MIT: Lighting the Way to Better Battery Technology

Supratim Das is determined to demystify lithium-ion batteries, by first understanding their flaws.  Photo: Lillie Paquette/School of Engineering

Doctoral candidate Supratim Das wants the world to know how to make longer-lasting batteries that charge mobile phones and electric cars.

Supratim Das’s quest for the perfect battery began in the dark. Growing up in Kolkata, India, Das saw that a ready supply of electric power was a luxury his family didn’t have. “I wanted to do something about it,” Das says. Now a fourth-year PhD candidate in MIT chemical engineering who’s months away from defending his thesis, he’s been investigating what causes the batteries that power the world’s mobile phones and electric cars to deteriorate over time.

Lithium-ion batteries, so-named for the movement of lithium ions that make them work, power most rechargeable devices today. The element lithium has properties that allow lithium-ion batteries to be both portable and powerful; the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to scientists who helped develop them in the late 1970s. But despite their widespread use, lithium-ion batteries, essentially a black box during operation, harbor mysteries that prevent scientists from unlocking their full potential. Das is determined to demystify them, by first understanding their flaws.

In principle, rechargeable batteries shouldn’t expire. In practice, however, they can only be recharged a finite number of times before they lose their ability to hold a charge. An ordinary battery eventually stops working when the terminals of the battery — called electrodes — are permanently altered by the ions passing from one terminal of the battery to the other. In a rechargeable battery, the electrodes recover when an external charger sends those ions back where they came from.

Lithium ion batteries work the same way. Typically, one electrode is made of graphite, and the other of lithium compounds with transition metals such as iron, cobalt, or nickel. At the lithium electrode, lithium atoms part ways with their electrons, swim through the battery fluid (electrolyte), and wait at the other electrode. Meanwhile, the electrons take the long way around. They flow out the battery, through a device that needs the power, and into the second electrode, where they rejoin the lithium ions. When a mobile phone is plugged in to be charged, the ions and electrons retrace their steps, and the battery can be used again.

When a battery is charged, however, not all the lithium ions make it back. Every charging cycle leaves ions straggling at the graphite electrode, and the battery loses capacity over time. Das found this perplexing, because it meant that draining a phone’s battery didn’t harm it, but recharging it did. He addressed this conundrum in a couple of open-access academic publications in 2019.

There was also another problem. When a battery is “fast-charged” — a feature that comes with many of the latest electronics — lithium ions start layering (plating) over the carbon electrode, instead of transporting (intercalating) into the material. Prolonged lithium plating can cause uncontrolled growth of fractal-like dendrites. This can cause short-circuiting, even fires.

In his doctoral research, Das and collaborators have been able to understand the microscopic changes that degrade a battery’s electrodes over its lifetime, and develop multiscale physics-based models to predict them in a robust manner at the macro-scale.

Such multiscale models can aid battery manufacturers to substantially reduce battery health diagnostics costs before it is incorporated into a device, and make batteries safer for consumers. In his latest project, he’s using that knowledge to investigate the best way of charging a lithium-ion battery without damaging it. Das hopes his contributions help scientists achieve further breakthroughs in battery science and make batteries safer, especially when the latest technology is often closely guarded by private companies. “What our group is trying to do is improve the quality of open access academic literature,” Das says. “So that when other people are trying to start their research in batteries, they don’t have to start at the theory from five to 10 years ago.”

Das is well-placed to walk between the worlds of academia and industry.

As an undergraduate in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Das learned that chemical engineers could use equations and experiments to invent technology like drugs and semi-conductors. “Just the fact that here I was in college, learning something that gave me the power to potentially impact the lives of N number of people in a positive manner, was utterly fascinating to me,” Das says. He also interned at a consumer goods company, where he realized that academia would allow him more freedom to pursue ambitious ideas.

In his sophomore year, Das wrote to a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, seeking an opportunity to do research. He flew out that summer, and spent weeks learning about high-power lithium-ion batteries. “It was an eye-opening experience,” Das recalls. He returned to his coursework, but the idea of working on batteries had taken hold. “I never thought that something I can do with my own hands can potentially make impact at the scale that battery technology does,” Das says. He continued working on research projects and made key contributions in the field of multiphase chemical reaction engineering during his undergraduate degree, and eventually wound up applying to the graduate program at MIT.

In his second year of graduate work, Das spent a semester as a technical consultant for Shell in Houston, Texas and Emirates Global Aluminum in Dubai. There, he learned lessons that would prove invaluable in his graduate work. “It taught me problem formulation,” Das says. “Identifying what is relevant for stakeholders; what to work on so as to best use the team’s skill sets; how to distribute your time.”

After Das’s experience in the field, he discovered that as a scientist he could share valuable knowledge about battery research and the future of the technology with energy economists. He also realized that policymakers considered their own criteria when investing in technology for the future.

Das believed that such a perspective would help him inform policy decisions as a scientist, so he decided that after completing his PhD, he would pursue an MBA focusing on energy economics and policy at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. “It will allow me to contribute more to society if I’m able to act as a bridge between someone who understands the hardcore, microscopic physics of a battery, and someone who understands the economic and policy implications of introducing that battery into a vehicle or a grid,” Das says.

Das believes that the program, which begins next fall, will allow him to work with other energy experts who bring their own knowledge and skills to the table. He understands the power of collaboration well: at college, Das was elected president of a dorm of 450-plus residents and worked with students and administration to introduce new facilities and events on campus. After arriving in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Das helped other students manage Ashdown House, represented chemical engineering students on the Graduate Student Advisory Board, and served in the leadership team for the MIT Energy Club, spearheading the organization of MIT EnergyHack 2019.

He also launched a community service initiative within the Department of Chemical Engineering; once a week, students mentor school children and volunteer at nonprofits in Cambridge. He was able to attract funding for his initiative and was awarded by the department for successfully mobilizing 80-plus students in the community within the span of a year. “I’m constantly surprised at what we can achieve when we work with other people,” Das says.

After all, other people have helped Das make it this far. “I owe a lot of success to a number of sacrifices my mom made for me, including giving up her own career,” he says. At MIT, he feels fortunate to have met mentors like his advisor, Martin Bazant, and Practice School directors Robert Fisher and Brian Stutts, and the many colleagues who have offered answers to his questions. “Here, I’ve discovered what it means to synergize with really smart people who are really passionate — and really nice at the same time,” Das says. “Grateful is the one word I’d use.”

