Goodenough glass sodium battery

[TerraHertz]

Hasn't this been posted on eevblog yet? I waited, thinking surely someone must have. But searching for threads on this doesn't find anything.
Not sure if this is going to be another 'miracle battery' that never materializes, but it sounds really good.

Google: goodenough sodium battery glass

20170323

Solid State Batteries For Electric Cars: A New Breakthrough By The Father of the Lithium-Ion Battery
  Glass construction, 3x energy density over LiIon, sodium-based, fast charge, works in sub-zero temp.
  Inventer: John Goodenough (who is 94, and co-inventer of the LiIon battery.)


94 Year Old Man Develops Glass Based Battery : Good News Episode 16
In this episode of the Good News Channel’s broadcast series, we take a look at a fast charging noncombustible battery that has been invented by the same inventor of the lithium ion battery, as well as the story about which beverage Americans are preferring over sodas now.


ETS15 Fireside Chat: Dr. John B. Goodenough on energy, storage, and life
Apr 6, 2015

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_battery

There seem to have been some others looking at solid sodium-based batteries recently, not sure if they have the same technology in mind:


  BroadBit metallic sodium batteries, 10x more power than Lithium-Ion, 5-minute full charge
  900 cycles, no detectable degradation.
  Estimated half the cost of LiIon.
  3-man team in Finland.


Researchers' outlook on sodium-ion batteries
20160119   Na-ion. not the same battery. French

[sleemanj]

https://youtu.be/wl0I2vl6ul0

[bazza]

These videos are a waste of time for anyone but early investors and 'general info' hoarders.
Without selling products, all the 'cool new battery tech'-talk is nothing but hot air.

[TerraHertz]

These videos are a waste of time for anyone but early investors and 'general info' hoarders.
Without selling products, all the 'cool new battery tech'-talk is nothing but hot air.

I suspect a fairly high proportion of forum members are general info hoarders. I certainly am. That's why this folder tree exists on my HDD:  World\Energy_and_Oil\Batteries\20170323_solid_state_battery
Along with about 18 other battery type folders.
And you know what? I'm over 60 and through my whole life crappy batteries have been a continual irritation. Carbon-zinc, JFC those were crap. Lead-acid - my first caving light used a huge hip-mounted miner's light battery, that required regular futzing with sulfuric acid. Joy. NiCad seemed like relative heaven, till I accumulated a bucketful of dead ones and realized that every NiCad was going to die the metal dendrites death. NiMH... slightly better. By now getting sick of buying/making different battery chargers. LiIon - hooray, ALMOST there. At last a battery with a decent capacity and low self-discharge. Except slight problem, they tend to burst into flames.

So yes, I do pay a lot of attention to cool new battery tech, hot air or not. Because I'd really like to have actual working, near ideal batteries sometime before I die.

Also the bit about Mr Goodenough still being creative at 94. I like that. Makes me feel slightly less gloomy.

[Psi]

i've stopped tracking battery tech. It's just too infuriating to see all the lying that the tech is ready for mass production only for nothing at all to happen.
I no longer care about batteries unless i can buy them, stick them into my delta wing, and fly for longer than before.

[brucehoult]

i've stopped tracking battery tech. It's just too infuriating to see all the lying that the tech is ready for mass production only for nothing at all to happen.
I no longer care about batteries unless i can buy them, stick them into my delta wing, and fly for longer than before.

Not only batteries. KickStarter is full of things that I would buy without hesitation if they would take my credit card and ship it to me *tomorrow*. Or even next week. Or on the 20th. But things that you *might* get at the end of next year IF it works and IF they don't just close down and keep your money ... meh. I literally don't even know what country I'll be living in then.

[bazza]

I suspect a fairly high proportion of forum members are general info hoarders. I certainly am. That's why this folder tree exists on my HDD:  World\Energy_and_Oil\Batteries\20170323_solid_state_battery
Along with about 18 other battery type folders.

OK. Personally I am sick of all the talk. I do not hope for anything until it reaches mass production (and even then at a sellable price). I've seen way too many 'promising tech' articles in my life. These companies call the media to look for investors and interested parties, after all. Only a few chemistries have hit the mainstream and I never read any article about them that I recall. Everything else has been hot air from companies looking for investors.

By now getting sick of buying/making different battery chargers. LiIon - hooray, ALMOST there. At last a battery with a decent capacity and low self-discharge. Except slight problem, they tend to burst into flames.

Low self-discharge eneloops have been a available for the last decade if you're after AA/AAA (and by extension C & D with adapters/spacers from your favourite Chinese seller). Multi-chemistry chargers are available from Nitecore, Liitokala http://lygte-info.dk/review/Review%20Charger%20LiitoKala%20Lii-500%20UK.html and other manufacturers. We have lots of choice for not too much money when buying from China when it comes to chargers.

