Proton Batteries May be the Future for Home and Grid Storage of Power

DooKey

DooKey

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Scientists at RMIT University in Melbourne have developed a prototype battery that uses carbon instead of lithium. What makes this interesting is the battery is kind of like a hydrogen fuel cell and a chemical battery. The proton part comes from water splitting when it's charged and the protons then bond to carbon electrodes. During this process it doesn't produce hydrogen gas so there's no danger of explosion. Energy efficiency is similar to lithium-ion batteries, but the cost of carbon is nothing compared to lithium so cost should be much lower per battery. Hopefully they can scale this up in the future and then we won't have all of the environmental concerns that we have with lithium as well as the supply issues lithium is vulnerable to.

The researchers built a small, 1.2 volt battery, so the next step is to scale it up and improve efficiency. "Future work will now focus on further improving performance and energy density through use of atomically-thin layered carbon-based materials such as graphene, with the target of a proton battery that is truly competitive with lithium ion batteries firmly in sight," said lead researcher Professor John Andrews.
 
Another day, another technology that "may be the future." As if the future would be that predictable.

Recently, "the future" gave us the sight of two boosters landing together in a beautiful robotic ballet.
Did anyone here think that that "may be the future" of rocketry, other than the people who made it happen?

What "may be the future" usually bores me. I'll just let the future surprise me, as I know it will.
 
I believe developing batteries not based on rare Earth metals is going to be critical over the next century.

I'm also wondering what the environmental impact will be of developing batteries based on carbon.
 
Sounds promising. I know there have been approximately 9 billion articles about new battery technology that doesn't ever seem to materialize, but battery tech really does need to advance. If EV batteries were less expensive they might be a viable purchase. If batteries weren't so volatile, you could safely package them in smaller spaces with less concern for cooling. If we could use more common elements, it would be impossible for any one country to monopolize the technology. Lots of possible benefits
 
pcgeekesq said:
Another day, another technology that "may be the future." As if the future would be that predictable.

Recently, "the future" gave us the sight of two boosters landing together in a beautiful robotic ballet.
Did anyone here think that that "may be the future" of rocketry, other than the people who made it happen?

What "may be the future" usually bores me. I'll just let the future surprise me, as I know it will.
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I did, but I grew up in the 60's with all those sci-fi movies & novels with rockets landing on their tails, so i thought that dream shot to hell, until now.
 
bigdogchris said:
I believe developing batteries not based on rare Earth metals is going to be critical over the next century.

I'm also wondering what the environmental impact will be of developing batteries based on carbon.
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It should be a big red flag warning whenever people start talking about carbon somehow being bad. It is not a pollutant; it is life. We are carbon based life forms. Plants breath Carbon DiOxide. As a result of increased Carbon Di Oxide in the atmosphere we are seeing the proliferation of oasis in desert regions and the expansion of rain forests. The latest science suggests recent warm temperatures easily falls within the range of normal temperatures when viewed against a mean established from a 2,000 year timeline (see: Esper et al 2012, 2014). Roman and Medieval periods were as warm or warmer than recent decades and were characterized by longer growing seasons and increased agricultural production.

As such I suspect a carbon battery would be "much" cleaner that a lead battery or a lithium battery that contains cobalt. A carbon based battery could be the answer to the otherwise dead-end lithium battery technology with respect to making electric cars a viable alternative to the ICE.
 
Now if they can take CO2 & make pure carbon out of it (instead of "sequestering" it), we'll be gold...
 
Until we have compact reactors energy storage is the limiting factor in a massive array of technologies. Any research aimed at finding a path to greater storage capacity is worth the effort.
 
thejokker said:
As such I suspect a carbon battery would be "much" cleaner that a lead battery or a lithium battery that contains cobalt. A carbon based battery could be the answer to the otherwise dead-end lithium battery technology with respect to making electric cars a viable alternative to the ICE.
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Depending on how the Carbon is extracted and manufactured into a usable material, it may be better or it may be worse than Lithium (impact on the environment). We just don't know. I would hope it's better if this is a more Eco-friendly approach (less reliance on rare Earth metals).
 
Sweet, I own about 20,000 shares in a graphite company that I was hoping Tesla would use for their factory...
 
There are more groundbreaking battery technologies than there are protons in the universe.
 
thejokker said:
It should be a big red flag warning whenever people start talking about carbon somehow being bad. It is not a pollutant; it is life. We are carbon based life forms. Plants breath Carbon DiOxide. As a result of increased Carbon Di Oxide in the atmosphere we are seeing the proliferation of oasis in desert regions and the expansion of rain forests. The latest science suggests recent warm temperatures easily falls within the range of normal temperatures when viewed against a mean established from a 2,000 year timeline (see: Esper et al 2012, 2014). Roman and Medieval periods were as warm or warmer than recent decades and were characterized by longer growing seasons and increased agricultural production.