EU’s Exploding Demand for Anode Materials for Lithium-Ion Batteries Creates Opportunity for Australia’s Talga Resources to Capture Significant Market Share as a Local ‘Non-Asia’ Source Provider

Posted By Graphene Council, Friday, June 26, 2020

Overwhelming European demand sees Australia’s battery anode company Talga Resources plan for expanded output at its new Swedish battery anode factory. Expressions of interest received for Talga’s lithium-ion battery anode products exceed 300% of planned annual capacity of the Vittangi Anode Project, the company says. Talnode products are now in 36 active commercial engagements covering the majority of planned European li-ion battery manufacturers and six major global automotive OEMs. Talga says it’s expanding the scale of the Niska scoping study for the Vittangi Project to review larger anode production options as a result of this significant interest. Li-ion battery megafactories are set to require more than 2.5 million tonnes per annum (tpa) active anode material by 2029, up from about 450,000 tpa anode production today, with Europe the fastest growing market. That’s because worldwide li-ion battery demand continues to rapidly increase, with global battery manufacturing capacity set to exceed 2.5 tera-Watt hours (TWh) per annum by 2029 across 142 battery plants. “Our engagement with European battery companies and automotive OEMs has grown rapidly, with customers attracted by the potential of locally produced anode at competitive costs and with world-leading sustainability,” Talga managing director Mark Thompson says. ”As we progress Talnode-C through commercial qualification stages with customers it is pleasing to note that interest now greatly exceeds our original planned production, and that the need to review expansion options has arisen this early.” The increased interest means the company is targeting completion of the Niska scoping study in Q3 2020. While COVID-19 has severely impacted EV sales in the short term, Bloomberg New Energy Finance data shows EV sales hold up better than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles due to new (lower cost) models and supportive government policies. In the quarters prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, EV sales as a percentage of total passenger vehicles rose rapidly in the EU, with Germany and France recording increases of 100% during the period. Numerous countries across Europe have implemented some form of financial incentives towards customer uptake of EVs, and post COVID-19 these have increased markedly in some countries. Talga is entering the European market at a time when 100% of anode supply is still sourced from Asia. The company’s marketing team reports that, post COVID-19, localisation is becoming an increasingly significant factor influencing customer’s purchasing decisions.

Promising Lithium Production from US Sedimentary Deposits – America’s ‘Lithium Valley’ may be Key to New Energy Economy

Lithium is an essential component of electric vehicle batteries which occurs abundantly in the Earth’s crust in many different forms, roughly classified as pegmatites (“hard rock”), brines, and sedimentary deposits (which you may sometimes hear erroneously generalized as “clays”)

America’s Lithium Valley

Do you think driving a Tesla or plugging-in to solar power are environmentally-conscious choices? Then you should know it’s almost certain the batteries in those systems traveled around the world two or three times before they were even installed. That’s not very “green,” is it? Lithium-ion batteries, found in so many things we use every day, often have a rather costly carbon footprint. That could soon change with a discovery that’s just a couple hours north of Tesla’s Gigafactory. A Canadian mining company, LithiumAmericas, identified what’s one of the world’s largest lithium deposits inside the footprint of an ancient volcano. NBCLX Storyteller Chase Cain takes us to the ancient volcano in Nevada that could hold the future of a green energy boom in the West.

Currently, only pegmatite and brine resources are used to produce lithium chemical products commercially.

But a host of new players aiming to produce lithium using sedimentary deposits in Western North America and around the world are coming on the scene.

The sedimentary deposit projects claim to take advantage of favorable chemistry of processing the sediments, sometimes described as the “best of both worlds” when compared to pegmatites and brines. In this article, I will share what are some of the most promising features of sedimentary deposit projects, who’s working on developing these deposits, and why investors and mainstream capital markets should take them seriously as future sources of lithium chemical products. It will be helpful to understand some of the pros and cons of processing pegmatites and brines into lithium chemical products to understand the “best of both worlds” argument for the sedimentary deposits.

Pegmatites

In pegmatites, lithium is strongly bound in crystal structures like aluminosilicates (Al, Si oxides) and because the lithium is so tightly bound in the structure, the mineral requires aggressive processing to remove it to make lithium chemicals.

Spodumene [(LiAl(SiO3)2] is the most widely mined lithium-bearing pegmatite, and has been successfully developed into a significant source of lithium commercially (representing around half of global supply in 2019). It is first dug up and crushed to smaller pieces. The crushed material is then “upgraded” to remove waste materials from the mine that are not spodumene and don’t contain lithium. Once upgraded, calcination (heating to ~1,000°C) is used to convert the crystal to a different structure that is more amenable to removing the lithium.

These high temperatures are typically generated using coal or natural gas, meaning the carbon footprint of roasting pegmatites is typically higher than processing of other lithium resources.

The roasting is a fundamental aspect of extraction of lithium from spodumene because of their crystal structure, and it is difficult to get around this. Some other pegmatites may not require this roasting step however.

Lithium Mining in Nevada

This calcination process is followed by a chemical treatment to extract the lithium. This gives a mostly pure lithium concentrate (called the leachate) which can be refined into lithium chemical products with a relatively simple technological approach involving addition of chemicals.

Pegmatites are a good source of lithium because they are easy to manipulate from a mining engineering perspective, and the leachate obtained from the chemical treatment isn’t heavily contaminated with elements with similar chemical characteristics to lithium (ex. alkali/alkaline earths like Na, K, Mg, Ca, Sr), meaning the impurities are easy to remove from the leachate. The waste produced from spodumene operations can be simply put aside or used for other applications like concrete manufacturing and other applications.

Lithium can be produced from other minerals like lepidolite and zinnwaldite using similar flowsheets to spodumene, but some modifications are required depending on the unique mineralogy.

Brines

Brine resources are very different from pegmatites from a lithium extraction and processing perspective.

Brines are high concentration salty reservoirs in which salts are dissolved (ex. Li, Na, K, Mg, Ca, Sr are common cations, or positively charged species, while Cl, SO4, BO3, and CO3 are common anions, or negatively charged species, in these resources). The minerals in brines start off as volcanic materials but over millions of years, rain and geochemical phenomena cause them to dissolve in water and concentrate in basins. Brines can be as high as 20-40% salt by mass, meaning that if you were to evaporate away the water from the brine, around 20-40% of the mass would be left behind as white or clear crystals.

