -1.662V

Edit: It was only after I'd written this comment that I was able access the original ACS research paper (initially I'd difficulty downloading it). I've since skimmed it several times and I need to read it thoroughly to get a proper understanding but it's pretty short on the issues I've raised. Thus, my point that Spectrum should have mentioned these shortfalls still stands.

ErigmolCt4• 1 year ago

I think by the time it's commercially ready (if ever), the battery landscape could look very different

DoctorOetker• 1 year ago

Anyway, the article carefully avoids talking about energy density. Which is of course the key thing here.

But it's right there in the article:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acscentsci.4c01615?down...

The cell with F-SSAF electrolyte and pyrolytic graphite (PG) cathode show reversible capacities of 83, 81, 79, 77, and 75 mA h g−1 at the current densities of 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 mA g−1 (Figure 2a).

so 83 Ah/kg (at 20 A/kg), and at a cell voltage of ~ 2V thats ~166 Wh/kg.

baranul• 1 year ago

Clarity is very much needed. There are so many stories about "battery technology breakthroughs", but then they never come to market or are x number of years away from production. The general public is often way more interested in when they are going to actually sell the new battery technology, and getting their hands on them to put to use.

readthenotes1• 1 year ago

Tldr; another Better Battery Bulletin

bdamm• 1 year ago

A large number of these sometimes smell like an oil lobby working their contacts to convince people to put off their EV purchase for five years until the amazing and better battery (tm) comes out.

I can't tell if this is one of those. It does have many of the hallmarks.

AngryData• 1 year ago

If you want a battery that will last a really long time, nickel-iron batteries already do that. They have 50+ year life spans and are incredibly robust. And if you care about recycling, well its just nickel and iron. The nickel you obviously would want back, but the iron is worth almost nothing.

Until we can surpass current lithium batteries in energy density, cycle stability, and safety all at once, iron-nickel is more than good enough to be used in any application where current lithium tech struggles, and will outlive you along with being infinitely recyclable and basically as safe as any battery ever could be.

adrian_b2• 1 year ago

Nickel-iron batteries self-discharge quickly, so they are not suitable for long-term energy storage.

tryptophan• 1 year ago

1% per day which is the number I found doesn't seem terrible for solar type systems.

nine_k2• 1 year ago

This may be an issue for very small draws, like a TV remote. This can be moot in situations of constant recharge and only staying without any recharge for 2-3 days, rarely, like in utility-scale renewable generation (solar, wind).

They seem to cost much more per kWh than LiFePO4 batteries though.

userbinator• 1 year ago

They have 50+ year life spans

Exactly the sort of thing the planned-obsolescence cartel doesn't want.

ErigmolCt4• 1 year ago

The real challenge is finding a chemistry that balances density, stability and sustainability without major compromises

pjc502• 1 year ago

These have been around for a while. I remember the Center For Alternative Technology in Wales was using them for their solar array, twenty years ago. However, all the more recent deployments are using lithium based cells.

I'm guessing the weight (energy density) issue matters for overall costs because of shipping?

Melatonic3• 1 year ago

Sounds like it could potentially be a cheaper (and maybe less fire prone) battery where weight and volume is less of a concern - maybe batteries for residential / commercial buildings or grid storage ?

Possible also easier recycling - especially locally close to the battery.

Even compared to LFP (much higher cycle longevity than the article quotes) these sound like they retain energy capacity much better

Aluminum batteries outlive lithium-ion with a pinch of salt

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