11 thoughts on “Lithium-Ion Batteries”

  1. You can make your lithium batteries last several times longer by ignoring Apple’s advice to completely discharge them periodically. The reason they say that is because it helps calibrate the State-Of-Charge algorithm, but deep cycles greatly shorten life compared to shallow cycles. NiCd batteries need to be deep cycled occasionally, but not other chemistries. I rarely go below 60% SOC and I have never replaced a laptop battery.

    1. I rarely go below 60% SOC and I have never replaced a laptop battery.

      Well, no, you probably wouldn’t. I’ve used several old work laptops with failing batteries, and the usual way I find out is that it suddenly drops from supposedly 50/60/70% charged to <10% charged over the course of a couple of minutes. If you don't let the battery drop below 60%, you may not even realize that it's lost nearly 2/3 of its capacity.

  2. The article mentions a quadrupling of battery lifespan (i.e. charge/discharge cycles), not battery life. But yes, that’d be fantastic if it panned out.

  4. Clicked the link. Apparently my browser is “unsupported”.

    Huh. I haven’t seen that in years.

    It’s a web browser. It displays HTML 5 documents. What’s geek.com’s problem? Except that they’ve just ensured one potential reader will avoid them like the plague in future, that is…

    (So, thanks to David F. for the MIT link.)

  5. Okay, question time: Assuming this leads to a patent, could these scientists really claim credit? After all, it was an accident that caused this.

    Ridiculous? Okay, what if the accident had been caused by a lab animal?

    I’m merely thinking of that photographer who’d lost his copyright because his camera had been swiped by a monkey.

  6. If they’ve really discovered how to quadruple battery life that is a really good thing. One of the most common requests from my customers is for new batteries for their laptops. With constant charge/discharge cycles on a daily basis, laptop batteries begin to noticeably degrade after about a year and half to two years (which is about 500 cycles). Even when you purchase the extended 3 year manufacturer warranty they still only cover the battery for 1 year to avoid having to replace depleted batteries under warranty. We try to keep laptops active for 5 years, which means your average customer is procuring 1-2 new batteries during the laptops lifetime. This new manufacturing tech means the original battery should last the entire deployment cycle between laptop refreshes.

  7. There are different markets that require different battery capabilities.

    Li-ion has gotten a lot of attention, because it is best suited for consumer-visible applications like mobile electronics. It may also be best for electric vehicles, although those may have higher peak power requirements (charge and discharge).

    But the market I’m more interested in is grid-level storage. For that application, specific energy is less important than $/kWh and total cycle life. In that segment, I’m keeping an eye on the Zinc-air battery system from Eos Energy Storage, which is now going into commercial scale production. Their modules come in the form factor of standard shipping containers (1 MWh each) and can be stacked (mechanically and electrically). Their price point is $160/kWh(DC) in volume production with 75% round trip efficiency and cycle life > 5000 charge-discharge cycles.

      1. Not a whole lot. Flywheels seem to mostly be aimed at niche markets requiring high power, like storing energy from braking trains and grid frequency stabilization.

        A non-battery energy storage technology I’m also following is something from Lightsail Energy: compressed air storage, but using water sprays to store thermal energy of compression separately.

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