Graphene Batteries

[jake]

I have been reading about graphene batteries lately. China has just come up with a prototype but no word if they will start production. It seems to be the breakthrough that everyone is liooking for. Very fast charging, much more capacity and cycles. Best of all it can be made at half the cost of a current Li-Ion battery. I hope this is not another dud. Fingers crossed.

[4wardthinking]

May get pushed away here.
The AU economy runs on transport.
Think of the dollars they could potentially loose out on!.

[unclewoja]

There have been countless new battery chemistries announced over the last 10 years. Nothing has yet to compete with Lithium. Tesla is currently increasing energy density at a rate of about 5% per year and by 2020, the estimate cost of cell production will be 80% less than when they started selling the Model S.

There's also safety to consider. Lithium batteries are flammable enough if something goes wrong.Lithium got a very bad wrap back in the 90's with countless laptop batteries exploding and catching fire. It almost destroyed the lithium battery industry but they pushed through it and now lithium is safe as houses in all but a very few isolated instances.

Graphene is 10 times as flammable as lithium batteries and it will be years before they are proven to be safe enough to sit 5 humans on top of and not have them end up char grilled in 15 seconds flat should something go wrong. By the time the industry is satisfied they're safe enough, lithum batteries will be just as good and just as cheap.

There will be something better than lithium come along eventually, and it may even be graphene, but it's at least 5-10 years away.

[4wardthinking]

Anyone tried the fire/explosion etc reason for bad rap?.
Sounds silly, but none of my attempts have proven they are any different to other chemistries.
One can do similar "things" with zinc-Carbon, Lead acid & more.
They are all i"ffy"if abused. Worst I found is a SLA Battery.
I've seen similar experiments with a wet rag as shown around, and it exploded and burst into flames.... Just like lithium battery.
Lithium in its raw state is quite! reactive, so is Sodium(found in supermarkets everywhere) ....but so is oxygen, and more note worthy is HYDROGEN. Nothing wrong with driving a bomb around if there's money to be grabbed though.
Hmmmm, I wonder if there was a lithium battery on the Graaf Zeppelin?. That would explain it all in modern times!?!,.

Still, there has to be some witch-craft in EV's, and wonderful explanations. I love this flat Earth we live on.

[4wardthinking]

Just to clarify this new 'holy grail' of batteries.
Graphene is a new electrode material.
It has a 'better' surface area electrically, doesn't buckle, or damage as much under greater current flow, which is what is required when one attempts to access the increasing 'energy density' in shorter periods of time.
One of the big problems in batteries is heat build up, and damage under higher power draw.
It's an aspect of cells/batteries that is being researched intensely at present, as it helps lower internal resistance, therefore heat build up. This is one of its positives, there are more substances under research though.

[jake]

It is claimed that graphene batteries lessen the possibility of fire and explosion and don't generate as much heat. Yes, the next breakthrough in battery technology is probably still 10 years away, but when the breakthrough is made, it should be a significant one.

futurism.com/scientists-develop-better-battery-thanks-graphene/

I am skeptical about this announcement, but it looks promising. I am wondering if this is the technology behind some of the remarkable new ranges promised for upcoming models of electric cars.

[unclewoja]

A few years ago, some researchers were looking into graphene based super capacitors. They had the benefit of accepting massive amounts of charge and could discharge equally fast. We're talking a full charge in mere seconds if the power supply was available.

The design used millions, or billions, of tiny supercapacitors created using a lithography process to produce sheets that could be layered one on top of another to build whatever size or shape battery you wanted. The only disadvantage was energy density (or specific energy, can't remember which one..... the energy vs volume one) was not where it needed to be for commercial viability, however that was only using rudimentary lithography processes and prototypes. If that research is still on-going, I'd say they'd be much better now.

[4wardthinking]

Super capacitors have a distinct future in transport. The problem is not the capacitor, it's how to control discharge of them in a feasible way.
The charge time is way quicker than the average! cell, and one can only imagine how quick a visit to the charge station would or could be!.

Graphene is only one of a number of technologies being tested.
The problem, usually collectively labeled is fire, when it's often a short being fed power through, and naturally heat is produced, just the same as household wiring with a short, and little protection.
I see the surface are of graphene per square centimeter is good, but the same problem is uniform spacing inside the constructed cell. Ion coating is a more precise way, or even electro-static coating exceeds lithography in uniformity at molecular levels. The problem often is distortion from thermal stress as the cell is cycled.
At such microscopic dimensions the greatest enemy is thermal stress and equilibrium. That's more of a factor than any magic materials in use, and sadly not all manufacturing processes are identical, and sometimes flauted in face of financial gains.
I recently took a LiPO cell apart to find the carbon or supposedly graphite was finely ground coke, the higher density of carbon coal. That particular cell was often showing higher temperatures than expected under use, and closed down the system charging it before it reached potentially dangerous temperatures.