Pleaseeee..!! Let it be true !
......and affordable !

 

Sales pitch..
1000kWhr/kg
100C discharge and charge
100% DoD with no impact on performance or cycle life
100% safe chemistry, no fire risk
....and 77% cheaper than Lithium ion cells
Commercial production before the end of 2016.

This will halt Global climate change, sea level increases, and bring world peace and end world famine problems ..all before chrismass !

 

I am from Spain; don't wait for this thing to appear. It's just a gross scam.

The guys who are doing it, previously worked in a algae biofuel scam. Same "modus operandi". They promised miraculous yields, and got some investor money.
They built a plant, pumped out as much money as they could, and let the project sink slowly. A few lawsuits were filed, as usual in those cases.

The guys (hermanos Rovira) know nothing about science; it's just incredible they are able to fool any investor...

 

The guys who are doing it, previously worked in a algae biofuel scam.

That says it all. Stil a bunchj of morons chasing that fairy tail.

 

Not incredible. There are people who have been doing this kind of thing for twenty plus years, and always find a new round of investors for their next "venture":

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/14/5561250/cool-planet

Remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it likely is- unless it's my scam, er, venture- then you should bet all your money on it!

 

Pure science fiction

 

We have a strange situation in the EV world.
We have batteries good enough (li-ion, lifepo4), energy density is already ok for cars.

Price is coming down, and that's good news. Because that's what we really need for an EV revolution.

Still, many people believe a breakout in energy density is necessary, and they don't even ask for the price when new and shiny chemistry is presented.

 

Exactly correct. For everything but flight, we could make due with current energy density provided cost simply comes down - which it has done for 60 years and shows every indication of continuing to do for at least the next 20.

 

One way to go about is this: Take the specifications in the sales pitch from the bogus company and see if it's doable. Or find something as close to everything as possible that is doable, and then work from there.

This is a very competitive market so the "revolution" will happen. It's just a matter of time.

 

It will be evolution, not revolution in my opinion. Gains will be incremental- it's unlikely that someone will pop up with a totally new scheme that doubles the Wh/kg or Wh/L figures in a single leap like Watt accomplished with the external condenser on the steam engine. That kind of leap is possible but it's improbable. It is also unlikely to come all at once. Take a look at the Ni-Cd to NiMH and NiMH to Li-ion transitions- they didn't happen all in one go, nor did the new batteries jump into the market at double the Wh/kg of the existing. The gains happened incrementally.

My question is different: as an EV owner and driver, I'm already comfortable with a range which is a fraction of that of any of these BEVs being sold at the moment. My EV is not intended to be a total replacement for my IC engine vehicle- it's intended as a commuter vehicle, doing a drive which varies little from day to day. I don't want to have to spend money to buy a battery with a huge capacity- I want a cheaper car with a more limited range, but one which reduces the cost AND environmental impact of my commute. To get that for a price I could afford, I had to build my own- but now I could buy a used Leaf for a lot less than what my DIY conversion cost.

Forgetting about home power reuse applications for the moment, the BEV's battery is basically scrap at the end of the BEV's life- so if I buy the BEV new and pay a lot for extra battery capacity I will never use, it's basically wasted money. I'll be bored of the car long before its battery wears out if I only use 30% DOD each time I use it.

I see the real game changer being not a 200 mile range BEV for $40k, but a 70-100 mile range 2 seater commuter car selling new for $10k- with a tiny "fuel" cost and zero maintenance required. That will be achievable shortly, and when it happens it will drive a nail through the heart of most of the small IC engine cars being sold right now. Unfortunately from the environment's perspective, these micro BEVs will not displace the SUVs and light trucks that are sucking the largest amount of gasoline when used for commuting, but the smaller and more efficient vehicles. Those will go first.

 

It will be evolution, not revolution in my opinion. Gains will be incremental- it's unlikely that someone will pop up with a totally new scheme that doubles the Wh/kg or Wh/L figures in a single leap like Watt accomplished with the external condenser on the steam engine. That kind of leap is possible but it's improbable.

Actually, we can expect at least one doubling (perhaps better) within about 5 years. Cathodes are the weak point of current LiIon chemistry, holding only about 20% of the energy their anode counterparts are capable of. When one of the cathodes in the labs becomes commercially available, expect a 2x, 3x, or even 4x jump in capability for the same price literally overnight.

