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New Cobalt-Free Silicon EV Battery Is The Best Thing Ever (cleantechnica.com)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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“This breakthrough development translates into a remarkable improvement in cell-core energy density, reaching 2,000Wh/L in batteries and approximately 1,700Wh/L in full-size EV batteries – more than double the performance of current state-of-the-art technologies,”

“Sienza’s 3D pure silicon anode has demonstrated an average gravimetric capacity of 2,941 mAh/g,” Professor Gharib said. “This means that for every gram of silicon, our batteries can store 2,941 milliampere-hours of electricity, significantly higher than the industry standard for graphite, with a gravimetric capacity of 372 mAh/g.”

Aside from completely avoiding the cobalt issue, Sienza notes that its manufacturing process does not rely on the solvent-based coating systems deployed for producing conventional lithium-ion batteries. Sienza cites one commonly used solvent in particular, N-methyl-pyrrolidone (NMP).

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (18 children)

That sounds really impressive. But describing it as "the best thing ever" really has my skepticism at full mast.

ETA: I can't find any mention of a single drawback or tradeoff to this new technology. That makes this a marketing piece rather than journalism. Nothing is ever better in every conceivable way than the current state of the art.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 months ago (8 children)

Nothing is ever better in every conceivable way than the current state of the art.

Probabilistically, sure, but it's not impossible that there has been some piece of knowledge or understanding that's been missing, and that massive breakthroughs are possible once the process is figured out.

I think a fair modern example is LED light bulbs. They are better in every conceivable way than incandescent or fluorescent lightbulbs: they last longer, use less energy, shine brighter, use less toxic materials, and are easy to mass produce. But there were several decades where much of the industry believed that LEDs would never be very useful as a light source because we could only produce red and green, and it was generally believed that a blue LED would be impossible to produce.

Then one guy decided it would be his life mission to invent the blue LED, and the sonuvabitch did it. Now LEDs are the only sensible thing to use to produce light.

It's always possible for this kind of breakthrough to happen, especially in material science where the complexity of how molecules interplay is nearly incomprehensible.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

A breaktrough would be needed to electrify ship and flight. Would be great if it is that.