Featured CATL has new 500 Wh/kg battery

Having to go back over 100 years to make a point? Quoting a guy that tried to kill AC infrastructure?
So the point was FUD.

.

 

In 1903 Edison's company started selling Nickle iron batteries for uses such as electric cars. In 1906 Edison patented his companies alkaline battery, it took them a decade or more of brute force R&D and lots of money. Just because something is hard doesn't mean it is not doable. I don't think he would consider his own companies battery sales a swindle he just said that stuff before he had one to sell. When a man's own actions prove his past prediction wrong, it is not a good time to use that prediction for the future.

Sodium ion would be sold commercially by now if the lithium, Nickle, and lead batteries were not so good. Sodium ion promises lower costs because of materials and excellent cold weather performance. Today the market for sodium ion batteries is about $1B/year mainly to energy storage. The energy density just is not as high as lithium iron phosphate the current leader for low cost battery packs. It does seem a good candidate to replace nickle metal hydride, and perhaps used with anouther chemistry to provide cold weather performance while the other cells would provide better energy density.

The problem with the 500 wh/kg catl semi solid lithium battery is likely to be cost, but it should be easier to bring these down than solid state. By 2030 catl estimates solid state batteries will start, and market size will be around what sodium ion batteries are today. No one knows how fast semi solid or solid state batteries will progress, but this battery on the high end, and lithium iron phosphate on the low end means solid state needs a lot more progress before it is an improvement in energy density or cost. It will probably happen, but my guess is like CATL's that it will take over a decade from now.

 

I believe the polymer in lithium polymer is a gel, but solid state polymer electrolytes exist - so y0u could have a semi solid or solid state lithium polymer battery. A semi solid has a solid electrolyte on one electrode, but has at least one liquid or gel electrolyte too. This allows the high energy density but easier to manufacture batteries than pure solid state.

 

Press releases about lab samples are a lot easier than affordable production.

Bob Wilson

 

No, Toyota has been working on an all-solid-state battery with a conventional carbon/silicon anode, a sulfide solid-state separator/electrolyte, and a solid-state cathode. There is no liquid or polymer. It is the same technology Solid Power has been working on.

 

Toyota said that it was a pure solid state design. Toyota leads in patents and the two leading solid state contenders are ceramics and solid polymers, so it is likely they have some solid state lithium polymer batteries in test cars now. There are also batteries that use ceramic and polymer solid electrolytes.

I don't know which way they are going in their first production though. All we know is that they are starting in a hybrid. That is likely a good strategy because it will be years if ever that a solid state battery is less expensive than a lithium iron phosphate battery and hybrid and phev batteries don't need nearly the energy.

First Toyota with Solid-State Batteries Will Be a Hybrid

 

No, as I said, Toyota does not use a ceramic or polymer solid-state electrolyte. It uses a sulfide solid-state electrolyte.

You can have an LFP solid-state battery. LFP refers to a type of cathode material—not to a non-solid-state vs. a solid-state battery. Most solid-state batteries are using NMC in the cathode, but LFP is also being used in the cathodes of solid-state batteries to substantially reduce the cost.

 

Most sulfides solid state electrolytes are ceramic. When they release it we will know what electrolyte they are actually using. They have the most patents including many for ceramic and polymer.

well you still need to manufacture it sell it. In the linked interview Toyota said that their solid state batteries will initially be expensive to manufacture. The inexpensive LFP batteries that CATL and BYD are making use liquid electrolyte and they have been working on making them easy to manufacture for a long time. The initially expensive for pure solid state to manufacture comes from Toyota, Panasonic, CATL, etc. They think they can bring the costs down, but that all depends on the electrolyte and how it must be manufactured. Toyota like Tesla, VW, and Ford will use some LFP with liquid electrolyte in upcoming BEVs.

This semi solid battery will also be quite expensive initially to manufacture. It is likely to go in nio's 150 KWH pack where it makes a lot more sense than a 60 kwh toyota bev where weight of LFP is not much of an issue.

 

We know what solid-state electrolyte Toyota is using. It is a sulfide. It is not a ceramic. It is not a polymer.

Sulfide solid-state electrolytes are usually not ceramics, and people don't refer to them as ceramics. This is what makes them desirable over ceramics, as ceramics are extremely difficult to manufacture. However, there are also a bunch of problems associated with sulfide solid-state electrolytes. Sulfide solid-state electrolytes are usually sold in powder form. Ceramic solid-state electrolytes are oxides that are formed as thin films.

I was pointing out that LFP can be and is also used in solid-state batteries, as it only refers to the material used in the cathode. Theoretically, solid-state batteries should be cheaper than conventional batteries once they overcome the technical obstacles, but no one has been able to make a practical solid-state battery to date, and the earliest commercialization is at least five years away if not seven or more.

 

The idea is that solid-state batteries with LFP cathodes can have comparable energy densities to those of conventional lithium-ion batteries with expensive NMC cathodes, as the solid-state construction makes up for the lower energy density of LFP over NMC. So, in theory, a solid-state LFP battery would be very cheap—cheaper than a conventional LFP battery—without compromising the energy density.

 

No, "solid-state battery" does not refer to the anode type. Toyota uses carbon/silicon anodes while some others use lithium-metal anodes. Solid-state battery refers to the electrolyte/separator type. A conventional lithium-ion battery uses a porous membrane to keep the anode and cathode solid materials apart while letting the liquid electrolyte pass. In contrast, in a solid-state battery, there is no such porous-membrane separator but there is a solid-state electrolyte/separator instead, which is impervious to liquids but only allows the conduction of lithium ions through diffusion through its solid lattice structure. Hence, this is where the name "solid state" comes from. Very good interfaces are needed between the solid-state electrolyte/separator and the cathode and anode, which is often achieved by applying an external pressure on the cell through pressure fixtures, which tends to reduce the energy density by adding weight.

