24M announce breakthrough in battery cost and charge time

[RedDevil]

Today 24M, founded by MIT professor Yet-Ming Chiang, announced a breakthrough in Li-Ion technology that allows for fast charging cheap batteries.

Fabrication of those cells should be fast and cheap too; eliminating several steps in the production process, making the production plant 10 times as cheap and 5 times as fast.
See Press Release | 24M.

24M’s simple but breakthrough cell design is made possible by the semisolid thick electrode – a material science innovation originating in Dr. Chiang’s lab at MIT. Conventional lithium-ion battery cells have a large fraction of inactive, non-charge carrying materials – supporting metals and plastics – that are layered, one-on-top of the other, within a cell’s casing. Those inactive materials are expensive and wasteful. With the invention of the semisolid thick electrode, 24M eliminates more than 80% of these inactive materials and increases the active layer thickness over traditional Li-ion by up to 5x. Using thick electrodes, the cell also stores more energy, bettering the performance of the battery as well as its cost.

If this is true.... Wow!

[user removed]

It would certainly seem that these developments would have been accomplished some time ago with all the funding and research over the last 40 years. For that reason I remain skeptical of fantastic claims with no downside, but if it proves to be factual then we have made a quantum leap in battery tech.

regards
mech

[niky]

Yay if true... oh well if not.

There has been a slew of "breakthroughs" in lithium ion over the past several years... many of them breakthroughs merely in the sense that they managed to break through the thick shell of celebrity-gosspi-social-issue-fearmongering-twitfests infecting mainstream media.

I hope this one actually has some substance to back its claims up.

[Piotrsko]

Betcha it's vaporware

[thingstodo]

This sounds promising and it would be awesome!

.. BUT there are a couple of BS-flags:

- 'when fully implemented, will slash today’s lithium-ion costs by 50%' means there are several steps between prototypes (now) and 50% cost drop (much later) - so they may cost more right now, or have lower energy density. Lithium Iron Phosphate battery costs have been falling with incremental innovations, so a 50% cost reduction is good in the 3 year term but not so impressive in the 10 year term.

- no specifics about the process, like 'leverages existing layering tooling and processes from production of .. some other product ... ' that you would boast about if you are courting battery manufacturers to license your process in the near future

- 'the recipient of a $4.5 million grant from the U.S Department of Energy' - is pretty much the kiss of death. Their investment record is dismal

There is always HOPE

[RedDevil]

Professor Yet-Ming Chiang is a proper scientist; his lab developed a way to make better lithium iron phosphate cells, which A123 Systems licensed.

And he drives a plug-in Prius


I hope M24 can succeed where A123 failed tho.

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

I hope M24 can succeed where A123 failed tho.

I would encourage M24, and any technology company, to support the DIYers and hobbyists. I won't sugar-coat it - it's painful to sell low volumes of cells (or whatever you are making). There's a lot of email or phone support involved.

BUT - building a vibrant user community will get you:
- vital feedback (most times very quickly) on real-world testing of your product
- an EXTENSIVE list (anecdotes through to lab-grade testing) of what can go wrong with your alpha and beta products (so that you can make the product more bullet-proof)
- access to a bunch of people who are always thinking of what they can use your product FOR. More than one hobbyist has created entire new markets by thinking DIFFERENTLY

.. OK - time to get off my soap box ..

The previous rant brought to you by the Former A123 and the present B456, who kinda refused to sell their products to DIYers after a bad experience. Many of us (not me, so this is likely not exactly the way it worked) bought them anyway - through the back door from the factory through a couple of middlemen when we could have bought them from A123 directly.

[jjackstone]

One of those news feeds had a pretty good video that showed where the current lithium ion battery manufacturing process originated(Sony) and how the new process increases efficiency. Also shows how to pack more energy into the same physical sized cell. I'll see if I can find the link.
JJ


Sorry guys, I swear I saw an interview but can't find it now anywhere.