Forgetting about home power reuse applications for the moment, the BEV's battery is basically scrap at the end of the BEV's life- so if I buy the BEV new and pay a lot for extra battery capacity I will never use, it's basically wasted money. I'll be bored of the car long before its battery wears out if I only use 30% DOD each time I use it.

For home use, check out Aquion in a couple of years. Their batteries consist of water, carbon, and salt in a plastic container and should work for 10,000 cycles or more. As they ramp up production, expecti their price to drop like everything else. Too heavy and bulky for EVs, though.

 

Thought I replied to this yesterday-

I see the 19% per year compounded for five years giving a doubling as being much more likely than a 4-5 fold increase in a single leap. I think I have both the history and the chemistry on my side in concluding that, but I would be delighted to be wrong.

As to the Aquion thing: it looks very interesting. They seem to be selling units right now, which is a plus, but I have no idea what they're charging for them. It took a large amount of searching to find anything technical about what they're offering, and what I did read (in their Australian distributor's marketing literature) doesn't appear to relate exactly to what they're currently doing- it was more evolutionary/historical information related to similar chemistry.

Looks like they claim 80% round-trip efficiency, which would be more than adequate and might be achievable, but probably tough to do with an aqueous electrolyte. They also claim excellent cycle stability (looks like they're claiming 3000 cycles at 80% of original capacity, but I suspect that was merely a convenient way to pin it to existing Li-ion capability rather than a demonstrated testing result.

That Australian literature also said that the electrolyte is sodium sulphate solution. The literature talks about local high pH being generated near the electrodes (with no mention of what happens to the H+ or H2), but their marketing is all about it being "non hazardous and touch safe" so it can't be that alkaline.

http://www.ampetus.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Aquion-Battery-Technical-Specs.pdf

It apparently uses both sodium and lithium ions. The cathode is a manganese oxide, the anode is apparently "carbon titanium phosphate composite", whatever that means in practice. The Australian literature talks about it using lithium carbonate as a "template" in the cathode material, which apparently is extracted into the electrolyte during charging.

There are no half reactions published for it, which is kind of sketchy, but it sounds like the chemistry is legitimately very complex- much more so than in a Li-ion cell. There's actually very little readily accessible literature on their chemistry anywhere outside of their promotional literature or "media reports" i.e. promotional literature regurgitated on some website.

 

I see the 19% per year compounded for five years giving a doubling as being much more likely than a 4-5 fold increase in a single leap.

Yes and no. The trend follows between 15% - 20% compounded (doubling value every 5-8 years) , but the actual changes look more like a stair step with improvements every couple of years.

And yes it is likely true that the full potential improvement for a new cathode may not be realized in the first commercialized product - so it may be "only" a doubling rather than 5x. Bottom line is that businesses will bring products to market as soon as they think they can profit by it.

As to the Aquion thing: it looks very interesting. They seem to be selling units right now, which is a plus, but I have no idea what they're charging for them.

As is so often the case in business, their prices seem to reflect the current market more than their costs, which are reputed to be much lower. They are apparently charging about $250 per kilowatt-hour. I would expect this to drop as their production ramps up and as they face stiffer competition from other solutions.

It took a large amount of searching to find anything technical about what they're offering, and what I did read (in their Australian distributor's marketing literature) doesn't appear to relate exactly to what they're currently doing- it was more evolutionary/historical information related to similar chemistry.

Seems to me they are pretty straightforward about their technology; although I would not expect them to detail every trick.

Looks like they claim 80% round-trip efficiency, which would be more than adequate and might be achievable, but probably tough to do with an aqueous electrolyte.

Actually 85% for over 5,000 cycles, again from this article. Note that is just for the battery; electronics will also sap some efficiency. Other articles have suggested they will get far more than 5,000 cycles, perhaps at slightly reduced capacity. The 3,000 cycles from your .PDF is at 100% DOD - which I have a hard time imagining would be standard practice.

There are no half reactions published for it, which is kind of sketchy, but it sounds like the chemistry is legitimately very complex- much more so than in a Li-ion cell. There's actually very little readily accessible literature on their chemistry anywhere outside of their promotional literature or "media reports" i.e. promotional literature regurgitated on some website.

You can't expect them to give away their trade secrets?

It works, it's here now, and they have sufficient margin to allow price cuts as competition heats up (so to speak). As long as they are only in low volume production they are fishing the highest price points they can; as demand ramps up I would expect to see more manufacturing facilities - or for them to be displaced by something even better.

