They steadily make their way into the mainstream. Silicon has been used in batteries for several years now, in low amounts. Usually the new "big news" comes with a significant gotcha. For silicon this has always been the cycle life. Silicon hasn't seen larger use because it expands by 400% when filled, compared to graphite's ~12% expansion. This though- this is very cool. If they've actually demonstrated 100 cycles in a pouch cell, made with reel-to-reel, that may mean that commercial cells are <5 years away.
Commercial cells have 500-800 cycles in their lifetime (until their capacity falls to 80%) and are universally made on reel-to-reel machines. There are a ton of difficulties moving from a coin cell to a prismatic/pouch cell to a cylindrical cell, but I can't understate how encouraging it is that they got to 100/400 cycles.
> Are there any good websites to gauge battery development progress as opposed to the vital, but often ephemeral research progress.
It helps to have some level of understanding of the chemistry. It can be hard for anyone but a legitimate chemist to sniff out the bullshit in academic papers (I've fallen prey to this before; I'm just an electrical engineer).
Raw materials can be important, but only very rarely and it can also be misleading. By far most of the cost comes from the complexity and time of manufacture. That makes it tricky. For instance sulfur is far cheaper than other anode materials, but there will never be a cheap sulfur battery- it's way too complicated.
It helps to know the basics[1] of battery manufacture: it's a decades old process and highly optimized. The gist is that you apply coatings to a reel of tape. If it sounds like it can't be put on a tape very easily, it will probably fail the sniff test. Solid/ceramic electrolytes and most kinds of nanotechnology fall into this category. Coating a tape is cheap, but using an electron microscope or laser on every battery is not.
>2. Charge/Discharge cycle count - thermal and mechanical stresses
>3. Power to weight ratio; power to cost ratio
Critical. Any article, paper or press release will stress the interesting part of the battery; it's up to you to figure out how relevant it is. If the article emphasizes the current capacity, check the voltage of the chemistry. If it emphasizes the energy density, check the power density. If it emphasizes the weight, check the size. If it emphasizes safety, check everything. This is often nontrivial though. It's possible to tweak your numbers to balance things out- if you scale back the storage level you can increase cycle count, etc. If a paper has improved everything, it has a shot at being a next gen chemistry. Of course it may also be bullshit.
In my experience just remembering to check the other attributes of the battery will weed out 90%+ of bad articles. Most people are honest, they're just obligated to play a certain game to keep their funding up. Unfortunately there still are folks who will publish garbage though.
"These discoveries usually concern materials that can only be produced in a laboratory environment on a very small scale. What makes our invention so promising is that the technology for mass production of this material is already within reach due to its similarity to an existing production process for solar cells."
I have to admit I'm a bit concerned about the amount of cost savings that can be realized by building it with the same methods as solar cells. Even with the precipitous drop in solar cell prices over the past few years they still aren't cheap.
>Even with the precipitous drop in solar cell prices over the past few years they still aren't cheap.
By what metric..? The amount of energy and power involved in the two uses is completely different. Do you happen to know the bulk cost of silicon, or how much silicon is used in solar cells, or how much of a solar cells cost it makes up, or what process is similar?
You're not doing much more than a kind of free association. For actual context, spheroidal graphite powder is up to $10,000/tonne[1] and metallurgical silicon is around a quarter of that[2].
The article states outright that they think they can make it to market quickly by leveraging Solar Cell production facilities.
The bulk cost of silicon is a moot point. That's like asking how Pizzas can be made more cheaply if you reduce the cost of the flour involved. It's the extreme precision ultra pure processing that makes it expensive, not the bulk materials.
> It's the extreme precision ultra pure processing that makes it expensive, not the bulk materials.
Batteries don't require 6N precision. Silicon anodes can be 99% pure and work fine. Metallurgical silicon is ~99.9%. Only the bottom shelf ferrosilicon stuff is <99%.
My point is that you're making assertions that you don't fully understand. Why would batteries suddenly need extreme precision ultra pure processing? That doesn't make sense.
> It's the extreme precision ultra pure processing that makes it expensive, not the bulk materials.
That's my whole point. The expensive part is left behind because it doesn't have anything to do with batteries. The part that's left over is fancy sand and a mylar-making machine. The same machine used to make the very cheapest solar cells, the kinds in old calculators. The kind of machine that made the monitor you're reading this on. Not the 9N part.
No... the question is how easy will it be for "Solar" companies to slide into becoming "Solar & Battery" companies.
Full solution - all with Silicon.
If that's possible - and they can improve the cycle count... or do it cheap enough to make up for a low cycle count... or all of it - improve it, make it cheaper AND under one roof?
Current solar panels have nothing in common with this manufacturing method. It uses a machine based on obsolete amorphous thin-film silicon solar cells. The article just indicates that the technology is understood, not that solar manufacturers can produce batteries.
Even if that were true, this is a release by a company... they aren't going to give away their technology for other people to use.
I never said this company would "give" away the technology... nor do they honestly have to produce it themselves.
That's what licensing agreements are for.
I just think that if I was a solar company that could use my equipment to produce batteries as well? That would be high on the priority list to include in packages...
You wouldn't want to combine a solar cell and a battery in a single package; maybe in a modular system instead. After some amount of charge/discharge cycles the battery will quickly lose its capacity and utility. I suspect the operational lifespan of photovoltaics is much greater than the best batteries, and will continue to be for some time in the future.
Are there any good websites to gauge battery development progress as opposed to the vital, but often ephemeral research progress.