The future of high energy density batteries | Hard Reset

Picture an entire city charged by batteries. This new battery design may unlock a new era of energy.

Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory are trying to build the perfect battery.

Lithium-ion batteries are the gold standard, but there is much progress to be made. For example, one improvement would be to create solid-state batteries in order to eliminate the need for the flammable electrolyte that is inside lithium-ion batteries.

Solid-state batteries also could have three times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, which might allow things like electric flight.

◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠
Enjoy more of our stories on battery tech:
The future of energy starts with rebuilding the battery
An accidental discovery could change the world
This battery may solve renewables’ energy storage problem
◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡

Watch our original series:

◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠
About Freethink
No politics, no gossip, no cynics. At Freethink, we believe the daily news should inspire people to build a better world. While most media is fueled by toxic politics and negativity, we focus on solutions: the smartest people, the biggest ideas, and the most ground breaking technology shaping our future.
◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡◡

Enjoy Freethink on your favorite platforms:

[freethink]

Just pinning responses and clarifications to technical questions here because the comment got a bit buried. It's in the thread with @SwuuschifyMe below and we encourage you to read the full and thought-provoking discussion if you're interested! For what it's worth, we shared this video with the folks at Argonne before releasing it to check for accuracy, and they had no edits or corrections.


To be clear, we don’t think lithium will go away as a key component of some batteries, but many researchers (some in this video!) are very keen to explore alternatives that are more affordable and sustainable to obtain and would offer additional benefits. In the future we think there will likely be a lot of different battery chemistries, including many that rely on lithium.

3:25 There is a difference between an electrolyte and the ions dissolved within it, but we felt that it might be splitting hairs to disambiguate between them in this video — especially since many electrolytes (like lithium hexafluorophosphate) do contain lithium. This is the same approach many folks seem to take when describing lithium’s role within a battery, including experts we consulted with, for the sake of simplicity. In retrospect we can see how the wording could be better!

3:55 On the various weights of zinc and magnesium relative to lithium: we’re referring to the energy density in terms of volume. We also understand that some of these chemistries would be heavier and therefore less suitable for certain applications, that’s also something that Dr. Venkat Srinivasan addresses in the video when he talks about the different constraints that various batteries will need to work within for different applications. The size, safety, and charging requirements will be very different for a grid battery, as compared to something like a battery for a mobile device or vehicle.

4:30 There are other synchrotron facilities, we don’t mean to imply that there aren’t. Argonne is a unique place that brings together a lot of specialists in the field of next generation battery technology, and provides them with on-site access to a powerful resource like the Advanced Photon Source on site, which we feel makes it one of a kind.

[SwuuschifyMe]

I am a battery researcher just like our guests here, in fact I sometimes come to Argonne for similar experiments... there's problems here

3:15 Lithium scarcity is BS. It's one of the most common elements in the crust and if you had looked, you would have found that it is not a problem. What's the material scarcity of today's batteries? Well it's Cobalt, mostly.
3:25 Lithium is not the electrolyte...the electrolyte facilitates the transport of Lithium ions. A pretty fundamental thing to mix up
3:55 2-3 times of what? There is a place for Zinc and Mg batteries but they also have fundamental downsides, for example Zn batteries are heavy af (10 times heavier than Lithium) and therefore mostly useful if space is an issue, for example it would be a good grid storage option if aqeuous (water based) Zn batteries would work out.
4:30 Argonne is definitely not the only place where they do this. It's called a synchrotron facility, and there's five big ones in the US alone where they all do this. And there's dozens all over the world.
5:50 Lithium doesn't explode. It doesn't even catch fire if you throw it in water. It's the least reactive Alkali metal. They have a dry room because oxidized Lithium is useless in a battery, and Lithium reacts much faster with water than with just oxygen.

Appreciate the skillful narration but there's a lot of fundamentally wrong statements in here, too. Did the scientists that appear here get to see this video before release?

[ChristianBehnke]

LMAO @ the Sega Game Gear comment... "Mom, I need more batteries - I want to play for another 6 minutes."

[danohanlon]

The slow progress towards “the perfect battery” is the ultimate proof that we have not been visited by aliens; and in particular, that said aliens have not “given us their advanced technology.” Because if they did we would long ago have had fantastic batteries.

All praise to the consistent dedication and hard work by generations of scientists and engineers.

[vivekambekarIndia]

Round of applause to the person who made this video. So many meme references. On point. This video is informative as well as entertaining. World need more of these.

