Posted on 05/06/2024 11:49:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
A new type of hybrid sodium-ion battery that offers both high capacity and rapid-charging capabilities could power mobile devices, electric vehicles and space tech.
Researchers have developed a new coin-type sodium-based battery that can charge rapidly “in seconds” and could potentially power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVs) in the future.
By combining anode materials used in conventional batteries with cathodes from supercapacitors — batteries that can store and deliver energy at very high rates –– the scientists created a new type of sodium-ion battery that offers both high capacity and rapid-charging capabilities.
They were looking for a way to overcome the current limitations of sodium-ion energy storage — touted as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries — and described their findings in a study published March 29 in the journal Energy Storage Materials.
The new sodium-ion hybrid fuel cells could serve as a "viable next-generation alternative to lithium-ion batteries," the researchers said in a joint statement, with applications ranging from laptops and mobile devices to electric vehicles and aerospace technologies.
Sodium is significantly more abundant than lithium –– up to 1,000 times more, the researchers said –– making sodium-ion batteries potentially cheaper and more sustainable to produce than the lithium-ion batteries currently used to power most EVs and consumer electronics.
However, existing sodium-ion batteries offer lower power output and storage capacity than lithium-ion batteries and take longer to charge, thus limiting their potential applications. In the new study, the researchers sought a way to tackle the shortcomings of the technology.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
LOL. Do these people even think for just a second or two about the implications of their claims? What kind of connection from the grid are you going to have to have if you’re going to be able do dump that much power through an outlet “in seconds”?
And fusion power, cheap and plentiful, is just 20 years away (or was it 10?) forever....
Charging future EVs could take seconds
aka lighting the fuse
The elephant in the room when it comes to EV’s is the dirty batteries they use and if they can be recycled cheaply.
If they can make them to where they charge in a few minutes, say the same time it takes to fuel up a vehicle with gas or diesel today, then a gradual organic phasing in of these vehicles makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense is to ban ICE vehicles. That will take generations. Many places around the world don’t have full time electricity now so they will likely be using ICE vehicles well into the 22nd century.
Bury them in sand and graphite, the heat fuses them to silicon carbide and entombs the burning metal, cutting off the oxygen.
Also, I believe copper sulfate extinguishes phosphorus fires.
These are sodium ion batteries, not metallic sodium half or full cells. Sodium chloride is a sodium ion, so it’s sodium Iron chloride, so is sodium sulfate , so is sodium floride. None of those are flammable. Sodium ion batteries store Sodium as ions on each of the anode and cathode never in metallic form. Depending on the electrolyte almost assuredly another sodium ion compound it won’t be flammable either. Sodium ions also has the ability to pass through glass and ceramic membranes opening up solid state cells. With nano tech and micron thin glass separators the surface area can be huge for very fast current loads with low joule heating.
Sodium half cells have been made with metallic sodium film like foil as the anode those would be flammable if oxygen or water was allowed to get to the foil layer but those cells are always inside a nitrogen or argon enclosure and only for.stationary use.
There is also molten sodium sulfur 55 gallon barrel sized cells were both sodium and the sulfur are molten here again they are only for bulk use and enclosed usually underground. These types of cells us a ceramic separator and can do 50,000+ cycles no other battery tech can reach that at the commercial level.
It’s obvious the writer is conflating the ability of the coin sized cell to be charged in seconds with cells that would be the size of a D cell and thousands of them in a EV pack.
While the coin sized cell with maybe 1500 miliwatt hours total capacity and that is being generous could be charged in a second with 5400 wattseconds of energy which at 3.7V would be 1459 amps over a single second at 5 seconds it’s one fifth the amps 249 over ten seconds it’s 145 amps and so on for each doubling of seconds.
To do a 50kWh pack in ten seconds would be 18,000,000 wattseconds or 18 megawatts for ten seconds at 1000V HVDC V4 standards you would need 18,000 amps.... For more reasonable 5 min which is 300 seconds you need 600,000 watts per second a much more reasonable 600kw which at 1000 volts is only 600 amp the Tesla NACS plug is rated at 900 amps and 1000V with a coming extension to 1000 amps and 1200V. So charging a Model 3 pack from zero to 100% if the cells could take it would take 5 min at 600kw well inside the V4 HVDC standards.
No way a car sized pack charges in seconds not unless you have have 25,000V HVDC distribution grid voltages at long distance 500,000 volt HVDC powerlines volts 18 megawatts is only 36 amps the conductor could be shoestring thin the insolation would be subsea cable thick think half a foot wide cables and 25+ lbs per linear foot. Not happening I like my Model 3 very much but be realistic. This writer doesn’t know engineering electrical or otherwise.
“If they can make them to where they charge in a few minutes, say the same time it takes to fuel up a vehicle with gas or diesel today, then a gradual organic phasing in of these vehicles makes sense.”
600kw will take a standard sized Model 3 pack from zero to 100% in 5 min. The NACS plug has a max rating at V4 of 900 amp uncooled at 1000 volts or 900kw Tesla has tested the plug at one megawatt already and it stayed under the 75C heat limit. The limit is what the cells will take. 600kw into a 50kWh pack is a 12C charge most cells can do 5C with some new tech going to 10C continuous with active liquid cooling of the cells. 5-8% is lost to heat with DC charging at 500kw that’s 40kw in heat you need liquid cooling for those kinds of heat loads per sq cm of surface area. At 12C liquid is the only way to go.
Thanks for the clarification
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