 

Just noticed that the link I provided above is from an interesting site which tracks all things solar and grid storage.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/

Will have to sift through some of their articles; looks like EOS is poised to deliver grid scale storage at $150/Kwh.

 

I agree with Karter. If you think you're going to see a 5x reduction in price for EV batteries from where we are now, I'm very skeptical of that claim.

As to watt density, we're on a plateau and have been for quite a while.

Batteries like the Aquion optimized for storage are another matter, and I can see huge potential improvements there.

My comment about not finding references to chemistry similar to Aquion's elsewhere isn't an expectation that they'll dump their secrets out for public display- it's merely an observation that there doesn't seem to be a lot of work being done by others on the same or similar chemistry, at least not that can be found in ten minutes of searching. That tells me something, and the something it tells me ISN'T that they have such a secure patent position that nobody else is even bothering to pursue it. If it really were a super low cost, super stable chemistry, people in both the public and private research spheres would be working very hard to subtly improve on what Aquion were doing so they could compete with them. The public ones at least would be publishing their work like crazy (though likely often keeping their best and most current work tight to their chests). That's exactly what you see with many other chemistries right now. Could they all be missing the fact that the demands of grid storage are very, very different than those of vehicles and portable electronics?

 

I agree with Karter. If you think you're going to see a 5x reduction in price for EV batteries from where we are now, I'm very skeptical of that claim.

I understand general pessimism. Read the articles on 24M's improvements in manufacturing (a plant can be built for under $100 million, rather than $10 billion for traditional battery plant); also see the various articles about improved cathodes, all of which anticipate costs roughly equivalent to current cathodes but, due to superior chemistry, promise anywhere between 2x-5x performance improvement from the same battery.

The first is significant because up until now commercial batteries were all built the same way no matter the chemistry (would probably be possible to use the 24M concept on Nickel Metal Hydride, for example, but why would you when Lithium is superior?). Think of it like automating the factory so it produces many times as much product for the same money. The second should be obvious.

As to watt density, we're on a plateau and have been for quite a while.

Yes - only a chemistry change can bring us multiples. 24M promises an incremental improvement by removing some of the "filler" from batteries, but once that trick is played we won't see that type of improvement again as most of the filler will already be gone.

Batteries like the Aquion optimized for storage are another matter, and I can see huge potential improvements there.

Absolutely. There is a design for a flow battery using a chemical from the Ruhbarb plant that promises to provide the electrolyte for the battery (which comprises 90-99% of a flow battery's material) for $15/Kwh or something silly like that. That battery has a lower round-trip efficiency, something like 80% instead of 95%+ for LiIon, but could definitely have uses for major grid outages, for example.

My comment about not finding references to chemistry similar to Aquion's elsewhere isn't an expectation that they'll dump their secrets out for public display- it's merely an observation that there doesn't seem to be a lot of work being done by others on the same or similar chemistry, at least not that can be found in ten minutes of searching.

That is exactly correct - the inspiration to search for "workable but possibly lower efficiency batteries based on component cost rather than energy density or power density" was the real innovation. Once they stopped looking for "better" in terms of chemistry and started looking for "better" based on cost, there was already a wealth of research out there to help them - they just had to read through it all and try a few.

That tells me something, and the something it tells me ISN'T that they have such a secure patent position that nobody else is even bothering to pursue it.

Probably correct on the chemistry - but keep in mind that patents are based on processes, not chemistry, so they may in fact have assets which can be protected by patent.

If it really were a super low cost, super stable chemistry, people in both the public and private research spheres would be working very hard to subtly improve on what Aquion were doing so they could compete with them.

Dead on, and they probably will. The question for them will be how broadly they can succeed in having their patent applied to others by judges.

The public ones at least would be publishing their work like crazy (though likely often keeping their best and most current work tight to their chests). That's exactly what you see with many other chemistries right now. Could they all be missing the fact that the demands of grid storage are very, very different than those of vehicles and portable electronics?

I think that it comes down to strategy in research. For decades the focus was on better energy / power density or faster charging. Now that Aquion and a few others have changed their strategy I expect many others to follow suit.

 

BwaHaHaHa...Halt sea level change and bring world peace!!! The radical Muslims and Mother Nature don't give a tinkers darn about Batteries......I DO hope it works out though!

 

Actually, even radical Muslims will likely give a damn about batteries when we stop buying their oil.

 

Finally we agree on something Phantom!