New lithium batteries make long-ranged Electric cars feasible!!

[Veilex]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/13/korean-geniuses-invent-lithium-batteries-with-eight-times-the-ju/

This is excellent news!
This has the potential to drive the auto industry toward electric vehicles.

[soleft]

1. Imagine how'd they do on Di-lithium chrystals

[MineralMan]

2. Shhh....

Talk like that could get you anal-probed, you know.

[Winterblues]

6. Promises Promises

:shrug:

[MazeRat7]

3. Wonder how the solved that whole "fire and explosion" thing ? n/t

[Ezlivin]

4. The electric 2010 Pinto should be trouble-free

As long as it's operated in non-oxygen environments.

[soleft]

5. Our two family cars growing up where a Covair and a Pinto

Do you think my parents had a death wish?

[EOTE]

7. Either that or they hated Ralph Nader. NT.

[Ezlivin]

9. My wife's first car was a Corvair

And she rear-ended a Scoutmaster in his Pinto with our Volvo. She came home limping, crying that she had "hit a Boy Scout."

I was glad that she hadn't been cremated in the collision!

[backscatter712]

10. As opposed to our current generation of vehicles...

which are powered by combustion of flammable liquids, which are stored in large tanks which have been known to rupture, catch fire and explode from time to time...

[TheWraith]

11. You mean gasoline doesn't catch fire and explode? News to me.

Lithium ion batteries are significantly less prone to combustion than any other fuel used in production vehicles.

[Greyhound]

8. You do know that Texaco/Chevron has held the patents for efficient car batteries

and prevented their use for over a decade, don't you?

GM bought Ovshinsky's (sic?) battery and sold it to someone who sold it to Texaco/Chevron who has specifically withheld it from the auto industry since then.

[TheWraith]

12. That's not really true. NiMH are less efficient than Lithium Ion...

...And nobody's preventing their use, you simply have to pay a license fee like with any other patented technology.

[Greyhound]

13. Someone already did the research on this and posted it yesterday.

The license specifically excludes their use in manufacturing electric powered vehicles.

[TheWraith]

15. Actually, it's that the license only mentions hybrids. And that they don't sell small lots.

In any event, it's irrelevant to the question of electric vehicles. Lithium Ion has a greater energy density per kilogram, as well as a lower self-discharge rate.

[Greyhound]

16. That's great, we still have been denied electric alternatives through corporate collusion.

That was my point. It was, and has been, viable and there has been demand and they were kept from us.

[TheWraith]

14. I advise caution. I've read way too many of these stories, frankly.

It's really easy to come up with something in a lab which performs better than an existing model. But that doesn't necessarily mean it'll immediately make it out of the lab, or ever for that matter. Last January there was an article about similar technology developed at Stanford, replacing the graphite with silicon nanowires for a 10x increase in capacity. So far, they're not on the market.

Press accounts are great, but we should wait for real-world confirmation.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Here's an article with some more technical details

The Hanyang team, led by chemist Jaephil Cho, developed a nanoporous silicon electrode that could at least double the charge capacity of a lithium battery--essentially doubling the range of an electric vehicle. And unlike previously reported silicon anodes, the one created by Cho's team can charge and discharge rapidly.
...
Cho's new nanoporous silicon, in contrast, seems to last much longer even under rapid charging, according to his group's paper published in November in the German journal Angewandte Chemie. The nanoporous electrodes still retained a charge greater than 2,400 milliamp-hours per gram--over six times more than the graphite anodes used in existing lithium batteries--after 100 rapid charging cycles. "That's definitely good enough for commercialization," says Cho.
...
But the real question, say observers, is whether any of these materials can be produced at the right price. Marc Obrovac, a research specialist at 3M working on lithium-battery materials, points to a sophisticated silicon anode design already made by Sanyo Electric that achieves energy densities exceeding Cho's. "Despite this superior performance, Sanyo apparently never commercialized its silicon electrode," says Obrovac. "Fabrication cost may have been a factor."

Cui points to another factor that could limit the impact of silicon anodes: cathode performance. If new cathode materials could match the energy density of the silicon anodes, this would multiply the energy storage capacity of finished batteries four- or fivefold, he says. Using conventional cathodes, however, would require a sixfold increase in the cathode's mass and volume to deliver a doubling of the total energy storage. "We are actually limited more by the cathode," says Cui. "Improving the anode will have a very big impact. But improving the cathode can have an even larger impact."

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21750/?a=f

Note that the earlier article just says 'eight time the juice' - but that only applies to the anode part. So, for now, we're just looking at a doubling of capacity, for the whole thing. Still, if they can manufacture it at a decent price, that's still good news.

[Swamp Rat]

18. Thanks n/t