Read More: US Lithium Mining May Get a Boost …

Brines are liquid, meaning that they need to be pumped to the surface for processing, not dug up and crushed like pegmatites are mined. This means that they do not require roasting or leaching operations to put the lithium into solution for further processing – the lithium is already dissolved. There are two ways to remove lithium from brines.

First, evaporation pond systems can be used to evaporate the water from the brine, leaving behind contaminant salts and an “end brine” of mostly lithium chloride which is processed into lithium carbonate by adding sodium carbonate. This process only works for high lithium concentration brines with low impurities in places with no rainfall, and there is concern that if brine is pumped out from too deep in the salar, freshwater may be sucked in, diluting the salar and destroying potable water resources used by humans.

Second, direct lithium extraction (DLE) processes can be used to remove lithium from the natural brine to produce a highly pure concentrate, leaving behind a “spent brine” containing all the original components of the natural brine but without the lithium. This spent brine needs to be reinjected and/or separated from the natural brine so that the two don’t mix, or else the natural lithium-bearing brine will be diluted by the spent brine containing no lithium, making it impossible to extract more lithium from the reservoir.

Sedimentary Deposits

As mentioned above, sedimentary deposits are considered to share some of the positive attributes of both pegmatites and brines. Sedimentary deposits are created when lithium is washed out of volcanic materials into basins where the salts and minerals dry, creating chemical structures in which the lithium is bound up in a mineral, but much less strongly compared to pegmatite resources. They typically have the consistency of dirt, not hard rock, and often break up when placed in water. If the lithium was not bound in a mineral at all, it would wash out in water forming a brine (this is typically not observed).

A number of leading projects are proposing not using any roasting, meaning the lithium is bound in the mineral with an “intermediate” strength compared to pegmatites and brines. A chemical leach is used to extract the lithium from the sediment, after which the waste sediment can be stored in mounds or back-filled into an open pit.

The lack of requirement to roast the sediment is a positive asset for these resources because it means that natural gas pipelines may not necessarily need to be built to process the sediment. Some projects report requiring upgrading of the sediment ore to remove contaminants which would “unnecessarily” consume acid, and in October 2019, only one project is proposing to use a roasting step in their flowsheet. The benefit of processing a sediment containing “loosely bound” lithium is that the solid waste can be easily disposed of without diluting the original resource, similar to the waste materials from after removing lithium from pegmatites.

The sedimentary deposit projects have some promising attributes for a future of supplying lithium to the battery industry, but reagent inputs will need to be optimized thoroughly for each individual project. Every sediment is different and the flowsheets of the different projects may look quite different. The chemistry of the sediments varies significantly (which is also the case for brines), and each project will need to take this into account. Currently, most public pre-feasibility studies show that tens to hundreds of times excess of reagents are used to create the lithium leachates. This implies low lithium concentrations in the leachate compared to pegmatite-derived leachates, and high concentrations of impurities like Na, K, and Mg.

This explains why most projects currently propose by-product sales to reduce apparent OPEX (electricity, sulfuric acid, boric acid, potash, etc.) because these are likely high OPEX flowsheets if they were “pure play” lithium.

Further, the high porosity and low particle size of the sediments mean that they “hold on” to leachate during leaching, and solid/liquid separations will be key to extracting most of the lithium as leachate from the spent ore. When this is done poorly, the ore “gums up” and a significant amount of lithium is lost with the waste.

The “in between” strength of how lithium is chemically bound in sediments results in some of their “best of both world” characteristics when compared to brines and pegmatites, and these strengths should be taken advantage of in future flowsheet development. New leaching techniques and reagent management flowsheets may be helpful in unlocking these sedimentary materials to produce high lithium concentration, low impurity concentration leachates that can be more easily processed into battery quality lithium chemical products. The sedimentary deposit lithium projects are young, but I believe that some of them will be built in the near future.

The healthy mining jurisdiction of Western North America, proximity of the deposits to American battery manufacturers, and potential for low carbon intensity means that they have excellent potential for helping supply lithium for batteries in the near future, and that they should be followed closely.

A map of these projects is seen below.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all those who influenced this article through including Anna Wall, Tom Benson, Gene Morgan, and Davd-Deak

Sealed cell improves oxide-peroxide conversion in lithium-ion battery

Sealed for success. Oxygen-free cells improve lithium-ion batteries. Credit: battery supply 866599918 iStock MF3d

A new high-energy density and stable lithium-ion battery that works by reversible oxide-peroxide conversion could help in the development of improved “sealed” battery technologies. This is the new result from a team of researchers in Japan and China who have designed an oxygen-free cell in which the Li₂O to Li₂O₂ reaction can take place.

Lithium-ion batteries are hitting the headlines this week with news of this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry being awarded to John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for the development of these devices.

Lithium is the material of choice in these batteries because it has a high specific capacity and low electrochemical potential. In recent years, focus has shifted from the rigid Li-intercalation structures commonly employed in the conventional heavy lithium-transition metal oxide cathodes used in these devices to Li-O₂ battery technology that exploits oxygen-related redox chemistries that have excellent theoretical gravimetric energy densities. 

Redox reaction between O₂ and Li₂O₂

These batteries work thanks to the redox reaction between O₂ and lithium peroxide, Li₂O₂. One of the main hurdles hindering their practical application, however, is that they require O₂ gas as the active species. This needs to be supplied by bulky O₂ storage or gas purification devices.

To overcome this problem, and the so-called O₂ crossover and electrolyte volatilization in these batteries, researchers led by Haoshen Zhou of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Nanjing University in China have now designed an O₂-free sealed environment for the Li₂O to Li₂O₂ reaction.

The sealed Li₂O/Li₂O₂ battery system and photographs of the principal investigators. Courtesy: H Zhou

High-energy density, rechargeable and stable Li-ion battery

Zhou and colleagues did this by embedding Li₂O nanoparticles into an iridium-reduced graphene oxide (Ir-rGO) catalytic substrate to successfully control the charging potential within a small region of the device and avoid the unwanted phenomenon of over-polarization.

“The choice of Ir nanoparticles as the catalyst is key, as is the conductive rGO substrate,” explains Zhou. “The Ir can effectively enhance the reaction kinetics and protect the newly formed Li₂O₂ from further decomposition (by the formation of the inter-metallic Li_2-xO₂-Ir compound formed on the particles/substrate interface) while the rGO allows for the remarkable electrical conductivity of the system.”

