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Battery Life Breakthrough Could Increase Li-Ion Capacity by 1000%
ZoomLife ^ | 11/25/08 | Sebastian Schepis

Posted on 11/25/2008 8:12:11 PM PST by LibWhacker

In what could potentially be a revolutionary breakthrough for everything from laptops to electric cars, a South Korean team of researchers have made a major discovery in Lithium-Ion battery technology. A team of researchers at South Korea’s Hanyung University, led by professor Cho Jaephil, has claimed a discovery that could extend lithium ion battery energy capacity by up to 1000% or more.

The key to Jaephil’s discovery was the application of a three-dimensional porous silicon graphite cathode, which has the ability of holding up to ten times the number of lithium ions as conventional graphite cathodes. Patents have already been applied for. from the press release:

Lithium ion accumulator batteries produce current by moving lithium ions. The battery usually contains a cathode (positive electrode) made of a mixed metal oxide, such as lithium cobalt oxide, and an anode (negative electrode) made of graphite. While the battery is being charged, lithium ions migrate into the anode, where they are stored between the graphite layers. When the battery is being discharged, these ions migrate back to the cathode.

It would be nice to have an anodic material that could store more lithium ions than graphite. Silicon presents an interesting alternative. The problem: silicon expands a great deal while absorbing lithium ions (charging) and shrinks when giving them up (discharging). After several cycles the required thin silicon layers are pulverized and can no longer be charged.

Cho’s team has now developed a new method for the production of a porous silicon anode that can withstand this strain. They annealed silicon dioxide nanoparticles with silicon particles whose outermost silicon atoms have short hydrocarbon chains attached to them at 900 °C under an argon atmosphere. The silicon dioxide particles were removed from the resulting mass by etching. What remained were carbon-coated silicon crystals in a continuous, three-dimensional, highly porous structure.

If this is for real, it could have a huge impact on the electric vehicle industry. For example, the Tesla Roadster currently gets about 150-200 miles per charge. Imagine having an electric car that gets 1600 miles per charge, with a full charge costing you less than a regular tank of gas. You’re getting more miles for less money, with no fossil fuel use - especially if your electrity comes from a renewable source.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Science
KEYWORDS: battery; breakthrough; energy; ion; lithium; power
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1 posted on 11/25/2008 8:12:11 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker

I have only one question: why was this discovered in Korea and not the United States?


2 posted on 11/25/2008 8:16:04 PM PST by DiogenesLaertius
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To: LibWhacker

Getting up there with the Star Trek power packs.


3 posted on 11/25/2008 8:16:15 PM PST by Red Steel
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To: LibWhacker

Interesting especially if the real world application results are the same as in the laboratory.


4 posted on 11/25/2008 8:17:57 PM PST by Parley Baer
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To: LibWhacker

Bloody nanotechnology!


5 posted on 11/25/2008 8:20:14 PM PST by dr_who
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To: DiogenesLaertius

Because we don’t graduate engineers anymore. American students all want to be famous or wealthy or both and they want it now. Therefore they major in performing arts, sports or finance. Those pesky math and science course make their little brains hurt. This is another reason why we are slowly becoming a second class country.


6 posted on 11/25/2008 8:25:06 PM PST by redangus
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To: DiogenesLaertius

How come the Koreans discovered this first......must be stem cell research.


7 posted on 11/25/2008 8:25:54 PM PST by lacrew (Yup, they're girded!)
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To: LibWhacker
This is the only way electric cars will be economically viable.

It would be great if true, but we'll see how it works in real world applications and scaled up to electric car battery sizes.

8 posted on 11/25/2008 8:26:58 PM PST by Jotmo (Has 0bama fixed my soul yet? I can't tell.)
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To: redangus

Thats not true,we graduate lots of engineers. Of course most of them are Indian or Korean....


9 posted on 11/25/2008 8:27:47 PM PST by When do we get liberated? ((Ok, Im the official Pit Bull Defender/If you can't stand behind our troops, stand in front of them.)
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To: LibWhacker

Didn’t this come up about 3 or 4 years ago, and the consensus was that the battery would be too unstable, and might explode?


10 posted on 11/25/2008 8:27:47 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Obama - not just an empty suit - - A Suit Bomb invading the White House)
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To: When do we get liberated?