[scottm]

Are you sure lithium ion batteries use lithium as an electrolyte? I always thought it was either the anode or cathode. 3:25

[TheTanman]

The fact that we’ve been using single-use disposable batteries for our devices is insane. Most small-scale batteries are now available as rechargeable USB-C/Micro-USB. This is an immense money-saver, let alone waste-reducer.

[oby-]

No more burning something for energy?
There goes the Fireplace Channel.

[hkgamma]

People 100 years ago - we will have flying cars, everybody will be happy, there will be no wars, nobody will work, we will have robots. People now: we will have better batteries.

[anguscampbell]

As an civilian "observer" I think there needs to be more R&D into battery swapping.
It is already here for battery powered electric hand tools and works quite fine. As a matter of fact without the ability to swap batteries, these hand tools wouldn't be on the market today.
This approach needs to be taken with EV's and especially Electric Trucks. By installing a portion or all of the battery as a swap it enables charging from solar during the day or other sources as they become available such as wind or nuclear when above peak electrical production occurs. It also enables the swappable battery to be used for other uses such as home storage for night time power usage.
Another benefit is the reduction in weight of an EV or Electric Truck which increases the efficiency of the battery further. It could reduce the weight for short trips but extra charged swap batteries are added when needed for longer trips.

[travman]

It's simple Quantum batteries that self maintain their charge.

[rolerroleris]

I'm not even gonna watch the video since it's probably not gonna happen... For the past 15 years i have seen articles, videos, etc, about new battery technology and the only thing that happened is that Lithium batteries got better over time. I'm really tired of all these. Yes, maybe some niche new bateries have emerged, but my phone still holds charge for a few days at most, the same it did 15 years ago.

[casfren]

the memes the animation, the research, just finished the video, keep up the good work. It looks like you will need to add more info in future videos, so it doesnt driple into the comments.

[toddjensen]

I love the subtle humour between the narrator and the information. It’s all so nicely woven. Such a great video style.

[Saltyarticles]

Waiting for the Thunderfoot video to come.. magic words: batteries, 2-3 times the energy density

[propergander]

7:25 “So… picture a scenario, where we had ubiquitous energy storage. Between Solar, Wind *a n d* nuclear, we could generate all the electricity we’d ever need without burning fossil fuels”

As someone who lives in Germany, where even imagining a grid where nuclear energy plays a role is unthinkable (We’re at the point where you’re smeared as right-wing if you advocate for nuclear energy) and where the renewables-only strategy is becoming the only strategy that’s allowed to be thought to the point of *degrowth* becoming a widely accepted future, it feels so refreshing to hear, that other countries aren’t laboring under the same delusions and are looking for a way to seriously decouple economic progress from emissions!

[matthewmartin]

I'm excited about the future of Aluminum Air batteries... Imagine the 100% recyclable battery!

[MichaelFergusonVideos]

This reinforces my desire to install solar panels and batteries.

[jont]

God finally a science/economics/finance channel that tells jokes that are actually funny.

[Dreamamine_THE_ONLY_REAL_ONE]

I have patented a closed-loop system using electrolysis and either fuel cells or an engine I have patented called the Ringine to store energy in high-pressure hydrogen and oxygen gases, and then recover the energy by passing it back through either the fuel cell(s) or the Ringine (the Ringine appears to actually be MORE efficient than the fuel cells). We are preparing to detail engineer the Hydrox version of the Ringine to demonstrate the technology. This is a TOTALLY closed-loop system that can be very small or VERY LARGE and store enormous amounts of energy in extreme density due to the application of electrolysis to 'split' millipore-pure water. We can store about 2Mw-hours in about 150 gallons of water. We are talking about industrial-level power storage to allow power from green sources to be stored in huge amounts so that our world can be power at night by solar energy. We have also developed a system that utilizes solar thermal energy to desalinate or purify seawater or brown water and purify it AND produce electricity as a BY-PRODUCT by utilizing the Ringine. We are currently preparing to build a tech demo of that system because we feel water is ever-more critical and since we can produce BOTH power and purify brown or seawater simultaneously, we should pursue that avenue first, then this: We have also developed a solar-thermal power production system using a closed-loop highly distributable steady-state cycle that produces electricity at 35% to 45% overall system efficiency; we truly believe this, all put together, is the 'way forward'. And this is just the tip of an iceberg I'd love to tell you about. @Freethink, you need to be aware of this. I would be glad to present it to you. Let me know if you are interested. This is vetted by several professional engineering firms and MS&T, and their ME Department and it's Head has lead in Federal funding submittals we are still waiting on, and they will vouch for this.