We have cheap solar regulators from China (Epever/Epsolar) and other brands. I'd go so far as to say there is no energy storage problem, only that waste and greed is at epidemic proportions (greed of utility companies and waste from the customer and of course colossal waste of taxpayer funds in today's solar scams). The obstacles are mostly political and 'central-control'-related...and the fact the masses are so used to wasteful living. Some basic steps need to be made to change some behaviour. Everything we do now is so centralised and so wasteful.

And then there's the scamming utilities. Every country on earth that has had good solar uptake has had super-high electricity bills. Daily service charges are an absolute scam, as is the whole gov-endorsed solar scam which is designed to generate wealth for existing players on your tax dollars. Same story worldwide: high solar uptake: sky-high electricity prices to keep the utilities and govs rolling in it (only a few customers benefit...but they are subject to all the price rises in future, like sitting ducks).  People should be generating their own power. And regulating their demands. And they should know full well that any existing solar scam is to keep the grid dinosaurs raking it in. They aren't stupid enugh to give away profits to you.

It isn't a tech problem. It's a behavioural one. It's political. It's waste-related. It's greed-related. The majority can do fine on the tech we have now, in fact (without major lifestyle changes). Just different thinking here and there. So I don't see existing battery tech as particularly constrained. Of course it can (and should) get better though. I'll just believe it when I see it.

[Kilrah]

I've seen way too many 'promising tech' articles in my life.

+1, especially about batteries. If you look you can see at least one announcement similar to that one per year for the past >10 years, but... nothing's ever come of any of them, all we got is a slight increase in performance of existing types that was never really related to these new technologies.

So while I'd love better batteries I'll also go with "meh", not believing it until I've got one in my hands.

[TerraHertz]

Well, for the very few who _are_ still interested in new battery chemistry:

https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/goodenough-introduces-new-battery-technology
The engineers describe their new technology in a recent paper published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.
And here's the paper, at Royal Society of Chemistry:
  http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2017/EE/C6EE02888H#!divAbstract

The full pdf paper can be downloaded for free, just make a free account. Worked for me.

[mswhin63]

Yes I agree that this seems quite legit. The main technology the glass makes it safer so that the Dentrites that form in Regular LiPO batteries can't pierce the dialectic and touch the opposite plate. Fairly simple really.


I have been watching this develop over a while so I have had more time to soak the tech in.


For myself in the short term it is interesting but long term, in the hand is still a far better option.


Malcolm

Quote from: TerraHertz on Today at 07:21:18

Well, for the very few who _are_ still interested in new battery chemistry:

>https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/goodenough-introduces-new-battery-technology
The engineers describe their new technology in a recent paper published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.
And here's the paper, at Royal Society of Chemistry:
  http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2017/EE/C6EE02888H#!divAbstract

The full pdf paper can be downloaded for free, just make a free account. Worked for me

[bazza]

Well, for the very few who _are_ still interested in new battery chemistry:

I am very interested in new battery chemistry: the selling kind. Not the kind of talk that promises this-and-that and never eventuates in a commercial product. There's so much of that. Too much of it. I can read 'papers' on battery tech that cure insomnia (and sometimes I have). Frankly, the real work is done when it's commercialised and a price attached to it. I don't care about some lab work that has yet to prove itself in the real world, let alone be cost-competitive. I don't care for investing in the tech, and I'm not in a position to even understand half of it. I have also stopped caring about reading about it. Each day the world turns. Can I buy it or not? Can I use it or not? Is it cost-competitive with existing tech or not?

Insomnia-inducing talk
I think most of Australia can be self-sufficient for lighting, basic electronics (TVs, laptops, charging anything, refigeration basics) minimum. I think insulation can be improved a lot in most homes. I think we are wasteful bastards, in general. If the Powers That Be (also known as criminal thieves) wanted self-sufficiency, this country and countless others could be truly transformed by existing battery tech, let alone future battery tech. Demands of our excessively wasteful lifestyles could be curtailed without too much pain or sorrow. Of course they don't want self-sufficiency. They want us to be Solar Slaves, generating cheap power for the Grid Thieves and keeping everyone else paying through the nose for power, keeping the fossilised Fat Cats relevant while extracting maximum taxes, unseen (subsidies) and seen (bills). Same story worldwide. In fact, self-sufficiency basically outlawed in the sunniest places on earth, if we read about these things long enough.

The point being: there are probably few people more interested in battery tech than those who rely on them 100% for their electricity. I do.

LiFePO4 will be bought this year. Key word: bought. This 'goodenough' battery tech may or may not be 'good enough' in the next 10 years, let alone be competitive with what's out there, price-wise. For now, they get marketing points for attaching some old man's name to the tech and trumpeting that out in the media. Great. How many investors will be fleeced? I don't know. Will they be fleeced? I don't know that either. Will it be commercialised? Don't know that either.