The researchers also restrained two other serious problems that beset sealed redox systems: the irreversible evolution of O₂ and the production of superoxide (an aggressive and dangerous product). They did this by controlling the degree of the electrochemical reaction and its cycling depth and thus succeeded in producing a reversible capacity for the device of 400 mAh/g, a value that fares well when compared to other cathode candidates for Li-ion batteries.

The result is a high-energy density (1090 Wh/kg), high energy efficiency (a mere 0.12 V polarization potential), rechargeable Li-ion battery technology that is stable over 2000 cycles with 99.5% coulombic efficiency.

READ MORE

Lithium-ion battery pioneers bag chemistry Nobel prize

 

Although he and his colleagues still need to fully understand the catalysis mechanism at play in the cell, Zhou believes that the sealed Li₂O/Li₂O₂ battery system could gradually replace today’s open-cell Li-O₂ batteries and even become a a “hot” topic for next-generation battery research. “From an applications viewpoint, the very competitive properties of the sealed system could help in the development of cathode materials for commercial Li-ion battery technology,” he tells Physics World.

The researchers, reporting their work in Nature Catalysis 10.1038/s41929-019-0362-z, say they are now looking for more effective catalysts to further boost the reversible capacity region in their device and enhance the reaction kinetics.

A Game-Changer For Lithium-Ion Batteries: Dalhousie University, Tesla’s Canadian Electrek and the University of Waterloo Discover New Disruptive LI-On Technology

The latest news in the battery space has been about alternatives to lithium-ion technology, which still dominates the space in electronics and cars but is being increasingly challenged from several directions, notably solid-state batteries.

Now, a team of researchers has reported they have improved lithium-ion batteries in a way that could discourage some challengers.

In a paper published in Nature magazine, the team, led by Jeff Dahn from Dalhousie University, reports they had designed more battery cells with higher energy density without using the solid-state electrolyte that many believe is a necessary condition for enhanced density.

What’s more, the battery cell the team designed demonstrated a longer life than some comparable alternatives.

The team from Dalhousie University was working with Tesla’s Canadian research and development team, Electrek notes in its report of the news, as well as the University of Waterloo.

The EV maker is probably the staunchest proponent of lithium-ion technology for electric car batteries, so it would make sense for it to continue investing in research that would keep the technology’s dominance in the face of multiple challengers.

Recently, for example, Japanese researchers announced they had successfully found a substitute for the lithium ions used in batteries and this substitute was much cheaper and more abundant: sodium.

Last year, scientists from the Australian University of Wollongong announced 

they had solved a problem with sodium batteries that made them too expensive to produce, namely a lot of the other materials used in such an installation besides the sodium itself.

Sodium batteries are among the more advanced challengers to lithium ion dominance, but like other alternatives to Li-ion batteries, they have been plagued by persistent problems with their performance. Even so, work continues to make them competitive with lithium-ion technology.

This fact has probably made li-ion proponents such as Tesla, who have invested substantial amounts in the technology, double their efforts to improve their batteries’ performance or reduce their cost.

As the most expensive component of an electric car, the battery is a top priority for R&D departments in the car-making industry. 

 

Related: Oil Industry Faces Imminent Talent Crisis

Earlier this year, German scientists saidthey had found a way to make lithium ion batteries charge much faster. Charing times are the second most important consideration after cost for potential EV buyers, and another priority for EV makers. What the scientists did was replace the cobalt oxide used in the cathode of a lithium ion battery with another compound, vanadium disulfide.

Millions of electric cars are expected to hit the roads in the coming years. From a certain perspective, the race to faster charging is the race that will make or break the long-term mainstream future of the EV, which, it turns out, is not as certain as some would think.

A J.D.Power survey recently revealed that people are not particularly crazy about EVs, and the reasons they are not crazy about them have to do a lot with the batteries: charging times and range, plus price. In this context, the battery improvement race could (and will) only intensify further.

India’s first foldable phone in 2019 will be a Samsung Galaxy, A50 with Infinity-O also in pipeline … What Will this Mean to the’Flexible Electronics Markets’?

The foldable Samsung smartphone will demand an extremely higher price for its foldable display technology. The Galaxy A50 will also bring the Infinity-O display technology to the Indian market.

• Rumours have stated that Samsung will either use a Snapdragon 855 or an Exynos 9820 chipset.
• Samsung said at the time that the phone will act as a conventional smartphone when folded with is a smaller display panel.
• The Galaxy A50 will be the first smartphone in India to offer Samsung’s Infinity-O display featuring narrow bezels.

Since Samsung showed off the foldable smartphone at the Samsung Developer Conference in October 2018, the world has been eager to see Samsung’s premium lineup for 2019. The Galaxy A8s unveiled a few weeks ago showed off the Infinity-O display with narrow bezels all around. Therefore, consumers are looking forward to an exciting smartphone lineup from Samsung for this year for the Indian markets. The good news is that India will also be one of the first few markets to enjoy Samsung’s latest and greatest.

According to a report from MySmartPrice, Samsung will unveil both the Galaxy Fold and Galaxy A50 within the next few months and India will witness them soon after. The Galaxy Fold will come to Indian market a few after weeks its launch in European markets. Rumours have stated that Samsung will either use a Snapdragon 855 or an Exynos 9820 chipset for powering the foldable smartphones. Additionally, it could feature 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage.

At the SDC 2018, Samsung mentioned that they were working with Google to optimise Android for the new foldable form factor. The optimisation with Google will make all apps, as well as the entire Android interface, adapt to the newer display. Samsung said at the time that the phone will act as a conventional smartphone when folded with is a smaller display panel. When unfolded, the device will reveal a large tablet-like display for a bigger viewing experience.

It is also known that the Galaxy Fold will feature dual batteries. Each half of the device will contain a battery, which means the Galaxy Fold could end up having a total battery capacity of up to 6000mAh. This would be necessary considering the demanding nature of the hardware as well as the software. The report also states a probable price for the Galaxy Fold. Samsung could eventually end offering the most expensive smartphones in its history by selling the Galaxy Fold for around $2,000 (approximately Rs 1,50,000). The device would be available in limited numbers as well.