Thank you for making my point.


11 posted on 11/25/2008 8:38:26 PM PST by redangus
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To: LibWhacker
You’re getting more miles for less money, with no fossil fuel use - especially if your electrity comes from a renewable source.

yup, no fossil fuels used in warming that argon stuff up to 900 degrees celsius to make the fancy batteries, none used in producing solar cells and windmills for charging them, none used in extruding the plastic body panels, etc...

12 posted on 11/25/2008 8:40:25 PM PST by jz638
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To: Red Badger

ping


13 posted on 11/25/2008 8:40:44 PM PST by B4Ranch (("In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." FDR)
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To: B4Ranch

Maybe I should hold off on buying my new Milwaukee Hammer Drill......hold out for a new battery !!!!


14 posted on 11/25/2008 9:00:59 PM PST by Michigan Bowhunter (Democrat socialist liberal scumbags.....how did we let this happen!)
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To: neverdem; Myrddin; Robert A. Cook, PE; Physicist; SunkenCiv; Wonder Warthog; ...

Like, *PING*, dudes.


15 posted on 11/25/2008 9:21:52 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: neverdem; Myrddin; Robert A. Cook, PE; Physicist; SunkenCiv; Wonder Warthog; ...

Like, *PING*, dudes.


16 posted on 11/25/2008 9:22:02 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: jz638
yup, no fossil fuels used in warming that argon stuff up to 900 degrees celsius to make the fancy batteries, none used in producing solar cells and windmills for charging them, none used in extruding the plastic body panels, etc...

Or for transporting the material(s) to the manufacturer and then to the distributor or construction site.

I've had that very same argument with leftards who shouted no blood for oil yet won't address giving up their computers and their site servers, (nor their Playstations), powered by big oil.

17 posted on 11/25/2008 9:44:14 PM PST by JoJo Gunn (Stupid people shouldn't breed.)
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To: ShadowAce

ping


18 posted on 11/25/2008 9:45:11 PM PST by JoJo Gunn (Stupid people shouldn't breed.)
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To: editor-surveyor
Didn’t this come up about 3 or 4 years ago, and the consensus was that the battery would be too unstable, and might explode?

Think that was the carbon nanotube based battery where it could be charged up very quickly, but could discharge just as quickly due to an internal short making a considerable boom even with a small battery.

19 posted on 11/25/2008 9:55:55 PM PST by The Cajun (Mind numbed robot , ditto-head, Hannitized, Levinite)
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To: jz638

Good point. That “if” your electrity comes from a renewable source is a pretty big IF too. Electric cars would be a major new demand on the electric grid - even if all new cars were electric in 10 years, there is no way we’d have the added electric generation capacity in 10 years, all from renewable sources, to supply the demand of the chargers. Heck, it’ll take 10 years just to get all the environmental impact studies done, much less ok’d.

Not only that, Obama has said he will strongly push policies that would cause electric rates to go through the roof under his “leadership”. So much for saving money on the “fuel”.

I also wonder how far the batteries will be into production before some nasty new problem is found. Don’t get me wrong, I use NiMh and Li-ion batteries quite a bit, but the track record with rechargeables seems to be getting worse, the more exotic they get.


20 posted on 11/25/2008 10:00:11 PM PST by Paul R. (We are in a break in an Ice Age. A brief break at that...)
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To: LibWhacker

I remember poo-poohing similar claims not that long ago about a breakthrough in hard drive capacity using quantum mechanics.

“Suuuuuure,” I said.

Then one day, I noticed a 30GB laptop drive cost far less than I’d not long ago spent for a 340MB drive—and yet was thinner!—and I took notice. Not long after, those two “breakers-through” won the Nobel Prize and I paid even less still for a 160GB drive.


21 posted on 11/25/2008 10:02:03 PM PST by Petronski (For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden. -- Cdl. Stafford)
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To: LibWhacker
Cho Jaephil, has claimed a discovery that could extend lithium ion battery energy capacity by up to 1000% or more.

Great, 10 times the life .... what about surge power applications?

I want my pocket railgun / phaser.

