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Building a Better Lithium Battery
Last year I wrote about A Battery That Could Change The World, which addressed the development of a solid-state lithium battery that won't catch fire if damaged. More recently, I wrote about a different approach to the problem of fires in lithium-ion batteries, which quickly dissipates the heat released from a fire in a cell before it can spread.
Development of better batteries is critical as more electric vehicles hit the roads, and as electric utilities seek better options for storing power from intermittent renewables. In addition, lithium-ion batteries have become ubiquitous in our lives through any number of consumer electronics.
Three key issues that companies are working to address are safety, energy density, and cost. Safety mainly concerns the possibility that lithium-ion batteries can catch fire if damaged. The two aforementioned stories are mostly focused on that aspect of the problem.
The problem of energy density concerns the ability to store energy in a specific volume (or weight). Batteries have low energy density compared to liquid fuels. Gasoline, for example, has about 100 times the volumetric energy density of a Li-ion battery pack. However, the greater efficiency of an electric motor versus a combustion engine substantially narrows the gap for usable energy.
Finally, batteries have historically been an expensive way to store energy. According to the Energy Information Administration, in recent years the cost to install large-scale battery storage systems was typically thousands of dollars per kilowatt (kW). In comparison, the capital costs of producing electricity by power plants can be under $1,000/kW. Importantly, lower battery storage costs would be a critical enabler for utilities seeking to incorporate higher levels of intermittent renewables into the power mix.
It isn't surprising that companies are working to solve each of these battery challenges. But the solution to one problem can create another.
Consider energy density. Lithium-metal batteries allow for much higher energy density than lithium-ion batteries by using lithium-metal electrode instead of graphite electrode. But lithium deposits called dendrites can spontaneously grow from the lithium metal electrodes whenever the battery is being charged. If these dendrites bridge the gap between the anode and cathode (the two opposite electrodes in a battery), a short circuit results. This can cause the battery to fail, which may result in a fire or explosion.
The lithium-ion battery was a solution to this problem. The dendrite problem can be resolved by replacing the lithium-metal electrode with a carbon electrode that has a layered sheet structure (i.e., graphite), which hosts discrete tiny lithium ions between the layers. However, the result is a lower lithium storage capacity than a battery utilizing a solid, continuous lithium-metal electrode.
Solving the Dendrite Problem
An ideal battery would contain solid lithium electrodes while avoiding the dendrite problem. A company called Zeta Energy, using technology licensed from a top university, believes it has created just such a solution.
I recently spoke to Zeta Energy CEO Charles Maslin, who explained that Zeta is the sixth Greek letter and corresponds to carbon, the sixth element in the periodic table. Zeta potential is also a measure of the effective electric charge on a nanoparticle surface.
In an interview I conducted with Maslin, he provided a description of the new battery along with peer-reviewed data from the 10+ years of research and testing that led to its development.
The key innovation in the Zeta battery is a hybrid anode created from graphene and carbon nanotubes. The resulting three-dimensional carbon anode approaches the theoretical maximum for storage of lithium metal &#; about 10 times the lithium storage capacity of graphite used in lithium-ion batteries.
According to published research, the hybrid anode is one of the best-known conductors of electricity, and when the battery is charged, lithium metal is deposited on the sidewalls of the carbon nanotubes and in the pores between the nanotubes. These are chemically bonded to the surface of the graphene that is in turn chemically bonded to a copper substrate. The graphene-carbon nanotube-copper connections introduce no additional electrical resistance that is typically generated at the interface when electrode materials are coated on copper in batteries. This means no heat is generated at this interface.
The combination of a dendrite-free electrode with the seamless interface enables fast charging and discharging of the Zeta battery, unlike in a graphite-based lithium-ion battery where very fast charging can cause lithium dendrites to form on top of graphite. No resistance at the interface means electrons can travel to the electrode much more rapidly. The Zeta battery can thus be charged safely within a few minutes.
More Energy, Less Cost
Despite the breakthrough, building the ideal battery requires more than perfecting the anode. A cathode that matches the high capacity anode is required to unleash the boost in energy density, but current cathodes do not have enough capacity to match the lithium metal anode.
Zeta&#;s second key innovation is a hybrid cathode created from sulfur and carbon, which has 8 times the capacity of current cathodes based on metal oxide. Thus, Zeta&#;s anode-cathode combination means a packaged lithium-sulfur battery with three times the energy storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries.
Further, Zeta has eliminated the use of expensive metals such as cobalt in its battery. That translates to a significant reduction in battery cost. Though others have been trying to develop sulfur-based cathode for decades, they just could not get it to cycle well, and the battery dies after just a couple of hundred cycles at most. Maslin explained that Zeta has succeeded in stabilizing the sulfur cathode and pointed to test results that show it can be cycled with minimal capacity loss over thousands of cycles.
Furthermore, the Zeta lithium-sulfur battery does not self-discharge to any appreciable extent and holds charge for a significantly long time, thus boasting a superb shelf life. A major battery performance concern is self-discharge &#; you charge the battery then store it, but when you use it later, only a fraction of the stored battery capacity is left.
Based on Zeta&#;s measurements, it is estimated that more than 90% of its battery capacity will remain after 10 years of storage at full charge, unlike regular lithium-ion batteries that will have at best 10% capacity over the same period of storage. That means the Zeta battery is ready to work after virtually any period of storage.
