Scientists Discover Why Rechargeable Batteries Go Bad

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Now all we need is for scientists to discover how to make rechargeable batteries that never go bad. :cool:

“We discovered surprising and never-before-seen evolution and degradation patterns in two key battery materials,” said Huolin Xin, a materials scientist at Brookhaven Lab’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) and coauthor on both studies. “Contrary to large-scale observation, the lithium-ion reactions actually erode the materials non-uniformly, seizing upon intrinsic vulnerabilities in atomic structure in the same way that rust creeps unevenly across stainless steel.”
Click to expand...
 
It would be great if they can figure out how to make a battery that does not wear out as fast.
I'm tired of replace laptop batteries every 15-18 months.

This would also help in Electric cars and Hybrid. The way they get electric car batteries to last 8+ years or more, is that they only charge them to about 50%. If they could engineer the materials to not erode as much, then the batteries could be charged to a higher level (and increase the range with the same size battery pack) and still last years.
 
Discovered why they go bad? They already knew why. They discovered what it looks like.
 
nutzo said:
It would be great if they can figure out how to make a battery that does not wear out as fast.
I'm tired of replace laptop batteries every 15-18 months.
Click to expand...
Wow how much do you use your laptop to make them go so shitty? I had an Acer (read: cheap, bottom of the line, laptop) that I recently turned into Best Buy's rebate dohicky, it was pushing 9 years old, the battery still held a charge and a decent one at that.
 
The battery makers would riot if someone found a way to make batteries never go bad.
You'd buy a set, and they would never see any of your money again.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Wow how much do you use your laptop to make them go so shitty? I had an Acer (read: cheap, bottom of the line, laptop) that I recently turned into Best Buy's rebate dohicky, it was pushing 9 years old, the battery still held a charge and a decent one at that.
Click to expand...

I wonder about that to. Aren't lithium batteries good for about 1000 charges? That seems right to me since I get about 3 years of use from a laptop battery.

I think the older Nickel Metal Hydride batteries only got about 500 charges, but does anyone use those anymore in laptops?
 
dr.kevin said:
The battery makers would riot if someone found a way to make batteries never go bad.
You'd buy a set, and they would never see any of your money again.
Click to expand...

I have a hunch that that kind of battery technology has been in existence for decades...just purposefully never released or bought up quickly by an energy (oil) company so it would never be released.

Like my new hat? It's foil. Tin foil. I made it all by myself. :p
 
DejaWiz said:
I have a hunch that that kind of battery technology has been in existence for decades...just purposefully never released or bought up quickly by an energy (oil) company so it would never be released.

Like my new hat? It's foil. Tin foil. I made it all by myself. :p
Click to expand...

Nope, not the case at all. I work for a company that makes the raw fiberglass that's then shipped to a paper line on the opposite side of the country to be made into battery separator material which is used in AGM batteries, which are the kind of batteries used in all the new hybrid vehicles out there. Lead cathodes/anodes, along with the glass mat separators, tend to wear out over time when switching between pure lead and lead oxide, and then back again, over and over and over. Not to mention it's all soaking in an aqueas sulfuric acid based electrolyte solution...
 
sfsuphysics said:
Wow how much do you use your laptop to make them go so shitty? I had an Acer (read: cheap, bottom of the line, laptop) that I recently turned into Best Buy's rebate dohicky, it was pushing 9 years old, the battery still held a charge and a decent one at that.
Click to expand...

These are high power business laptops (2.8Ghz, 16GB ram, 1TB drives). They are heavily used all week, often on batteries during long meetings. Figure around 500 charges on a battery, and 5-7 charge cycles a week, and you get around 1.5 years

At least that's an improvement over the laptops we had 7 years ago. Those batteries where lucky to last 14 months.
 
dr.kevin said:
The battery makers would riot if someone found a way to make batteries never go bad.
You'd buy a set, and they would never see any of your money again.
Click to expand...

Not true, the wife's mother had rechargeable, but never remembered to charge them or always threw them out so now we just buy her jumbo packs of normal AA's.
 
dr.kevin said:
The battery makers would riot if someone found a way to make batteries never go bad.
You'd buy a set, and they would never see any of your money again.
Click to expand...

Not at all. Razorblade makers have already encountered this; their solution was to jack the prices on those long last razors way, way up. Same thing would happen for batteries.
 
iRoNgHosT said:
Nope, not the case at all. I work for a company that makes the raw fiberglass that's then shipped to a paper line on the opposite side of the country to be made into battery separator material which is used in AGM batteries, which are the kind of batteries used in all the new hybrid vehicles out there. Lead cathodes/anodes, along with the glass mat separators, tend to wear out over time when switching between pure lead and lead oxide, and then back again, over and over and over. Not to mention it's all soaking in an aqueas sulfuric acid based electrolyte solution...
Click to expand...


There was a documentary on Tesla Motors. They showed their batteries. They use off-the-shelf (or did) laptop cells. Looks like thousands of double A batteries linked together (standing upright).
 
Spidey329 said:
There was a documentary on Tesla Motors. They showed their batteries. They use off-the-shelf (or did) laptop cells. Looks like thousands of double A batteries linked together (standing upright).
Click to expand...

they use lithium ion 18650 cells. Each one is about 3.7v and 2100mAh. I think they use a couple thousand of them in each car.
 
Spidey329 said:
There was a documentary on Tesla Motors. They showed their batteries. They use off-the-shelf (or did) laptop cells. Looks like thousands of double A batteries linked together (standing upright).
Click to expand...

Might have looked like AAs, but I almost guarantee they were 18650 cells.

Anyone been reading about JPP's fast charge batteries?
Carbon cathode/carbon anode material with some rather impressive charge rate claims.
 
What would be cool is modular batteries, where you can take them apart, clean the plates and put it back together. This would work rather well for lead acid batteries.

Really what we need more than anything is a battery tech that is cheap to produce with common materials that are also not bad for the environment, while also packing a large energy density.

I wonder if graphene could be used for battery tech. Layers of graphene with some other chemical to act as cells, or something.
 
DejaWiz said:
I have a hunch that that kind of battery technology has been in existence for decades...just purposefully never released or bought up quickly by an energy (oil) company so it would never be released.

Like my new hat? It's foil. Tin foil. I made it all by myself. :p
Click to expand...

You hit the nail on the head.
I've seen this with different metals, foams, etc., shown once, then never heard of again.

This is a sad world we live in. :(
Damn mega-corps.
 
Spidey329 said:
There was a documentary on Tesla Motors. They showed their batteries. They use off-the-shelf (or did) laptop cells. Looks like thousands of double A batteries linked together (standing upright).
Click to expand...
Sorry but that's what most large battery packs look like if you take them apart. The important part is that the batteries are made to order and not some shit they bought off ebay that's only 300mAh
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top