A Renewable Energy Battery Plant Will Rise in West Virginia Where a Steel Mill Once Stood by Dharna Noor
August 14, 2023
Introduction:
(The Guardian) A cutting-edge energy storage company is building its main manufacturing plant where a once-thriving West Virginia steel mill once stood in the city of Weirton. According to lawmakers, the much-lauded project was made possible by incentives from 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed by President Biden one year ago this Wednesday.
For supporters, it’s a sign that climate policies can also breathe life back into deindustrialized coal and steel communities with green jobs. The symbolism is compelling but how much those communities benefit will depend on a wide array of factors.
Form Energy, a Massachusetts-based company helmed by a former Tesla vice-president, broke ground on its iron-air battery manufacturing plant this past May. Workers will produce batteries capable of storing electricity for 100 hours, which will run on iron, water and air instead of the more common but less-abundant metal lithium. The $760m project will create 750 well-paying permanent jobs, the company said.
The plant is being constructed on the ashes of the old Weirton steel mill, once the beating heart of the steel economy in the Ohio River valley
Further extract:
The IRA’s carbon-cutting incentives were touted as a way to reduce the nation’s carbon emissions by 40% from 2003 levels while bringing manufacturing jobs back onshore. Since the law’s passage last year, manufacturers have announced 83 new or expanded major clean energy manufacturing facilities, including 14 battery manufacturing facilities, according to the American Clean Power Association.
New ‘Droplet Battery’ Could Pave the Way for Miniature Bio-integrated Devices August 30, 2023
Introduction:
(Eurekalert) University of Oxford researchers have made a significant step towards realising miniature bio-integrated devices, capable of directly stimulating cells. The work has been published today in the journal Nature.
Small bio-integrated devices that can interact with and stimulate cells could have important therapeutic applications, including the delivery of targeted drug therapies and the acceleration of wound healing. However, such devices all need a power source to operate. To date, there has been no efficient means to provide power at the microscale level.
To address this, researchers from the University of Oxford’s Department of Chemistry have developed a miniature power source capable of altering the activity of cultured human nerve cells. Inspired by how electric eels generate electricity, the device uses internal ion gradients to generate energy.
The miniaturized soft power source is produced by depositing a chain of five nanolitre-sized droplets of a conductive hydrogel (a 3D network of polymer chains containing a large quantity of absorbed water). Each droplet has a different composition so that a salt concentration gradient is created across the chain. The droplets are separated from their neighbours by lipid bilayers, which provide mechanical support while preventing ions from flowing between the droplets.
The power source is turned on by cooling the structure to 4°C and changing the surrounding medium: this disrupts the lipid bilayers and causes the droplets to form a continuous hydrogel. This allows the ions to move through the conductive hydrogel, from the high-salt droplets at the two ends to the low-salt droplet in the middle. By connecting the end droplets to electrodes, the energy released from the ion gradients is transformed into electricity, enabling the hydrogel structure to act as a power source for external components.
Gotion, a major Chinese battery company will be mass producing the Astroinno L600 LMFP battery cell in 2024. It has 15% more energy density than this years ground breaking CATL M3P battery. In May, 2023, it was announced that the L600, which has passed all safety tests, has a weight energy density of 240Wh/kg, a volume energy density of 525Wh/L, a cycle life of 4000 times at room temperature, and a cycle life of 1800 times at high temperatures. The the volumetric cell to pack ratio has reached 76% after adopting the L600 cell, and the system energy density has reached 190Wh/kg, surpassing the pack energy density of current mass-produced NCM (nickel) cells.
The CATL M3P is reportedly being used in the Tesla Model 3 Highland. It can provide thousands of dollars of costs savings versus current nickel batteries.
CATL will improve the M3P to match the Gotion L600. Reviewing the capabilities of batteries in the lab and in development indicates a continued steady march of 10-20% cost and range improvements.
We have plotted out the specifications of the CATL M3P, the Gotion L600, current nickel, likely near term improved nickel batteries and possible improved batteries through 2030 and beyond.
With the rapid growth of the smart and wearable electronic devices market, smart next-generation energy storage systems that have energy storage functions as well as additional color-changing properties are receiving a great deal of attention. However, existing electrochromic devices have low electrical conductivity, leading to low efficiency in electron and ion mobility, and low storage capacities. Such batteries have therefore been limited to use in flexible and wearable devices.
On August 21, a joint research team led by Professor Il-Doo Kim from the KAIST Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) and Professor Tae Gwang Yun from the Myongji University Department of Materials Science and Engineering announced the development of a smart electrochromic Zn-ion battery that can visually represent its charging and discharging processes using an electrochromic polymer anode incorporated with a "π-bridge spacer," which increases electron and ion mobility efficiency.
Lithium-sulfur Batteries Could Provide High Energy, Low Cost and Long Life Alternative September 7, 2023
Introduction:
(Eurekalert) Scientists discover surprising pathway to better lithium-sulfur batteries by visualizing reactions at the atomic scale.