As such I suspect a carbon battery would be "much" cleaner that a lead battery or a lithium battery that contains cobalt. A carbon based battery could be the answer to the otherwise dead-end lithium battery technology with respect to making electric cars a viable alternative to the ICE.
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#ThisShitRightHere
 
mnewxcv said:
you can even recycle humans to extract carbon and various other elements. May sound crazy, but that may be the future.

Soylent green is people.
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Or, we could go to Venus and extract the carbon from the atmosphere?
 
What's missing from the article is how power dense these batteries are compared to li-ion.
It's not as if people want to use li-ion, it's that it's the most dense battery storage available that's rechargeable. Basically lead-acid has been around since forever, but it's huge and has problems (acid).
Then alkaline batteries which are great, but aren't rechargeable. Then ni-cad which are a bit less power dense than alkaline but rechargable a bit. Then NiMH which are more power dense and don't have memory issues that ni-cads do. Then li-ion and also li-polymer because it's even more dense than NiMH. But it has issues (lithium is reactive with air, etc).

You never go down in power density. It's always increasing.

It's the same reason we use gasoline. It's 46.4 MJ/Kg. Lithium ion which is the best battery technology is 0.36–0.875 MJ/Kg. Compared to the standard of gasoline it's not even close.

But the ultimate goal is to get to the power density of gasoline.

Just to add a little bit more, because density = size and weight for the most part. The application in which batteries don't matter for size and weight is very small.
 
pcgeekesq said:
Another day, another technology that "may be the future." As if the future would be that predictable.
Click to expand...
While I'll admit, I was thinking this... it was more along the lines of "I bet someone is going to say this in the comments" and sure enough, first post.
 
Gigus Fire said:
What's missing from the article is how power dense these batteries are compared to li-ion.
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That was my first thought based on the synopsis of the article, the article itself though LITERALLY says
And even though the system is far from optimized, energy density is also comparable to lithium ion, the team said.
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Big question, is this the theory on density, or did their prototype actually achieve that density, in which case bravo because things typically only get smaller with refinement.
 
More vaporware. It might not be something you can mass manufacture. Ect. Ect. When they make a working sample that shows promise then, maybe?
 
thejokker said:
It should be a big red flag warning whenever people start talking about carbon somehow being bad. It is not a pollutant; it is life. We are carbon based life forms. Plants breath Carbon DiOxide. As a result of increased Carbon Di Oxide in the atmosphere we are seeing the proliferation of oasis in desert regions and the expansion of rain forests. The latest science suggests recent warm temperatures easily falls within the range of normal temperatures when viewed against a mean established from a 2,000 year timeline (see: Esper et al 2012, 2014). Roman and Medieval periods were as warm or warmer than recent decades and were characterized by longer growing seasons and increased agricultural production
Click to expand...

:meh: Just like everything, in moderation. It's not the carbon itself, it's the concentration of it and the downstream effects. Such a simplistic view. Water and oxygen are life as well, but 100% oxygen is potentially toxic, as is water poisoning if you drink too much.
 
When I was a small kid, commercial fusion power was projected to be 20 years in the future. And new solar cell tech was going to eliminate the need for new nuclear power plants real soon now. That was in the 70s. Still waiting on my Mr Fusion to power my flying car. Still not sure we are at the break even point on solar cells(energy produced by cell over useful life > total energy used to mine materials,produce, ship, install, recycle)
 
Dead Parrot said:
When I was a small kid, commercial fusion power was projected to be 20 years in the future. And new solar cell tech was going to eliminate the need for new nuclear power plants real soon now. That was in the 70s. Still waiting on my Mr Fusion to power my flying car. Still not sure we are at the break even point on solar cells(energy produced by cell over useful life > total energy used to mine materials,produce, ship, install, recycle)
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The only thing we have ever found that produces more than the energy input is crude oil. Unfortunately, this may never change, even after we manage to attain fusion. Fact is, we may just have to accept it, that clean energy is going to have a higher start-up cost than crude oil.
 
This tech will never see the light of day until the corporations that buy it and bury can profit the most from it themselves.
 
BoogerBomb said:
This tech will never see the light of day until the corporations that buy it and bury can profit the most from it themselves.
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I don't know. With the fleet MPG mandates in place now, there has to be a huge economic incentive for better battery tech for them. Although they'll probably spend it on lobbyists to kill the mandate rather than on the tech.
 
