Update on Battery Chemistry - Improved New Electrolyte

[rich.carroll]

Some Lithium Ion batteries are prone to the formation of dendrites, which are internal buildups of conductive filaments inside the battery.  These can result in short circuits and thermal runaway.  Gizmag had a summary today in good layman's English.

http://goo.gl/eY5twN 

The article referenced is by Ji-Guang "Jason" Zhang.  His most recent article can be read at: http://goo.gl/hyQi2l

If you want to read a number of other background articles by Dr. Zhang, see  http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2015&q=Ji-Guang++Zhang+lithium+dendrites&hl=en&as_sdt=0,15

[ted.lowe]

Excellent Rich!  The gizmag article is excellent (i'm between layman and PhD) :-)

If they can "solve" (or greatly improve) the "wear out" issue on lithium batteries it will be HUGE.

5-5-5 and 5 (times longer lasting) :-)

[jeffrey.miller]

Hum, sticking with the 5X theme
Model S with 425 kWH of power on board by upgrading the batteries in five years...
In theory that would give it a 1300 mile range! 

I don't even know what to think about that because it is so far beyond our current reality. 

When you consider these sort of advances it is no wonder Apple is getting in to this.  They could have a 300 mile range car and buy up the patents to lock it up to just them...

here we go again.  The richest company on the planet locks technology up so they can choose how it is utilized.  The oil companies were the richest for some time. 

[ted.lowe]

Yes Jeff!   Vision Transferred ACK  

On the Apple thing... richest perhaps wallstreet-wise (now), but Exxon and OPEC have more hard assets.

According to only a single source, Exxon just announced their intentions to install quick chargers at their stations.  i personally will nEVer charge at their stations even if i was on Mars and it was the only way home  

All companies want a piece of the "new" or "cleaner" or "greener" technology "trend".  They don't want to miss out on change and become irrelevant (aka bankrupt).  Neither do i

Very interesting times for sure!

[rich.carroll]

All the major players play the game in a similar fashion.  When I was preparing the batttery talk for presentation at the last club meeting, I was initially surpised to find that BASF now owns the NiMH patents, but after six seconds of pondering, it all made sense. BASF is the largetst chemical company in the world. Their new logo says it all: (The Chemical Company)

[ted.lowe]

Wow Rich, at least they don't try to spin it like Monsanto:

[grant.gerke]

This kind of discovery is where you wish Ernest Moriz, head of DoE, was not so much a proponent of Nuclear and more a renewable guy.

Great article, Rich.