The road from breakthrough in the lab to practical technology can be a long and bumpy one. The lithium-sulfur battery is an example. It has notable advantages over current lithium-ion batteries powering vehicles. But it has yet to dent the market despite intense development over many years.
That situation could change in the future thanks to the efforts of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. Over the past decade, they have made several pivotal discoveries related to lithium-sulfur batteries. Their latest revelation, published in Nature, unlocks a previously unknown reaction mechanism that addresses a major shortcoming — the batteries’ very short lifetimes.
Gui-Liang Xu, chemist in Argonne’s Chemical Sciences and Engineering division, stated that “Our team’s efforts could bring the U.S. one large step closer to a greener and more sustainable transportation landscape.”
Lithium-sulfur batteries offer three significant advantages over current lithium-ion batteries. Firstly, they can store two to three times more energy in a given volume, resulting in longer vehicle ranges. Secondly, their lower cost, facilitated by the abundance and affordability of sulfur, makes them economically viable. Lastly, these batteries do not rely on critical resources like cobalt and nickel, which may face shortages in the future
Unlimited Power and Nearly Unlimited Batteries
September 11, 2023 by Brian Wang
CATL of China is mass producing generation one sodium ion batteries starting next month. The first factory has about a 40 GWH per year capacity.
China has 16 out of 20 globally planned or built sodium battery factories according to Benchmark Minerals.
CATL’s first-generation sodium battery generates 160-watt-hours per kilogram. This is 10% less energy than iron LFP batteries and 40% less than mass produced nickel batteries. CATL plans to increase the energy density of next generation sodium ion to 200 Wh/kg. CATL’s sodium-ion batteries will be used by China’s Chery, the first automaker to use the technology.
New Battery Recycling Rules Could be a Game-changer in the EU’s Search for EV Minerals by Maddie Stone
September 19, 2023
Introduction:
(Grist) The clean energy transition will require lots of batteries — primarily to power electric vehicles and to store renewable energy that can be dispatched to the electric grid on demand. European Union policymakers are growing more concerned about where the bloc will get all the metals required to build those batteries. One potential source? Dead lithium-ion batteries from EVs, e-bikes, and consumer electronics, which contain lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other ingredients needed to make new ones.
Recycling the metals used in batteries has the potential to limit the need for environmentally damaging mining while also reducing electronic waste. But Europe’s lithium-ion battery recycling industry is in its infancy. While manufacturers sold nearly 700,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries into the European market last year, recyclers only had the capacity to process about 17,000 tons of battery waste, according to Circular Energy Storage, a data analysis firm for the battery industry.
New rules that entered force last month could help change that. After years of negotiations, the EU just adopted a comprehensive battery regulation that could spur battery recycling at a scale never seen before outside of China. Battery industry experts say the policy has the potential to supercharge lithium-ion battery recycling across the bloc.
The EU’s new battery rules “will make a very big impact for the whole supply chain not only in Europe but also globally,” Xiao Lin, CEO of the Chinese battery metal recycling consultancy Botree Cycling, told Grist.
Researchers develop way to prevent damage that plagues next-gen lithium batteries
by Daniela Benites, University of Maryland
University of Maryland researchers studying how lithium batteries fail have developed a new technology that could enable next-generation electric vehicles (EVs) and other devices that are less prone to battery fires while increasing energy storage.
The innovative method, presented in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, suppresses the growth of lithium dendrites—damaging branch-like structures that develop inside so-called all-solid-state lithium batteries, preventing firms from broadly commercializing the promising technology. But this new design for a battery "interlayer," led by Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Chunsheng Wang, stops dendrite formation and could open the door for production of viable all-solid-state batteries for EVs.
At least 750,000 registered EVs in the U.S. run on lithium-ion batteries—popular because of their high energy storage but containing a flammable liquid electrolyte component that burns when overheated. While no government agency tracks vehicle fires by type of car, and electric car battery fires appear to be relatively rare, they pose particular risks; the National Transportation Safety Board reports that first responders are vulnerable to safety risks, including electric shock and the exposure to toxic gases emanating from damaged or burning batteries.
All-solid-state batteries could lead to cars that are safer than current electric or internal combustion models, but creating a strategy to bypass the drawbacks was laborious, Wang said. When these batteries are operated at the high capacities and charging-discharging rates that electric vehicles demand, lithium dendrites grow toward the cathode side, causing short circuits and a decay in capacity.
IIT’s First Ever-made Rechargeable Edible Battery Nominated on TIME’s 2023 List of Best Innovations October, 2023
Introduction:
(Eurekalert) Genoa/Milan (Italy), 24 October 2023 – From the research lab to TIME’s 2023 list of Best Innovations, IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) makes a hit with the first ever-made rechargeable edible battery. The battery has been selected by TIME among the most impactful innovations of the year that are changing how we live, being listed as one of the special mention inventions. This is the first time for a prototype stemming from a research center based in Italy to be acknowledged in TIME’s prestigious list.
