Featured Samsung Solid State Batteries

unlikely, but it would be amazing. none of these prognostications ever come to fruition, unfortunately.

it's been 20 years of small incremental steps.

 

That would be great. But I am hoping that another Elon would pop up to champion not for Solar, but for nuclear energy. So we can truly switch to something sustainable. Until then, we are really just transferring fossil fuel energy into electricity from the grid. Though not the majority anymore. But still a large percentage.

 

Interesting article. Toyota is said to be working with Panasonic to develop solid state batteries, so they most likely won't work with Samsung.

Toyota had announced that they would reveal a solid state powered vehicle at the 2020 Olympics but they cautioned that it will be "a while" before availability. Who knows when they might reveal it now? There must still be hurdles since no one is giving a date for these batteries to be available commercially.

The next generation Prius would normally (pre-pandemic timeline) be available as a 2022 model, so having solid state batteries then would be great but seems unlikely.

 

energy output has nothing to do with storage capacity, all it would do is allow your 1kwhr Prius battery to provide 400hp of motive power to your Prius synergy drive.

 

that would please a few priuschatters

 

I have ZERO interest in more power. I would be very happy if a battery with 30kwh that would be direct replacement in the same battery case. If that was around by 2025 it would fit my needs just right. I think my car will have about 85,000 miles by then. If price/kwh is under $100 and replacement with labor is <$4,000 I'm in. Might even put some sticky summer tires on.

 

I'm still waiting for bubble memory.

 

More power from the battery also means quicker response. Imagine you go down the road at 40 mph and you wan't to overtake. From the moment you press the pedal to full power to the wheels takes quite some time and it goes like this: First to respond is battery but it eaks out only ~20 kW, then you wait for the engine to build rpm and then like 1 second later you have full power of mighty 100 hp

If you had battery capable of 74 kW power, then when you pressed the pedal you would get 100 hp almost instantly, and when the ICE catches up with rpm it would take over and battery power would drop to "normal" values. The only way Toyota can do this today is with a bigger battery, hence the Rav4 Prime we already know will have more power but I expect the real game changer that people will appreciate will be more responsiveness, not the raw power.

 

Perhaps we should start with the Samsung press release: Samsung Presents Groundbreaking All-Solid-State Battery Technology to ‘Nature Energy’ &#8211; Samsung Global Newsroom

Compared to widely used lithium-ion batteries, which utilize liquid electrolytes, all-solid-state batteries support greater energy density, which opens the door for larger capacities, and utilize solid electrolytes, which are demonstrably safer. However, the lithium metal anodes that are frequently used in all-solid-state batteries, are prone to trigger the growth of dendrites1 which can produce undesirable side effects that reduce a battery’s lifespan and safety.

To overcome those effects, Samsung’s researchers proposed utilizing, for the first time, a silver-carbon (Ag-C) composite layer as the anode. The team found that incorporating an Ag-C layer into a prototype pouch cell enabled the battery to support a larger capacity, a longer cycle life, and enhanced its overall safety. Measuring just 5µm (micrometers) thick, the ultrathin Ag-C nanocomposite layer allowed the team to reduce anode thickness and increase energy density up to 900Wh/L. It also enabled them to make their prototype approximately 50 percent smaller by volume than a conventional lithium-ion battery.​

Source_2: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0575-z

An all-solid-state battery with a lithium metal anode is a strong candidate for surpassing conventional lithium-ion battery capabilities. However, undesirable Li dendrite growth and low Coulombic efficiency impede their practical application. Here we report that a high-performance all-solid-state lithium metal battery with a sulfide electrolyte is enabled by a Ag–C composite anode with no excess Li. We show that the thin Ag–C layer can effectively regulate Li deposition, which leads to a genuinely long electrochemical cyclability. In our full-cell demonstrations, we employed a high-Ni layered oxide cathode with a high specific capacity (>210 mAh g−1) and high areal capacity (>6.8 mAh cm−2) and an argyrodite-type sulfide electrolyte. A warm isostatic pressing technique was also introduced to improve the contact between the electrode and the electrolyte. A prototype pouch cell (0.6 Ah) thus prepared exhibited a high energy density (>900 Wh l−1), stable Coulombic efficiency over 99.8% and long cycle life (1,000 times).​

Ok, this begins to make sense:

• lithium metal anode - traditional LiON batteries use a lithium compound to avoid the metal problems.
• silver-carbon - alternate SEI layer/separator to suppress dendrites, a common problem of solid metal electrolytes
• nickel oxide cathode - nickel supports multiple valences without suffering significant volume changes

The paper may answer questions about changes in density of the anode and cathode. We know using silicon instead of carbon is a 6x increase in ion storage but has a change in density that tears the cell apart. So it makes sense to see if there are density changes. A pouch version suggests there may be significant density changes.

One caution, typical lab cells are small buttons that are hand crafted. There is a big gap between the 'demo' and production. It sounds promising but I'm not buying Samsung stock until we see manufactured cells.

Bob Wilson

 

The Ag-C anode helping to solve the dendrite problem definitely is an advance that other battery makers (e.g. panasonic) can likely copy or license.

They talk about 900 wh/L but the panasonic 2150 cells they make for tesla are 700 wh/l. It has a much higher volumetric efficiency than the less energy dense cells in the prime but these cells are not tiny.

I don't doubt that you could build a 500 mile pack the same size as the 310 mile pack in the model 3 if this works out. The packaging of 2150 cells and needed cooling take a lot of space. The guess is solid state may require heating but not massive cooling. A small 100 km (60 mile) pack for a phev might be more beneficial.

The big hurdle is price. If tesla really can build packs with CATL @ $80/kwh it will take awhile to drive solid state down. Cellphone's and tablets are an excellent place to try this technology out.

 

Indeed, cell phones and laptops are the integration and test choice. They are small enough with a large population so any edge-cases or latent defects can be identified early. Better still, replace those 12V lead boat anchors!

Bob Wilson

 

As you said, these are hand made cells. If the research isn't concerning a specific cell format, a pouch one will be easier to make. Density changes will also be easier to observe in one. At least, any bursting won't be as violent as with a hard case.

Just buy silver.

On a serious note, this advance might work out for other Li-ion chemistries to improve specific energy, not just solid state ones.

I see the price lithium metal is about twice as much as battery quality lithium carbonate. Would not using nickel and cobalt metals overcome that? Even with a higher cost, it could still be desired for phones and other uses where small size and high energy content is important.

PS: the man made element califorium is commodity traded. Pricing is for the microgram. Industrial metals, including lithium, is by the metric ton.

 

China has spent a lot of money to help R&D for lithium iron phosphate. That would be my candidate to replace 12V-48V lead acid. Its the least expensive lithium technology and the slightly higher weight is made up for in being better in hot weather. This is also a prime candidate for stationary power storage especially if the cell to pack technology really can eliminate so much manufacturing cost of big battery packs.

Solid state though when cost comes down should be great for cell phones and tablets and cars.