TwistedAegis said:
:meh: Just like everything, in moderation. It's not the carbon itself, it's the concentration of it and the downstream effects. Such a simplistic view. Water and oxygen are life as well, but 100% oxygen is potentially toxic, as is water poisoning if you drink too much.
Click to expand...
bigdogchris said:
Depending on how the Carbon is extracted and manufactured into a usable material, it may be better or it may be worse than Lithium (impact on the environment). We just don't know. I would hope it's better if this is a more Eco-friendly approach (less reliance on rare Earth metals).
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No... Carbon will never be as bad as the cobalt contained in Lithium batteries. You have drunk too much progressive kool-aid if you try and twist carbon into being dangerous. Granted there may be other components in a carbon battery that may be a source of concern but carbon itself is not even close to being as dangerous as Lithium, Cobalt and Lead.
 
At this point when I see the words "Scientist, Battery and University" all in the same sentence I just dismiss the entire article as optimistic click bait with less than a 1% chance of being reality.
 
(Mortician) "sorry for your loss, would you like AA or maybe some D cells?"

(Surviving partner) "mix please"
 
thejokker said:
No... Carbon will never be as bad as the cobalt contained in Lithium batteries. You have drunk too much progressive kool-aid if you try and twist carbon into being dangerous. Granted there may be other components in a carbon battery that may be a source of concern but carbon itself is not even close to being as dangerous as Lithium, Cobalt and Lead.
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You've implied twice now that I'm saying Carbon is dangerous. Where did I say carbon is dangerous? I never said that. I genuinely do not know if it is more or less negatively environmentally impactful than mining Lithium. If it is less negatively impactful then I fully support using Carbon in batteries.
 
B00nie said:
I wouldn't be sure. Robert Murray has been doing this for years already on Youtube and he's building a company on it.
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He sure does make batteries out of some not so obvious stuff. Not to mention how to make cheap Graphene in your kitchen. He sure seems to love what he does.
 
Given the number of better battery possibilities you'd think at least one of them would become viable. Well I can hope can't I? At least it's being researched much better chance of finding something than leaving it to serendipity.
 
thejokker said:
No... Carbon will never be as bad as the cobalt contained in Lithium batteries. You have drunk too much progressive kool-aid if you try and twist carbon into being dangerous. Granted there may be other components in a carbon battery that may be a source of concern but carbon itself is not even close to being as dangerous as Lithium, Cobalt and Lead.
Click to expand...

Carbon is fine, and if we can make batteries out of it that’s great, although I would definitely like something more efficient than lithium.

The problem is with Carbon Dioxide, a greenhouse gas, which is causing the Earths temperature to rise as a direct result of human activity.
 
Yeah carbon is fine... well unless we get it in our lungs when it is in a solid form like carbon nanotubes... then we are in the same boat as inhaling asbestos.
 
Gigus Fire said:
What's missing from the article is how power dense these batteries are compared to li-ion.
It's not as if people want to use li-ion, it's that it's the most dense battery storage available that's rechargeable. Basically lead-acid has been around since forever, but it's huge and has problems (acid).
Then alkaline batteries which are great, but aren't rechargeable. Then ni-cad which are a bit less power dense than alkaline but rechargable a bit. Then NiMH which are more power dense and don't have memory issues that ni-cads do. Then li-ion and also li-polymer because it's even more dense than NiMH. But it has issues (lithium is reactive with air, etc).

You never go down in power density. It's always increasing.

It's the same reason we use gasoline. It's 46.4 MJ/Kg. Lithium ion which is the best battery technology is 0.36–0.875 MJ/Kg. Compared to the standard of gasoline it's not even close.

But the ultimate goal is to get to the power density of gasoline.

Just to add a little bit more, because density = size and weight for the most part. The application in which batteries don't matter for size and weight is very small.
Click to expand...


Heheh. Getting batteries to the energy density of gasoline. Funny!

Actually the major problem of batteries isn't REALLY energy density.
Sure, greater energy density always helps. But energy density is one of those things that creeps upward.

It's the charge duration problem.
If it takes a day to full-charge, that means the utility of all that power is limited.
Even stopping for an hour-ish severely hampers mobility. And quick-charging for 20 minutes still just means you have to stop more often.
 
Now I can have a battery pack made of my deceased loved one to keep them close to me at all times. Xiaomi YouBank Carbon!
 
NeoNemesis said:
The problem is with Carbon Dioxide, a greenhouse gas, which is causing the Earths temperature to rise as a direct result of human activity.
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Eeek, no. There's no proven relation to global warming and human activity and the CO2 levels have been way higher in the past before the humans were polluting.
CO2 levels follow global warming. It's a trailing effect, not the cause.

Most likely global warming is a result of the oncoming magnetic polar switch and increase in solar activity. Globally earth is actually moving for the next ice age and it has happened in the past that a spike in temperature leads the ice age.

Global warming is a good thing. Crops love CO2 and heat. If a new ice age comes there'll be wars because billions of people will starve. Every time in human history when temperatures have dipped, famine and war follow.
 
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