In March 2023 the research paper “An Edible Rechargeable Battery” was published by Mario Caironi’s group on the international journal Advanced Materials describing the proof-of-concept battery cell obtained by using materials that are normally consumed as part of our daily diet, such as almonds, capers, and algae. The news was covered by newspapers and magazines worldwide, impressed by the originality of the research result. IIT press office counted more than 250 news articles in 2 months appearing in Italy, UK, USA, France, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Israel, Argentina, and many other countries.
TIME editors also noticed it. Amidst hundreds of other products and proposals, after an evaluation based “on a number of key factors, including originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact”, TIME has decided to acknowledge the first ever-made rechargeable edible battery made at IIT among the 200 most impactful innovations of 2023 that are changing how we live, as a special mention invention.
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Networked intelligent devices and sensors can improve the energy efficiency of consumer products and buildings by monitoring their consumption in real time. Miniature devices like these being developed under the concept of the Internet of Things require energy sources that are as compact as possible in order to function autonomously.
Monolithically integrated batteries that simultaneously generate, convert, and store energy in a single system could be used for this purpose.
A team of scientists at the University of Freiburg's Cluster of Excellence Living, Adaptive, and Energy-Autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS) has developed a monolithically integrated photo battery consisting of an organic polymer-based battery and a multi-junction organic solar cell.
The battery, presented by Rodrigo Delgado Andrés and Dr. Uli Würfel, University Freiburg, and Robin Wessling and Prof. Dr. Birgit Esser, University of Ulm, is the first monolithically integrated photo battery made of organic materials to achieve a discharge potential of 3.6 volts. It is thus among the first systems of this kind capable of powering miniature devices. The team published their results in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.
(Wiley Online Library) Formic acid, which can be produced electrochemically from carbon dioxide, is a promising energy carrier. A Chinese research team have now developed a fast-charging hybrid battery system that combines the electrochemical generation of formic acid as an energy carrier with a microbial fuel cell. As the team demonstrate in the journal Angewandte Chemie, this novel, fast-charging biohybrid battery system can be used to monitor the toxicity of drinking water, just one of many potential future applications.
Microbial fuel cells harness bacteria to generate electricity, exploiting the ability of some bacterial species to convert energy-rich molecules into electrical energy. In fully microbial batteries, bacteria also produce the energy carrier molecules during the charging process, which are then used to generate electricity during the discharging process. However, one of the disadvantages of fully microbial batteries is that charging is still rather inefficient and slow.
By coupling the purely inorganic electrochemical generation of a biological active molecule with a microbial fuel cell, Yong Jiang's research team at the Agriculture and Forestry University in Fuzhou, China, and colleagues, have for the first time developed a two-stage hybrid microbial battery system that overcomes many of the challenges faced by fully microbial batteries.
The team also aimed to produce a biohybrid battery using simple and inexpensive components to provide sustainable energy. They found that formic acid is a sustainable biological energy carrier, because it can be produced either biologically or electrocatalytically from carbon dioxide and is then available for consumption by the bacteria in the microbial fuel cell.
Using commercially available components, they designed an electrolysis cell in which inorganic catalysts convert carbon dioxide gas into formic acid. Using this design, the team found that the charging process takes place within a few minutes. Once formic acid has been produced and extracted from the electrolyte, it is fed into a second device—the microbial fuel cell—where bacteria slowly convert it into carbon dioxide and electricity at the bioanode.
Soap May Hold the Secret to Longer-Lasting Batteries by Juan Siliezar-Brown
November 8, 2023
Introduction:
(Futurity) The key to making batteries last longer may be found in how soap works, new research shows.
Take handwashing, for instance. When someone washes their hands with soap, the soap forms structures called micelles that trap and remove grease, dirt, and germs when flushed with water. The soap does this because it acts as bridge between the water and what is being cleaned away, by binding them and wrapping them into those micelle structures.
As reported in Nature Materials, researchers noticed that a similar process plays out in what has become one of the most promising substances for designing longer lasting lithium batteries—a new type of electrolyte called a localized high-concentration electrolyte.
This new understanding of how this process works might be the missing piece to fully kicking the door open in this emerging sector of technology, the researchers suggest in their paper.
“The big picture is that we want to improve and increase the energy density for batteries, meaning how much energy they store per cycle and how many cycles the battery lasts,” says Yue Qi, a professor in the School of Engineering at Brown University.
EnergyX Aims New Solid-State EV Battery At The 500,000-Mile Car Of The Future
November 15, 2023
Tina Casey
Electric vehicles are just like ordinary gas guzzlers in some respects, including their lifespan. They need to be replaced every once in a while. That kicks a whole ecosystem of automotive supply chain activity into gear, with a new carbon footprint piling up along the way. A longer-lasting solid-state EV battery would help cut those lifecycle emissions, and the startup EnergyX is among those hammering away at the problem.
Here’s Some Sustainable Lithium To Go With That New Solid-State EV Battery
All across the UK, large scale battery farms are springing up at amazing speed - this one I visited in Buckinghamshire was completed in just 10 months.
It can power 300,000 homes for up to two hours and is one of the biggest in Europe.
Prices for storage on this scale continue to tumble, and experts estimate that by the end of this decade there will be enough batteries in place to power 18 million homes across the UK. That's an astonishing rate of growth.