In summary, the Zeta battery addresses both energy density and safety. Test results published in several scientific journals including Nature Magazine show that the Zeta battery has:
Up to 3 times the energy storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries
Faster charge time (minutes instead of hours)
Lower battery temperature
Little degradation over charge/recharge cycles
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Outstanding shelf life
Significantly lighter than lithium-ion batteries
Zero cobalt
Significantly lower cost than lithium-ion batteries
Conclusions
If their research and test results are accurate, Zeta Energy may hold the new gold standard in energy storage. The technology appears to address multiple shortcomings of current lithium-ion batteries and has done so at a lower price point. These are exactly the kinds of breakthroughs that are needed if battery storage is to be adopted widely by utilities seeking to smooth out the intermittency of renewables like wind and solar power.
Researchers, top carmakers, and EV battery manufacturers have been looking to unlock the next game-changing technology to make safer and more durable batteries that can be recharged in minutes&#;solid-state batteries.
Many have claimed technological breakthroughs in recent months, and some of the world&#;s biggest legacy auto manufacturers are already drafting plans to begin mass production of solid-state batteries by the end of the decade.
The (re)search for the &#;holy grail&#; of batteries, as scientists have dubbed solid batteries, has seen many breakthrough announcements in recent months. Still, the next phase of implementing the technology looks more elusive, at least for now. No one has claimed yet to have found the secret to scaling up solid state battery manufacturing to put such batteries in electric vehicles and prove that the lab experiments of the super powerful, superfast chargeable, and super safe battery could work outside labs.
Solid Battery Breakthroughs
Solid state batteries, as the name suggests, use solid electrolyte, unlike the dominant lithium-ion batteries, which have a liquid electrolyte with lithium salts. The solid battery offers much higher energy density&#;they are packing more energy per volume or weight.
Solid-state batteries also enable faster charging and can withstand wider temperature ranges than lithium-ion batteries. And last but not least, solid batteries can be made of cheaper materials.
However, these batteries face their own set of hurdles to mass production. In the design stage, one of the biggest challenges has been how to prevent the formation of dendrites, needle-like crystals or &#;metal whiskers&#; that develop on the anode of the battery during charging. These dendrites can create a short circuit and reduce the safety and lifespan of a solid-state battery. Related: Two Countries That Could Break Putin's Gas Grip On Europe
Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) believe they may have overcome the dendrites problem in solid batteries.
Earlier this year, the scientists said they had developed a new lithium metal battery that can be charged and discharged at least 6,000 times &#; more than any other pouch battery cell &#; and can be recharged in a matter of minutes.
In the new research, published in Nature Materials in January, the team led by Xin Li, Associate Professor of Materials Science at SEAS and senior author of the paper, were able to stop dendrites from forming. They have used micron-sized silicon particles in the anode to constrict the reaction and facilitate homogeneous plating of a thick layer of lithium metal.
In the novel design, when lithium ions move during charging, the reaction is constricted at the shallow surface, and the ions attach to the surface of the silicon particle but don&#;t penetrate further, the team said.
&#;In our design, lithium metal gets wrapped around the silicon particle, like a hard chocolate shell around a hazelnut core in a chocolate truffle,&#; Li says.
&#;Lithium metal anode batteries are considered the holy grail of batteries because they have ten times the capacity of commercial graphite anodes and could drastically increase the driving distance of electric vehicles,&#; the scientist noted.
The researchers built a postage stamp-sized pouch cell version of the battery, which was found to retain 80% of its capacity after 6,000 cycles, outperforming other pouch cell batteries on the market today, they say.
In separate research, scientists at the University of Liverpool in the UK have synthesized a solid material that rapidly conducts lithium ions and demonstrated it in a battery cell. According to the researchers who published their paper in the journal Science, the new material, which consists of non-toxic earth-abundant elements, has high enough lithium-ion conductivity to replace the liquid electrolytes in current lithium-ion battery technology, improving safety and energy capacity.
Race to Launch Mass Production
While scientists are working on the &#;holy grail&#; design, battery manufacturers and automakers, both in China and the West, are advancing their own solid battery projects.
In China, a government-led initiative, China All-Solid-State Battery Collaborative Innovation Platform (CASIP), has grouped together EV battery manufacturer CATL, electric vehicle maker BYD, and academia to work on revolutionizing the EV market with solid batteries, business publication Nikkei Asia reported last month.
In Japan, Toyota said last year that recent technological advancements by Toyota have overcome the challenge of shorter battery life of solid batteries, and &#;the company has switched its focus to putting solid-state batteries into mass production.&#; Toyota&#;s goal is to have a solid-state battery ready for commercial use by -.
&#;We will be rolling out our electric vehicles with solid-state batteries in a couple of years from now,&#; Vikram Gulati, the India head of Toyota Kirloskar Motor, said earlier this year, as quoted by Reuters.
PowerCo, the battery company of the Volkswagen Group, said earlier this year that the solid-state cell of U.S. company QuantumScape has significantly exceeded the requirements in the A-sample test and successfully completed more than 1,000 charging cycles.
&#;The final result of this development could be a battery cell that enables long ranges, can be charged super-quickly and practically does not age,&#; PowerCo chief executive Frank Blome said.
The next step on the way to series production is now to perfect and scale the manufacturing processes, Volkswagen noted.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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