22 posted on 11/25/2008 10:06:42 PM PST by Centurion2000 (To protect and defend ... against all enemies, foreign and domestic .... by any means necessary.)
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To: grey_whiskers

thanks, bfl


23 posted on 11/25/2008 10:07:34 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
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To: redangus

“Because we don’t graduate engineers anymore. American students all want to be famous or wealthy or both and they want it now. Therefore they major in performing arts, sports or finance. Those pesky math and science course make their little brains hurt. This is another reason why we are slowly becoming a second class country.”

This is not a new phenomenon, it’s been going on for 40 years, when a lot of people who didn’t really belong in school acquired “soft” degrees. Before then, the only reason you took those courses of study was so that you would not waste valuable time in college better spent looking for a spouse who was getting a math or science degree!

On the battery, I worry about what happens when a battery like that develops a short. I think “it might be bad”. As in, vaporizing in a white-hot fireball.


24 posted on 11/25/2008 10:48:09 PM PST by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: LibWhacker
My own fetish has always been family sized power packs, solar (urban) plus wind (urban and rural) or whatever;
problem (aside from cost) has always been what to do during down times (batteries).

What's this do for that concept?

25 posted on 11/25/2008 11:01:14 PM PST by norton
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To: norton
Oh yeah:
Electric cars are a dead end unless and until they are capable of charging themselves.
Which, of course, will require some other means of power while the batteries are being built back up.
And while new nuclear generating plants are being debated by powers that be.
26 posted on 11/25/2008 11:08:42 PM PST by norton
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To: LibWhacker

“...extend lithium ion battery energy capacity by up to 1000% or more.”

“Department of Redundancy Department, please pick up and lift the white courtesy phone device.”


27 posted on 11/25/2008 11:24:10 PM PST by decal (Too many people mistake "tolerance" for "approval.")
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To: grey_whiskers

Thanks!


28 posted on 11/26/2008 12:01:14 AM PST by Myrddin
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To: norton

nah


29 posted on 11/26/2008 12:20:26 AM PST by Rick_Michael (Have no fear "Senator Government" is here)
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To: LibWhacker

3 dimensional porosity sounds like sinterization to me.


30 posted on 11/26/2008 3:12:54 AM PST by Kevmo (Palin/Hunter 2012)
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To: DiogenesLaertius
"I have only one question: why was this discovered in Korea and not the United States?"

Hey, there ARE reseaachers in other countries--SOMETIMES they have to be first. But to put your mind at rest:

http://www.intomobile.com/2008/01/02/stanford-researchers-develop-super-long-lasting-lithium-ion-battery.html

So we're not exactly doing nothing in the area.

31 posted on 11/26/2008 3:22:52 AM PST by Wonder Warthog ( The Hog of Steel)
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To: B4Ranch; sully777; vigl; Cagey; Abathar; A. Patriot; B Knotts; getsoutalive; muleskinner; ...
Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.....

If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST just FReepmail me.....

This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....THANKS TO B4Ranch!...........

32 posted on 11/26/2008 5:19:53 AM PST by Red Badger (Never has a man risen so far, so fast and is expected to do so much, for so many, with so little...)
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To: DiogenesLaertius
I have only one question: why was this discovered in Korea and not the United States?

Deuteronomy 28:15-68

33 posted on 11/26/2008 5:25:54 AM PST by Red Badger (Never has a man risen so far, so fast and is expected to do so much, for so many, with so little...)
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To: Petronski
Samsung Now Producing 256GB Solid State Drives
34 posted on 11/26/2008 5:26:18 AM PST by AFreeBird
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To: DiogenesLaertius

“I have only one question: why was this discovered in Korea and not the United States....”

Maybe because the Korean college students are in their labs at 6:00 am Saturday mornings?


35 posted on 11/26/2008 5:30:17 AM PST by mo
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To: DiogenesLaertius

Because we’re just consumers and service providers now. R&D is so last century.


36 posted on 11/26/2008 5:34:49 AM PST by ecomcon
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To: editor-surveyor
Didn’t this come up about 3 or 4 years ago, and the consensus was that the battery would be too unstable, and might explode?

That is a boat load of energy in a small space. Remember the compaq laptop computers that would explode? Scale that up a thousand times!

However, I hope that they can make a battery with that great of a power density that is safe. Batteries have been the weak link in electrical powered cars.