Again, no, lithium-metal batteries can be manufactured anodeless. Lithium metal on the anode current collector can be formed in situ during the first charge by the lithium ions diffusing and depositing from the cathode material. This substantially reduces the manufacturing cost through the elimination of the anode. Some companies use a thin lithium-metal film instead of anodeless manufacturing, which complicates manufacturing and increases the cost.

Other solid-state batteries can use carbon/silicon anodes.

Moreover, solid-state batteries greatly shorten the formation and aging process in manufacturing, which further reduces the cost.

https://etn.news/energy-storage/li-ion-cell-manufacturing

QuantumScape expects their NMC-cathode lithium-metal-anode solid-state battery to be as cheap as a conventional LFP-cathode battery and their LFP-cathode lithium-metal solid-state battery to be much cheaper, while still having a higher energy density than a conventional NMC-cathode battery. That said, they are still far from commercialization.

https://www.quantumscape.com/resources/blog/lithium-iron-phosphate-on-the-quantumscape-solid-state-lithium-metal-platform/

 

I think you are are confusing terms. Sulfides just means molecules containing Sulfur. You said solid power's electrolyte was similar to toyota's but they say their electrolyte is a sulfide glass ceramic one. I'm sure people can just leave out the terms.

Solid power uses a sulfide Glass (amorphous) type of ceramic electrolyte, so you can leave the ceramic out if you want. This is versus crystalline ceramic. Polymer electrolytes contain organic material, most liquid electrolytes have organic solvents. I never said Toyota was not experimenting with sulfide electrolyte, but we don't know which one(s) will be the winner(s) or even if it will be a sulfide.

This recently published article came out of research from my university.

Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy—and No Anode - IEEE Spectrum

The anode will become coated with lithium metal but manufacturing costs will be lower since the anode can be created without lithium. This may provide a easier manufacturing environment. The electrolyte will contain the lithium during manufacturing, which means you don't need to refine the metal, but need to provide an inexpensive way to bind the electrolyte to the anode and manufacture the electrolyte. The sulfide electrolyte (argyrodite Li6PS5Cl) in this experiment is a ceramic. This should result in less expensive material and less weight and volume than NCA, NCM, or LFP. The trick is to get the manufacturing costs down.

This is why they are expensive to produce, and why toyota is smart to test them in hybrids. material costs will likely be lower in solid anode batteries, but they still need years to work out the kinks in manufacturing. Hybrids provide a better test environment as they are smaller batteries easier to replace than BEVs and will get cycled harder so faster data collection.

Silicon, Sodium and alloys, and Lithium and alloys are all possible anode materials. Sodium will be much cheaper in terms of material if they can get that working. The big benefit of solid state over liquid electrolyte is on the anode side. Toyota may be using silicon and he semi solid that CATL is using probably has one or more solid state electrolytes around the anode to allow these higher energy materials then a liquid electrolyte around their conventional cathode. That should be easier to manufacture as you don't need to solve as many problems at once. CATL suggests that solid state will be in small production by 2030 and won't be in large volume until 2035. It would be wonderful if toyota, quantum scape, solid power got it going faster but I am doubtful. Right now costs are very high, but they can produce good solid state batteries in the lab. A chinese cell phone maker has now started using them in phones. Phones and drones are probably a first step before large volume cars.[/quote]

 

Did you look at the picture of that cell and read the paper by University of Texas at Austin? You would be shocked by the pressure fixture used if you did. The applied external pressure is 13 MPa, which is 130 atm. That cell could never be practical for EV use because it is too heavy.



When they say ceramic solid-state electrolyte, they refer to oxide thin films such as found in multilayer ceramic capacitors. When they say sulfide solid-state electrolyte, they are usually sold in powder form and then layered into the cell, which is somehow annealed in situ during the construction of the cell. Sulfides are a lot easier to work with than oxides—the annealing temperatures required during the cell manufacturing are similar to those in conventional-lithium-ion-cell manufacturing. You need a lot higher temperatures and longer times for oxides. That is why sulfides are so popular, but they have major problems preventing practical solid-state batteries to date.

Samsung, Solid Power, and Toyota use a sulfide solid-state electrolyte. ProLogium and QuantumScape use a ceramic oxide solid-state electrolyte. Ionic Materials and SES use a polymer solid-state electrolyte. When they say a ceramic solid-state electrolyte, they mean an oxide, not a sulfide.

The high-energy conventional lithium-ion battery announced by CATL sounds too good to be true. It has better performance than any solid-state battery currently being worked on, despite being a conventional battery. We will see. There is always a catch, as in Catch 22.

 

That is different. You are talking about a gas. We are talking about a pouch cell.

Pressure fixtures used to apply pressure on pouch cells are metal plates held together with nuts and bolts. Anything over 10 atm is not practical for an EV, as it would be too bulky and add too much weight due to the thickness of the plates required, lowering the energy density to unacceptable levels. In fact, even 10 atm is probably too high. It is not easy to apply 130 atm of uniform pressure on a pouch cell, as any nonuniformity in the pressure results in quick cell failure. That is why a giant pressure fixture was used on a tiny coin cell in the picture in my previous post.