Apart from the Galaxy Fold, Samsung will also bring the much-awaited Galaxy A50 to the Indian market. The A50 will be the first smartphone in India to offer Samsung’s Infinity-O display featuring narrow bezels. The panel will be Samsung’s Super AMOLED one rendering a full HD+ pixel resolution. The A50 is also rumoured to sport an in-display fingerprint sensor. Underneath, the A50 will be powered by an Exynos 9610 chipset accompanied by 4GB RAM and offered with a choice of either 64GB or 128GB storage variants. The A50 will be powered by Samsung’s OneUI based on Android 9 Pie out of the box. The A50 is also expected to kept alive by a 4000mAh battery.

The Galaxy A50 will be a midrange smartphone in India, with prices expected to start under Rs 25,000. The A50 is expected to be announced a few weeks after the Galaxy S10 is unveiled. The Infinity-O display is expected to trickle down to other budget Samsung smartphones in the future as well.

It is also known that the Galaxy Fold will feature dual batteries. Each half of the device will contain a battery, which means the Galaxy Fold could end up having a total battery capacity of up to 6000mAh. This would be necessary considering the demanding nature of the hardware as well as the software. The report also states a probable price for the Galaxy Fold. Samsung could eventually end offering the most expensive smartphones in its history by selling the Galaxy Fold for around $2,000 (approximately Rs 1,50,000). The device would be available in limited numbers as well.

Apart from the Galaxy Fold, Samsung will also bring the much-awaited Galaxy A50 to the Indian market. The A50 will be the first smartphone in India to offer Samsung’s Infinity-O display featuring narrow bezels. The panel will be Samsung’s Super AMOLED one rendering a full HD+ pixel resolution. The A50 is also rumoured to sport an in-display fingerprint sensor. Underneath, the A50 will be powered by an Exynos 9610 chipset accompanied by 4GB RAM and offered with a choice of either 64GB or 128GB storage variants. The A50 will be powered by Samsung’s OneUI based on Android 9 Pie out of the box. The A50 is also expected to kept alive by a 4000mAh battery.

The Galaxy A50 will be a midrange smartphone in India, with prices expected to start under Rs 25,000. The A50 is expected to be announced a few weeks after the Galaxy S10 is unveiled. The Infinity-O display is expected to trickle down to other budget Samsung smartphones in the future as well.

ALSO READ | 

Samsung foldable phone may come with triple cameras like the Galaxy A7 (2018)

Samsung’s foldable smartphone may get a massive 6,000mAh battery and a lot of memory

Samsung will reportedly manufacture at least 1 million units of its foldable phone

Tenka Energy, Inc. Building Ultra-Thin Energy Dense SuperCaps and NexGen Nano-Enabled Pouch & Cylindrical Batteries – Energy Storage Made Small and POWERFUL! YouTube Video

** A ‘Flex-form high Power density and Cycle Life battery from Tenka Energy could be just what this phone will need to EXCEL! **

Lithium vs Hydrogen – EV’s vs Fuel Cells – A New Perspective of Mutual Evolution

Electric vehicle sales are pumping, with an ever-expanding network of charging stations around the world facilitating the transition from gas-guzzling automobiles, to sleek and technologically adept carbon-friendly alternatives.

With that in mind, the community of car and energy enthusiasts still continue to open up the old ‘Who would win in a fight, lithium vs hydrogen fuel cell technology?’.

 

Are hydrogen fuel cell cars doomed?

Imagine being the disgruntled owner of a hydrogen-powered car, only for lithium batteries to completely take the reigns of the industry and in effect, make your vehicle obsolete. It’s not really that wild of a notion, it’s far closer to reality than you may realize, as most electric car vehicle manufacturers consider lithium to be the battery of choice, and a more progressive development tool.

Any rechargeable device in your home, like your portable battery, your camera or even your iPhone, is using lithium. It’s clearly felt in the tech world that this is the path of least resistance for the future, but what does that mean for hydrogen fuel cell technology?

In 2017, with BMW announcing a 75% increase in BEV (Battery Electric Vehicles) sales, Hyundai came out and announced that they were going to focus almost entirely on lithium batteries. They’re not abandoning their fuel cell programme, but their next line of 10 electric vehicles will feature only 2 hydrogen options. Hyundai Executive VP Lee Kwang-guk stated, “We’re strengthening our eco-friendly car strategy, centering on electric vehicles”.

Is it likely that other manufacturers will follow suit? Well, with Tesla’s Elon Musk personally stating a preference for lithium (he called hydrogen fuel ‘incredibly dumb’), and both Toyota and Honda indicating that they will pour R&D funds into this type of battery (despite earlier hesitation), the answer seems to be ‘well, we already have’.

READ MORE:

Toyota vs Tesla – Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles vs Electric Cars

 (Article Continued Below)

Do ‘refueling’ and ‘recharging’ stations hold the key to success?

Did you know that as of May 2017 there were only 35 hydrogen refueling stations in the entire US, with 30 of those in California? Compared to the 16,000 electric vehicle refueling stations already available in the US, with more on the way, it would seem that the logical EV purchaser would opt for a car with a lithium battery. In China, there are already more than 215,000 electric charging stations, with over 600,000 more in planning to make the East Asian nation’s road system more accommodating to EVs.

On January 30th, 2018, REQUEST MORE INFO, invested $5m into ‘FreeWire Technologies’, a manufacturer of rapid-charging systems for EVs. The plan is to install these charging systems in their gas stations all over the UK, though they did not disclose how many. So, even on the other side of the Atlantic, building a network of charging systems is a high priority.

With ‘Range Anxiety’ (the fear that your battery will run out of juice before the next charging point) being a common concern for EV owners, the noticeably growing network of refueling stations, including those with ‘fast charge’ options, are seeming to settle down the crowd of anxious early adopters.

 

Will the market dictate the winner in the lithium vs hydrogen car battery ‘war’?

If we look at the effects of supply and demand, the early clarity of lithium batteries as the battery of choice for alternative energy vehicles meant that there were a great time and cause for development. As a result, between 2010 and 2016, lithium battery production costs reduced by 73%.

If this trajectory continues, price parity is a when, not an if, and that when could well be encouraging you to take a trip down to your local EV dealership for an upgrade.

Demand for EVs instead of hydrogen fuel cell technology means that some of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers are showing a strong lean towards lithium batteries.

Hyundai, Honda, and VW are all putting hydrogen on the back burner. And whilst market demand for hydrogen is considerably lower, Toyota remains keen on fighting this battle, which they have been researching for around 25 years.