If you have a general tech interest in following yet another 'miracle' battery tech that may or may not see the light of day, I'll be the last to say not to. For me, reading papers on battery tech is a cure for insomnia. Unless the thing is commercialised & I can buy it, forget it. 

Each day the world turns.

https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/goodenough-introduces-new-battery-technology

I  already read that piece (see, I care). The best bit about that piece is:
For information on licensing this technology, or additional technology information, contact: Betsy Merrick, Office of Technology Commercialization, (512) 232-7699.

Waiting. And waiting some more. I'm certainly in no position to invest. Nor in a position to manufacture / commercialise / license the stuff. Nor into reading papers on yet another miracle battery tech. I'd like to think if it were ready (or easy) then they'd be setting up the factories now themselves. Meanwhile, we buy what we can actually buy.

[TerraHertz]

Actually, I totally share your cynical (realist) views of the way politics and tech-development work. If anything, I'm even more cynical. I know what you mean by 'bought', you mean the rights bought, with the sole purpose of burying it. Which happens all the time, and yes, could happen to this solid state glass battery, even if it is fantastic, revolutionary, cheap, easy to make and works great, etc.

But this is NOT a justification for switching off your attention to theoretical advances. It's in fact the best reason to pay attention, so you can recognize when something is being deliberately suppressed.

I was returning to this thread to make a prediction. I'd just watched this:

Tesla's new 2170 battery cell
Published on Jan 22, 2017
As it turns out, Tesla, and its battery partner Panasonic, started production of cells for qualification at the plant in December, but today, it confirmed the start of “mass production” of the new battery cell, which will enable several of Tesla’s new products, including the Model 3.
The new cell is called ‘2170’ because it’s 21mm by 70mm. It’s thicker and taller than the previous cell that Tesla developed with Panasonic, which was in an ‘18650’ cell format.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been boasting about the new cell over the past few month. He said that it’s the “highest energy density cell in the world and also the cheapest”.

My comment is that Tesla, having just turned on their very expensive 'giga factory' to produce their beefier 18650 derivative in vast numbers, would probably be extremely unenthusiastic about any revolutionary sodium-glass battery appearing just now. Especially one that makes all Lithium batteries look like crap in comparison.

So, I wonder who will buy the rights to the Goodenough battery? Would not be surprised if it's Tesla.

Anyway, the reason I am interested in finding out everything I can about the glass battery chemistry, is to learn whether it might be possible to make them oneself. Precisely because I do not trust the current corrupt corporate-patent monopolizing system to do the right thing. I expect this will get vanished rather than developed and brought to market. And I want to know if that can be bypassed, rather than just fatalistically give up and forget about it.

[bazza]

Anyway, the reason I am interested in finding out everything I can about the glass battery chemistry, is to learn whether it might be possible to make them oneself.

Now we're talking! Well that is definitely a good reason to pay attention to the comings-and-goings of the battery world. Homegrown battery tech free from politi-corp parasites: yes please!

[Psi]

Either you have a product i can buy or you're a fraud.
It's that simple

[tautech]

Actually, I totally share your cynical (realist) views of the way politics and tech-development work. If anything, I'm even more cynical. I know what you mean by 'bought', you mean the rights bought, with the sole purpose of burying it. Which happens all the time, and yes, could happen to this solid state glass battery, even if it is fantastic, revolutionary, cheap, easy to make and works great, etc.

But this is NOT a justification for switching off your attention to theoretical advances. It's in fact the best reason to pay attention, so you can recognize when something is being deliberately suppressed.

This ^ 

Anyway, the reason I am interested in finding out everything I can about the glass battery chemistry, is to learn whether it might be possible to make them oneself. Precisely because I do not trust the current corrupt corporate-patent monopolizing system to do the right thing. I expect this will get vanished rather than developed and brought to market. And I want to know if that can be bypassed, rather than just fatalistically give up and forget about it.

And this ^.

The multinational corporates have suppression of new technologies down to a fine art, bastards. 

[Neomys Sapiens]

The multinational corporates have suppression of new technologies down to a fine art, bastards. 
[/quote]

If that would have been all, it might be still bearable. The worst thing is, that they supress old technologies too!
While the extremely lamentable demise of the Mercury-based cells is at least explainable by environmental concerns (and yet, it is still legal to bury the deceased with their amalgam fillings ), another battery that was killed by the all-powerful lithium-can-do-anything mafia is the MAGNESIUM CELL. Never surpassed for long-term storage!

[wraper]

The multinational corporates have suppression of new technologies down to a fine art, bastards. 

One of the most common claims made by free energy and similar con artists.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Sorry for the quote gone awry - edit error!