Researcher of new battery accepted my invitation for interview in this website.

[All Darc]

I found her Skype and sent a hello. But I'm not sure if she keep Skype connected, So I will send a email again.

In one video she said that scale up needed to be checked, but that in principle should not be difficult to adapt industrial machines to this new battery.
I imagine pouch batteries would be viable, if jelly roll it's already possible.

One thing I imagine it's about danger of electric schock, since the battery have hi-energy and hi discharge/fast, the danger of chock it's increased in case someone tried to broke, perforate, whatever. Just my imagination...

By the way, about the supercapacitor effect, somone here pointed about supercapasitor have a very huge surface area and even so don't be up to Lithium battries capacity.
Well, the "glass electrolyte" it's not a single piece, it's more like a fine sand I presume, and the more you reduce the scale of a aboject, like broke in small piece, you increase the surface area in relation to the initial single object. Each time, for example, you split a cube (6 sides) into 8 smaller cubes (cut each in the middle) you double the surface area.





So a very fine "glass" particle will have a much larger surface area. I did some calculation, and if you reduce the scale (cutting a large cube into smaller ones) to cubes with 1/1000 of original diameter, you get 1000x the surface area of the original large cube.
That's why shaved ice melt so fast, cause they exchange temperature much faster than the same mass of ice in a large block, since the shaved ice have far more surface area.

And I remamber they found (another reasearch) that a material used in some semi flexible contact lens could hold as capacitor nearly the same as lithium ion battery.

Here, I found it again (edited) :
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/supe...ic-car-battery

These things made me reduce my initial skepticism.

By now my only skepticism that remains it's about the claim of battery self charge using environment heat. If such charging would be relevant, like fast enough, it could turn homes into small power plants to supply itself.

But I imagine this self charge, if true, would be very slow, not producing much energy per day, or even slower in larger battery cells, due lower relation of surface area with air, and so so low contact area with heat.

[redpoint5]

Current supercaps are made with graphene, and they have crazy surface area for their size, but can hold about 1.85v max charge.

How does the surface area of this compare with graphene based supercaps?

I'm still not understanding if this is a chemical battery, or a static charge (capacitor)? Granted, I haven't read through the links yet.

[freebeard]

By now my only skepticism that remains it's about the claim of battery self charge using environment heat. If such charging would be relevant, like fast enough, it could turn homes into small power plants to supply itself.

That does sound like entropy running backwards.

[All Darc]

Good question... But I bet it have smaller area, since graphene it's in atomic scale, as it starts as a 1 carbon atom of tichness for each sheet. But many production of grahene today made pieces of grahene, small pieces, and they junk it combined with other things.

Another good would be the limit of energy density growing along cycles. Any limity? In one web article John Goodenough said that in one case a battery got 30x the energy density of good Lithium-ion cells. This 30x it's where I get skeptical too... Maybe it's a battery model with a huge percentage of electrolyte and they didn't count it, but counted only the cathode and anode amounts (compared to amounts of industrial LI-ion cells on market), when calculating the energy density comparisom.
That was a speculation of one skeptic scientist, as he said the lab batteries use to have much electrolyte and very small amounts of reactive material (cathode & anode) to allow fast studies about charge and discharge.

The Graphene supercapasitos I saw in a news about a research would be about 20x the energy density of industrial Li-Ion batteries.

Maria Helena Braga said that are both, a battery and super capacitor, but the super capacitor start to get very relevant after 50 or so cycles, if we look at the graphic :



One funy thing about graphene capacitor it's the way the TV news explains, making people get it wrong. They explaining turn people to undestand that just a single layer of graphene (since graphene starts as 1 layer of carbon atoms in hexagon formation) would be more energy denser than any other battery. They even talked about a grahene car shell being a supercapacitor, and I bet some people understood the shell would have just 1 layer of atoms.

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Current supercaps are made with graphene, and they have crazy surface area for their size, but can hold about 1.85v max charge.

How does the surface area of this compare with graphene based supercaps?

I'm still not understanding if this is a chemical battery, or a static charge (capacitor)? Granted, I haven't read through the links yet.

[All Darc]

I don't think that energy from heat violates the laws of thermodynamics.

Originally Posted by freebeard

That does sound like entropy running backwards.

[All Darc]

About the danger of sodium violent reaction in case get contact with water, I believe it refer to sodium hydroxide (NaOH) , and not the typical sodium chloride NaCL (cooking salt).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODf_sPexS2Q

Well, a good question would be about what kind of sodium they will use. But I believe it's hydroxide. Anyway the cells are closed, each unit, and also a final cover to encapsulate a bunch of cells. So the risk of contact with water would be very low.

[All Darc]

In this video she said what I told you a few pages ago int this thread, that their solid electrolyte became dipole, align and form chains that are aligned with the electro-fild, the principle how a capacitor works.
Set the video timecode to 28:00 and watch for about 2 and half minutes. Even better if you watch up to 34:20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RTL9I64208

And it's fair to presume they don't have all details about how it happen exactly in all ways, since it's difficuçlt to study inside a battery, and who said that was another scientist with some skeptcism. So, in case she don't have all answers in absolute details to fully convince the skepticals, it don't means she is lying or anything like that. Science takes time and patience.

Goodenough reputaion in this area it's a good signal things are very promissing.

[All Darc]

I send 2 new emails to Maria Helena Braga. She is very busy, but responded the last today and she still agree to get a interview. Let's see when she had time to.

Any more question you might have for her ???


I suggested skype. Let's see if she accept.

[oil pan 4]

Are they working with or have they been approached by any battery manufacturers?
How long before people can start buying them in something?

Because I remember lithium polymer was supposed to be the last big thing.
I think their main application turned out to be small consumer electronics it looks like it.
Too expensive for electric car size applications I think.

[All Darc]

Based in the inteviews and articles I saw, many manufacturers approached them. More or less 12 if I remamber well. It's a good thing, since there will be no monopoly but a lot of competition, something required for good prices.

They (university staffy) made research, but final mass production it's up to the big manufacturers. The soon they get interest and have intention to adapt or create the required machines to mass production, the soon it will reach consumers.
Well, not all batteries are the same, there are projects for models of different sizes and shapes. Once they get a good project of a battery for electric car, for example, and a manufacturer get real interest, the works would began to make it true.

It's suposed to be considerably cheaper than actual Li-Ion batteries. Of course the large the manufacturer capacity is the better the prices became, so the first unities will probably be expensive until very large scale production can fill the market confortably. The simple laws of supply and demand.

I wonder if we will have it as a investment too. If the capacity increase with cycles, going from 3x to 10x the energy density of actuaal batteries, we could buy many, use in home as a energy storage system, but charging with energy from the grid, and after a couple years sell it by a higher price as a 10x battery instead of a 3x battery.

Used worthing more than a a new... :-)

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Are they working with or have they been approached by any battery manufacturers?
How long before people can start buying them in something?

Because I remember lithium polymer was supposed to be the last big thing.
I think their main application turned out to be small consumer electronics it looks like it.
Too expensive for electric car size applications I think.