Their theory that hydrogen and lithium battery powered vehicles must be developed ‘at the same speed’ is a dogged one.

You could say their self-belief was completely rewarded by their faith in the Prius, with over 5 million global sales and comfortable status as the top-selling car (ever) in Japan, so there will be many who tune in to the Toyota line of thinking and overlook the market sentiment.

Price will always play a role in purchasing decisions, and with scalable cost reduction methods not yet visible or available for hydrogen fuel cell technology, it looks like lithium is going to be the battery that opens wallets.

 

Can lithium and hydrogen car batteries coexist?

Sure, they can co-exist, but ultimately one technology is going to come close to a monopoly while the other becomes a collector’s item, a novelty, just a blip in technological history. That’s just one theory of course. 

Another theory is that the pockets in which hydrogen fuel cell vehicles already exist and are somewhat popular, like Japan and California, will use their powerful economies to almost force their success.

Why would they do this? Because the vehicles are far more expensive than EVs by comparison, they had to start in wealthy regions, install fuelling stations and slowly spread out into other affluent neighborhoods.

It’s a long game that relies heavily on wealthy regions opting to choose the expensive inconvenience, a feat which could arguably be achieved simply by creating the most visually compelling vehicles rather than the most efficient. Style over substance, for lack of a better phrase.

Take a look! See how Lithium powers the world…

 

Which will stand the test of time?

Looking at this from a scientific perspective, one might say ‘Well, lithium is limited, whereas hydrogen is the most abundant gas in our atmosphere’, and one would be correct. However, science doesn’t always simplify things. Hydrogen is really hard and inefficient to capture, and therein lies a huge obstacle.

Hydrogen fuel is hard to make and distribute, too, with a very high refill cost. The final kick in the teeth is that the technology required to capture, make and distribute all of that hydrogen is not very good for the environment, and is arguably no ‘cleaner’ than gasoline. That same technology uses more electricity in the hydrogen-creation process than is currently needed to recharge lithium batteries, and therein lies the answer to this whole debate, right?

We aren’t saying lithium batteries will be around forever, but they’re more adaptable, useful, scalable and affordable as a technology, right now.

By the time hydrogen fuel cell technology is affordable to the average consumer, we will hopefully have found a true clean energy source.

 

Conclusion: Will the lithium vs hydrogen debate ever be over?

Lithium is this, hydrogen is that, EVs are this and that, HFCs are that and this. The cycle will perpetuate until it becomes clear which is the definitive solution, at least that’s the belief of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who said ‘There’s no need for us to have this debate. I’ve said my piece on this, it will be super obvious as time goes by.’

To be fair though, this quote from George W Bush would beg to differ, when he is quoted as saying ‘Fuel cells will power cars with little or no waste at all. We happen to believe that fuel cell cars are the wave of the future; that fuel cells offer incredible opportunity’. Well, George, you may have been right back in 2003, but this is 2018.

Article Provided By

Mike Kakogiannakis

Mike is Chief Operating Officer of Dubuc Motors, a startup dedicated to the commercialization of electric vehicles targeting niche markets within the automotive industry.

Next-Gen Lithium-Ion Batteries – Combining Graphene + Silicon Could it be the Key?

Researchers have long been investigating the use of silicon in lithium-ion batteries, as it has the potential to greatly increase storage capacity compared to graphite, the material used in most conventional lithium-ion batteries. By some estimates, silicon could boast a lithium storage capacity of 4,200 mAh/g—11 times that of graphite.

However, despite its benefits, silicon comes with its own challenges.

“When you store a lot of lithium ion into your silicon you actually physically extend the volume of silicon to about 3 to 3.8 times its original volume—so that is a lot of expansion,” explained Bor Jang, PhD, in an exclusive interview with R&D Magazine. “That by itself is not a big problem, but when you discharge your battery—like when you open your smart phone—the silicon shrinks. Then when you recharge your battery the silicon expands again. This repeated expansion and shrinkage leads to the breakdown of the particles inside of your battery so it loses its capacity.”

Jang offers one solution—graphene, a single layer sheet of carbon atoms tightly bound in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice.

“We have found that graphene plays a critical role in protecting the silicon,” said Jang, the CEO and Chief Scientist of Global Graphene Group. The Ohio-based advanced materials organization has created GCA-II-N, a graphene and silicon composite anode for use in lithium-ion batteries.

The innovation—which was a 2018 R&D 100 Award winner—has the potential to make a significant impact in the energy storage space. Jang shared more about graphene, GCA-II-N and its potential applications in his …

Interview with R&D Magazine:

 

           Photo Credit: Global Graphene Group

 

R&D Magazine: Why is graphene such a good material for energy storage?

Jang: From the early beginning when we invited graphene back in 2002 we realized that graphene has certain very unique properties. For example, it has very high electrical conductivity, very high thermal conductivity, it has very high strength—in fact it is probably the strongest material known to mankind naturally. We thought we would be able to make use of graphene to product the anode material than we can significantly improve not only the strength of the electrode itself, but we are also able to dissipate the heat faster, while also reducing the changes for the battery to catch fire or explode.

Also graphene is extremely thin—a single layer graphene is 0.34 nanometer (nm). You can imagine that if you had a fabric that was as thin as 0.34 nanometers in thickness, than you could use this material to wrap around just about anything. So it is a very good protection material in that sense. That is another reason for the flexibility of this graphene material.

 

 

Read More: Talga’s graphene silicon product extends capacity of Li-ion battery anode

Another interesting feature of graphene is that is a very high specific surface area. For instance if I give you 1.5 grams of single layer graphene it will be enough to cover an entire football stadium. There is a huge amount of surface area per unit weight with this material.

That translates into another interesting property in the storage area. In that field that is a device called supercapacitors or ultracapacitors. The operation of supercapacitors depends upon conducting surface areas, like graphene or activated carbon. These graphene sheets have, to be exact, 2630 meters squared per gram. That would give you, in principle, a very high capacity per unit gram of this material when you use it as an electron material for supercapacitors. There is are so many properties associated with graphene for energy applications, those are just examples, I could talk about this all day!

 

 

R&D Magazine: Where is the team currently with the GCA-II-N and what are the next steps for this project?

Jang: Last year we began to sell the product. In Dayton, OH, where we are situated at the moment we have a small-scale manufacturing facility. It is now about a 50-metric-ton capacity facility and we can easily scale it up. We have been producing mass qualities of this and then delivering them to some of the potential customers for validation. We are basically in the customer validation stage for this business right now.

