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Zeta Energy: A Battery Breakthrough?
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MT:
TomKatt:
I'll have to watch the video later when I have more time, but I did a bit of quick Googling and this seems rather interesting.

It appears they are getting several million $ in federal grants for this.  It would be nice if technology like this is something America can take advantage of, instead of spending tax dollars to engineer the tech, only to let other countries like China bring it to manufacturing fruition and becoming leaders in the field, like what happened with solar.
SiliconWizard:
Lithium sulfur seems to be promising as far as I've read about it, so I'd say it's worth investing in that. Any serious and non-scammy effort to come up with something better than the current Li-Ion (with all associated issues) is welcome.
tom66:
It looks interesting but for all battery cells there will be key questions.  Often when you start digging you find out that a miracle cell technology has a critical limitation that these companies don't let on.

) Can they build it at scale at a good price?  They mention sulfur from existing refinery processes - fossil fuel production? What about when fossil fuel production is down 50%?  Are there other sustainable sources?  Conventional Li-Ion NMC is now around $100/kWh at the cell level.
 
) Does it have decent cycle life?  Conventional Li-Ion is now well beyond 2000 cycles per cell if well treated, 1000 cycles in average condition.   Enough for a car with 250 mile range.

) Can it charge quickly?  3C+ charge rates are commonplace, at least for some parts of the charge cycle.  At least 1.5-2C sustained over the 10-80% range seems to be typical.

) Does it perform well at all temperatures?  It needs to give decent range at -10C and +40C ambient temperatures and not deteriorate excessively at either end.

) Weight and volume are also important, though their document seemed to indicate these figures were comparable to conventional Li-Ion.

At present Li-Ion NMC seems to meet most of these requirements, with a few provisos.
thm_w:

--- Quote from: tom66 on March 10, 2023, 11:55:34 pm ---) Can they build it at scale at a good price?  They mention sulfur from existing refinery processes - fossil fuel production? What about when fossil fuel production is down 50%?  Are there other sustainable sources?  Conventional Li-Ion NMC is now around $100/kWh at the cell level.
--- End quote ---

Sulfur production is not really an issue.

"In 2022, sulfur production in the U.S. reached 8.6 million metric tons. From those, roughly 93 percent were recovered elemental sulfur."
"Global lithium production surpassed 100,000 tonnes for the first time in 2021"
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