37 posted on 11/26/2008 6:50:00 AM PST by cpdiii (roughneck, oilfield trash and proud of it, geologist, pilot, pharmacist, iconoclast.)
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To: cpdiii
"That is a boat load of energy in a small space"

Yes, it is. Its like packing the charge from the battery of a KW highway tractor into a battery the size of a D cell.

"However, I hope that they can make a battery with that great of a power density that is safe."

Possibly a catalyst can be found that sufficiently regulates the available discharge rate down to the application's required level.

38 posted on 11/26/2008 7:06:49 AM PST by editor-surveyor (Obama - not just an empty suit - - A Suit Bomb invading the White House)
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To: LibWhacker

Unfortunately, this does nothing to help address the scarcity of usable lithium supplies.


39 posted on 11/26/2008 7:55:56 AM PST by ConservativeMind (Obama is bringing in every crook and bumbler he can to assure consistency in his message.)
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To: Michigan Bowhunter

The dead battery is what gives you a reason to take a smoke break. This new battery idea will have our wives and bosses expecting too much production from husbands and employees!


40 posted on 11/26/2008 8:01:05 AM PST by B4Ranch (("In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." FDR)
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To: editor-surveyor

My thought exactly. We’re talking enormous energy densities here.

Very exciting, but if that energy gets loose suddenly life in the immediate vicinity will be even more exciting!

At least in theory this won’t require as much additional electrical generating capacity as many think. If cars are recharged during presently low-use periods, much of the capacity can come from the more efficient use of peak capacity. This can easily be encouraged by having considerably lower rates for off-peak electricity use.

I also wonder how much these batteries will cost and how long they will last.


41 posted on 11/26/2008 8:03:21 AM PST by Sherman Logan (Everyone has a right to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.)
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To: LibWhacker
Imagine having an electric car that gets 1600 miles per charge, with a full charge costing you less than a regular tank of gas.

The energy in a gallon of gas is 1.3x108 joules, which equals 36 Kwh. At a household cost of 12 cents/Kwh, that's $4.33 for an amount of electricity that would equal the energy of one gallon of gas.

Now, electric cars are much more energy efficient than the internal combustion engine, so the real cost will probably be closer to $1 - $2, but it's still not free.

42 posted on 11/26/2008 8:05:47 AM PST by PapaBear3625 (Question O-thority)
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To: redangus

We graduate engineers. They just can’t find decent jobs.


43 posted on 11/26/2008 8:07:59 AM PST by Sloth (What's the difference between taxation and armed robbery, aside from who's doing it?)
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To: lacrew

Is there a country on a planet that values education more than Korea does? A hat tip to them.


44 posted on 11/26/2008 8:08:36 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: 9YearLurker

*the*


45 posted on 11/26/2008 8:09:02 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: grey_whiskers

Cool.

Good idea - IF/WHEN it works.

(Now, about that messy little “dispose of the old battery” problem. Will the enviro’s let us throw away Lithium compounds? )


46 posted on 11/26/2008 8:10:58 AM PST by Robert A. Cook, PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: LibWhacker; Lil'freeper

Nice.


47 posted on 11/26/2008 8:12:04 AM PST by big'ol_freeper (Gen. George S. Patton to Michael Moore... American Carol: "I really like slapping you.")
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To: DiogenesLaertius; Red Badger
I have only one question: why was this discovered in Korea and not the United States?

For one thing, Li-Ion batteries are such a promising technology that lots of people are working with them all around the world. It's not surprising that other folks make discoveries, too.

More to the point, if you've been following the FR threads on the topic (there have been many), you'd know that there is a lot of Li-Ion battery research in the US, including a large number of significant breakthroughs.

48 posted on 11/26/2008 8:16:51 AM PST by r9etb
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To: cpdiii

There seems to be a lot of confusion here about whether the energy density is being increased or the number of cycles of discharge - recharge.

The objective is to do both of course.


49 posted on 11/26/2008 8:21:05 AM PST by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, then writes again.)
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To: r9etb

Maybe because it's too dangerous?.....8^)

50 posted on 11/26/2008 8:21:41 AM PST by Red Badger (Never has a man risen so far, so fast and is expected to do so much, for so many, with so little...)
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