We will continue to do research and development for this project. We will eventually manufacture the batteries here in the U.S., but at the moment we are doing the anode materials only.

R&D Magazine: What types of customers are showing interest in this technology?

Jang: Electrical vehicles are a big area that is growing rapidly, particularly in areas in Asia such as China. The electrical vehicle industry is taking the driver’s seat and is driving the growth of this business worldwide right now. E-bikes and electronic scooters are another rapidly growing business where this could be used.

Another example is your smart phone. Right now, if you continue to use your phone you may be able to last for half a day or maybe a whole day if you push it. This technology has the ability to double the amount of energy that could be stored in your battery. Electronic devices is another big area for application of this technology. 

A third area is in the energy storage business, it could be utilized to store solar energy or wind energy after it has been captured. Lithium-ion batteries are gaining a lot of ground in this market right now.

Right now, another rapidly growing area is the drone. Drones are used, not only for fun, but for agricultural purposes or for surveillance purposes, such as during natural disasters.  Drones are seeing a lot of applications right now and batteries are very important part of that.

R&D Magazine: Are there any challenges to working with graphene?

Jang: One of the major challenges is that graphene by itself is still a relatively high cost. We are doing second-generation processes right now, and I think in a couple of years we should be able to significantly reduce the cost of graphene. We are also working on a third generation of processes that would allow us to reduce the cost even further. That is a major obstacle to large-scale commercialization of all graphene applications.

The second challenge is the notion of graphene as a so-called ‘nanomaterial’ in thickness that a lot customers find it difficult to disperse in water or disperse in organic solvent or plastic in order to combine graphene with other types of materials, make a composite out of it. Therefor people are resistant to use it. We have found a way to overcome this either real challenge, or perceived challenge. We can do that for a customer and then ship that directly to the customer.

There is also an education challenge. It is sometimes difficult to convince engineers, they want to stick with the materials they are more familiar with, even though the performance is better with graphene. That is a barrier as well. However, I do think it is becoming more well known.

Laura Panjwani

Editor-in-chief R & D Magazine

Boosting lithium ion batteries capacity 10X with Tiny Silicon Particles – University of Alberta

U of Alberta chemists Jillian Buriak, Jonathan Veinot and their team found that nano-sized silicon particles overcome a limitation of using silicon in lithium ion batteries. The discovery could lead to a new generation of batteries …more

University of Alberta chemists have taken a critical step toward creating a new generation of silicon-based lithium ion batteries with 10 times the charge capacity of current cells.

“We wanted to test how different sizes of silicon nanoparticles could affect fracturing inside these batteries,” said Jillian Buriak, a U of A chemist and Canada Research Chair in Nanomaterials for Energy.

Silicon shows promise for building much higher-capacity batteries because it’s abundant and can absorb much more lithium than the graphite used in current lithium ion batteries. The problem is that silicon is prone to fracturing and breaking after numerous charge-and-discharge cycles, because it expands and contracts as it absorbs and releases lithium ions.

Existing research shows that shaping silicon into nano-scale particles, wires or tubes helps prevent it from breaking. What Buriak, fellow U of A chemist Jonathan Veinot and their team wanted to know was what size these structures needed to be to maximize the benefits of silicon while minimizing the drawbacks.

The researchers examined silicon nanoparticles of four different sizes, evenly dispersed within highly conductive graphene aerogels, made of carbon with nanoscopic pores, to compensate for silicon’s low conductivity. They found that the smallest particles—just three billionths of a metre in diameter—showed the best long-term stability after many charging and discharging cycles.

“As the particles get smaller, we found they are better able to manage the strain that occurs as the silicon ‘breathes’ upon alloying and dealloying with lithium, upon cycling,” explained Buriak.

The research has potential applications in “anything that relies upon energy storage using a battery,” said Veinot, who is the director of the ATUMS graduate student training program that partially supported the research.

“Imagine a car having the same size battery as a Tesla that could travel 10 times farther or you charge 10 times less frequently, or the battery is 10 times lighter.”

Veinot said the next steps are to develop a faster, less expensive way to create silicon nanoparticles to make them more accessible for industry and technology developers.

The study, “Size and Surface Effects of Silicon Nanocrystals in Graphene Aerogel Composite Anodes for Lithium Ion Batteries,” was published in Chemistry of Materials.

 Explore further: Toward cost-effective solutions for next-generation consumer electronics, electric vehicles and power grids

More information: Maryam Aghajamali et al. Size and Surface Effects of Silicon Nanocrystals in Graphene Aerogel Composite Anodes for Lithium Ion Batteries, Chemistry of Materials (2018). DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b03198

Journal reference: Chemistry of Materials  

Provided by: University of Alberta

Watch a YouTube Video about an Energy Storage Company Tenka Energy, Inc., that has developed and prototyped the NextGen of silicon-lithium-ion batteries for EV’s, Drones, Medical Sensors ….

Tenka Energy, Inc. Building Ultra-Thin Energy Dense SuperCaps and NexGen Nano-Enabled Pouch & Cylindrical Batteries – Energy Storage Made Small and POWERFUL!

via @Genesisnanotech #greatthingsfromsmallthings #energystorage

Lithium ion Battery Tech gets a ‘Cool’ rival: Frozen Liquid Air – Could LAES ‘de-throne’ the King?

In a bid to help scale renewable energy, many companies are working on new ways to store energy long-term. But the plain old battery is still king. Can ultra-cold liquid air make all the difference?

Elon Musk’s Tesla took less than 100 days to install its Hornsdale Power Reserve – the world’s largest lithium ion battery – in dusty, sunny South Australia, following a Twitter bet. UK-based Highview Power has been a bit slower than that. After years of delays, its Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) plant near Manchester has come online.

It’s the world’s first grid-scale liquid air energy storage plant – and with off-the-shelf components, it’s relatively easy and cheap to build and to scale. Air is cooled down, made liquid, and stored in tanks for weeks until you need electricity again. Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?

While it’s certainly a moment of success for alternative energy storage, don’t break out the confetti yet: lithium ion isn’t about to give up its crown, says Dan Finn-Foley, a senior analyst at GTM Research. In the US alone, li-ion battery technology accounts for more than 95 per cent of annual storage deployments. But batteries, even the most efficient ones, fail to store energy for longer than a few hours.

