"An alkaline battery (IEC code: L) is a type of primary battery which derives its energy from the reaction between zinc metal and manganese dioxide."
The new permutation which allegedly ups the energy density and allows it to be safely recharged supposedly uses a different electrolyte with more manganese ions. The research has been funded in the West for decades, with some interesting new results in 2017. Of course, this is one of those "submarine" "news" articles which originated in someone's marketing department, so it's not entirely clear it's going to be a useful result or yet another pile of woo hoping to hit "human informational centipede" the way a lot of recent woo has.
Reminder: if an article about breakthrough battery tech touts one of energy density, number of cycles, cost, discharge/charge rate, while conspicuously not mentioning the others there is a good reason for that...
I found an article from April 2016 that talks about an electrolyte breakthrough with zinc and manganese batteries:
> the test battery was able to reach a storage capacity of 285 milliAmpere-hours per gram of manganese oxide over 5,000 cycles, while retaining 92 percent of its initial storage capacity.
According to Wikipedia, lithium ion batteries have an energy density of 100–265 Watt-hours per kilogram at 3.6 - 3.8 Volts with 400 - 1,200 cycles. Converting that to Amp-hours (Wh)/(V) =(Ah) means about 74 Ah/Kg in the best case scenario.
I'm not sure if the tech from University of Adelaide is the same as what was published by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and I wasn't able to find any info about discharge/recharge rate, but it looks like it compares very well to lithium ion in the other areas.
The article talks about solar energy storage, vehicle batteries, and comparisons with lithium ion. The article doesn't explicitly say they're developing a type of rechargeable battery, but that seems to be implied by context.
Anyway, it would be nice to see lead-acid batteries phased out someday and reduce the usage of lead in human activities.
$1m is a tiny amount to bring a battery to manufacture. That number is about what it costs to set up production to have a LiPo battery in a specific shape for your electronics.
If they had said $100m then I'd believe that there was finally going to be a serious competitor to the status quo on batteries.
Even if it was serious you'd have to wait for the patent-enforced monopolies to expire before there is significant benefit to us normal people.
This is one of the reasons why everybody is running around with 18650 lithium ion batteries. It's all 1990's tech that has been evolved and improved on since then by numerous competitive businesses.
75% isn't great, but if solar continues its 70 year exponential trend of dropping by half every 3-4 years for another two decades, then round-trip efficiency may not much matter in the long run. Too, the 75% is at 100% Depth of Discharge - it may be better at lower total discharge. Lifetime 15 years / 5,000 cycles is almost perfectly balanced for one full cycle per day (5,475 days in 15 years). Doesn't give the price, though, so hard to calculate cost per cycle. https://eosenergystorage.com/products-technology/
For many years now at least once a week there has been an announcement of a breakthrough new battery technology that is going to revolutionize energy storage. But in spite of all these purported breakthroughs, we are still stuck with li-ion (though it has been improving steadily).
I think it would be nice if there was a site that tracked all these announcements, that is had a listing of all of them and how each has done in the following years.
Zinc is very important in the diet and its deficiency is very common. Our food is already becoming scarce in zinc, potentially needing supplements from mined minerals. But these are not projected to last very long either [1]. This doesn't make me very excited for using it for batteries at all.
i wouldn't worry about Zinc, men need 11 mg/day, women even less. The common battery, the Leclanché element, already consist of Zinc, but it is not advisable to recharge them (danger of explosion). In the 90s people even claimed the could safely recharge the Leclanché element, so I could imagine the have overcome these problems
scottlocklin|6 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_battery
"An alkaline battery (IEC code: L) is a type of primary battery which derives its energy from the reaction between zinc metal and manganese dioxide."
The new permutation which allegedly ups the energy density and allows it to be safely recharged supposedly uses a different electrolyte with more manganese ions. The research has been funded in the West for decades, with some interesting new results in 2017. Of course, this is one of those "submarine" "news" articles which originated in someone's marketing department, so it's not entirely clear it's going to be a useful result or yet another pile of woo hoping to hit "human informational centipede" the way a lot of recent woo has.
DoofusOfDeath|6 years ago
userbinator|6 years ago
nazgulnarsil|6 years ago
jobu|6 years ago
> the test battery was able to reach a storage capacity of 285 milliAmpere-hours per gram of manganese oxide over 5,000 cycles, while retaining 92 percent of its initial storage capacity.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160418145631.h...
According to Wikipedia, lithium ion batteries have an energy density of 100–265 Watt-hours per kilogram at 3.6 - 3.8 Volts with 400 - 1,200 cycles. Converting that to Amp-hours (Wh)/(V) =(Ah) means about 74 Ah/Kg in the best case scenario.
I'm not sure if the tech from University of Adelaide is the same as what was published by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and I wasn't able to find any info about discharge/recharge rate, but it looks like it compares very well to lithium ion in the other areas.
nayuki|6 years ago
The article talks about solar energy storage, vehicle batteries, and comparisons with lithium ion. The article doesn't explicitly say they're developing a type of rechargeable battery, but that seems to be implied by context.
Anyway, it would be nice to see lead-acid batteries phased out someday and reduce the usage of lead in human activities.
mafm|6 years ago
rkangel|6 years ago
If they had said $100m then I'd believe that there was finally going to be a serious competitor to the status quo on batteries.
lazyguy2|6 years ago
This is one of the reasons why everybody is running around with 18650 lithium ion batteries. It's all 1990's tech that has been evolved and improved on since then by numerous competitive businesses.
mafm|6 years ago
https://newatlas.com/rechargeable-zinc-manganese-battery-pnn...
http://enerpoly.com/technology/
Tade0|6 years ago
https://eosenergystorage.com/about-eos/
Two largest downsides of this technology are:
1. Round-trip efficiency of 75%.
2. Low power density.
Cost and cycle life are great though - should be great for grid storage.
WhoIsJohnnyGalt|6 years ago
JoeAltmaier|6 years ago
m463|6 years ago
I can imagine trains can be extra heavy, and scooters might require less overall energy capacity.
privateSFacct|6 years ago
woodandsteel|6 years ago
I think it would be nice if there was a site that tracked all these announcements, that is had a listing of all of them and how each has done in the following years.
baybal2|6 years ago
On other hand, you can already source lithium batteries of cheaper varieties at below $100 per kWh in large wholesale quantities in China
b34r|6 years ago
But yeah, curious to see how it shakes out in practical application.
KaiserPro|6 years ago
whats the energy density?
finally lifespan?
rbx|6 years ago
[1] https://www.iatp.org/documents/scarcity-of-micronutrients-in...
wolfi1|6 years ago
BubRoss|6 years ago
whyfy|6 years ago