So where does it leave solar and wind power, with their need to smooth out the supply peaks and troughs?

“Alternative energy storage could be a holy grail for the grid, a missing link that could get us towards renewables much faster,” explains Ravi Manghani, the director of the energy storage section of GTM Research.

One thing is certain: without reliable energy storage technology, the world will struggle to wean itself off dirty coal and other fossil fuels. If an economy and society wants to rely on renewables on a massive scale, it needs a backup solution. Renewables are growing fast – last year, 29 per cent of all electricity in the UK was generated by renewable energy plants; in Germany, it was 33 per cent.

But the sun doesn’t shine at night, and wind doesn’t always blow. Right now, the storage market is dominated by lithium ion battery technology, but despite Tesla’s worldwide total of one gigawatt-hour of energy storage, the available batteries can last about eight hours tops. “We absolutely must install multiple days worth of energy storage – we can’t get away with four to six hours only,” says Manghani.

Storing electricity for longer

Hornsdale Power Reserve 100 MW storage system can provide 129 megawatt-hours of electricity and is connected to the Hornsdale Wind Farm. Its primary aim is to increase grid stability during system contingencies events like extremely hot summer afternoons, or when a large gas plant will trip – it improves the grid’s ability to cope with small blips in energy generation, which typically means replacing about one to one and half hour of energy supply.

“It’s designed to handle very short duration contingency needs,” says Finn-Foley. That’s why batteries simply can’t provide peak power, or compete with and replace so-called ‘peaker’ plants – power plants like natural gas power stations that are only switched on to fill the gap at times of peak energy demand. They also can’t help extend the use of solar power to later in the day. “You’ll need 10 to 12 hours of continuous discharge duration, which means you’ll need four times the battery or more,” says Finn-Foley.

That’s where alternative energy storage technologies could change things.

Currently, the best long-duration energy storage solutions are thermal storage, pumped hydro, compressed air energy storage – and the newest kid on the block, liquid air energy storage. There are also alternative battery technologies such as flow batteries, which researchers believe may one day scale up to discharge energy for longer than lithium ion.

At the end of the day, though, it all comes down to cost. And developing and operating novel tech is not cheap. The cost of lithium ion batteries, meanwhile, keeps on plummeting, thanks to the ever-surging demand for consumer electronics and electric cars, with all the giga and megafactories mushrooming around the globe. Over the past few years, li-ion battery prices dropped by more than 60 per cent – and are expected to fall by another 40 per cent by 2022.

These cost drops are impressive – but while batteries are good for providing power over short timescales, they quickly get very expensive for storing large amounts of energy over hours and days.

What is liquid air energy storage?

Enter LAES. First dreamt up in the 1970s in the UK and then toyed with in the 1980s and 90s by Hitachi and Mitsubishi (without any proper pilot plants though), this tech has the potential to scale up at low cost, says professor Yulong Ding at the University of Birmingham, who together with Highview developed the technology.

LAES works by using electricity from the grid to cool atmospheric air until it liquifies, and then storing it in big tanks at low pressure at –196C – at a fraction of the air’s original volume. “The working principle is quite similar to a domestic fridge – just the temperature and pressure ranges are different,” says Ding. The air can stay in the tanks for weeks and even months, dissipating slowly – and the better the insulation, the slower it will vanish. “It can easily be kept in tanks for about two months,” adds Ding.

When you need to generate electricity, you just have to heat the air to ambient temperature. In the process it will expand a whopping 700 times, creating a lot of air pressure that can be used to spin a turbine in the same way that, say, steam would in conventional generators – and produce electricity.

Because it’s so similar to a traditional fridge, the individual components of LAES for cooling, storing, and re-pressurising gases can be bought quite cheaply off the shelf. “These are well-understood, decades and centuries-old processes that are highly cost-efficient,” says Finn-Foley. The only novel bit here, says Ding, is the integration of the different parts in the most-optimised way.

LAES is not that efficient, though: Tesla’s battery in Australia is 88 per cent efficient, while LAES is 60 to 70 per cent, says Manghani. But as batteries can only store energy for a few hours, if they need to supply energy for longer, they quickly get very costly.

LAES also cannot respond to grid signals in a matter of milliseconds like batteries do. On the upside, the liquid air project can provide energy in bulk, around a day’s worth of it (although the pilot can store just 5 MW of electricity – enough to power roughly 5,000 homes for about three hours; on a commercial scale, Manchester’s LAES plant could have the capacity of 50 MW).

Still, as the liquid air energy storage is so cheap and can scale easily, it could, potentially, fill a crucial gap in the successful energy ecosystem geared towards renewables. Why, then, is it just the UK looking into it? Jonathan Radcliffe, an energy researcher at the University of Birmingham, has a simple answer: because of the UK’s ambitious plans for electricity generation from offshore wind in the 2020s. Also, he adds, “as an island, we have fewer connections to other electricity networks that could help balance supply and demand”.

Manghani is even more prosaic: the world isn’t ready for LAES just yet. Even at the scale of current use of renewables in countries like Germany and Australia, “there is no market out there that needs such longer duration of storage solutions,” he says – experimental plants like LAES are looking for a problem that doesn’t yet exist. But in a decade from now, once solar panel arrays and wind turbines produce more than 60 or 70 per cent of our energy, long-duration storage will be crucial. And we can’t wait a decade to start finding a viable solution, says Manghani – we have to get ready now.

De-Throning the king?

Highview claims that overall, LAES plants will be cheaper than lithium ion; if that’s confirmed at scale: “I expect the technology to go global quickly,” says Finn-Foley. But first, it has to start competing in multiple markets and applications, and existing regulations, as well as incentives to invest in energy storage, are a challenge.

The LAES plant “will need to operate for some time to demonstrate that they have truly worked out the kinks, says Finn-Foley. It also has to prove viability, which is tricky for a project that is supposed to run for decades. “Batteries degrade and must be replaced – but proving a forty-year lifetime is hard to do until you’ve run it for 40 years,” he adds.

But in the end of the day, alternative technologies aren’t trying to usurp li-ion’s throne, but “carve out their own kingdom, with applications and use cases that they think they can do better,” he says. “So far they have been unsuccessful, but a pilot project proving cost-effectiveness is a crucial step.” For the next five years though, he says, “lithium ion will keep the crown”.

From “Wired” By K. MOSKVITCH