Lithium Sulfur batteries

tahanson43206 · 2023-07-05 06:55:53

This topic is offered to collect information and to inspire comments about Lithium Sulfur batteries.

The opening post is a report on progress in research and development of this chemistry.

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tahanson43206 · 2023-07-05 06:58:46

https://www.yahoo.com/news/company-pion … 00874.html

51
Rick Kazmer
Mon, July 3, 2023, 11:00 AM EDT
Lithium-ion batteries power much of our digital world, but the energy doesn’t come without environmental impact and risk.
Experts at Australia-based Li-S Energy said they have an innovative battery in the works that replaces lithium ions with lithium-sulfur. The result is a power pack that the company has indicated is cleaner, lightweight, and has greater capacity than alternatives.
“This outcome demonstrates the strength of our progress over the last year,” Li-S Energy CEO Lee Finniear said in a company press release noting the recent improvement in energy per unit of weight the battery can store.
The 20-layer battery cells are about the same size as their lithium-ion counterparts, but with half the weight, according to a description of the tech from InsideEVs. This latest generation from Li-S improves upon previous lithium-sulfur models.
The company is touting the battery’s low flammability as a big win. Lithium-ion batteries can catch fire and even explode. Li-S experts said in the press release that the materials that make up the electrolyte in the battery — the solution where the charge/discharge cycle happens — have a low combustion risk.
Part of the science sounds about as futuristic as you’d expect in groundbreaking battery tech. Li-S experts are using “nanomaterials,” “nanotubes,” and a house-made “nano-composite” they call “Li-nanomesh.”
Nanotechnology deals with very small objects. National Geographic describes it as manipulating individual atoms and molecules.
At Li-S, the researchers are putting the tiny tech “into the [battery] cells to enhance their strength, life cycle, and performance.”
The company is also billing its nanomaterial science as potentially helping NASA put humans on Mars.
The terrestrial applications could be high-flying, as well. Li-S officials are eyeing the drone and eAviation industries, where the company already has partners, according to the press release. They expect that market to be worth more than about $32 billion (USD) a year by 2035.
“In the coming months we look forward to commencing the production of commercial samples for our partners,” Finniear said in the press release.
More efficient batteries are important as an increasing amount of tech powers up using packs. The metals used in batteries are located deep in the Earth’s crust, requiring invasive mining to gather them. Battery recycling is a growing part of the solution to reduce mining’s impact.
Part of the answer could also be Li-S’s ability to bring their batteries, which promise to pack 45% more energy punch than the previous model, to market.
“The development of these new battery cells is another validation of the strength of our scientific and technical teams,” Finniear said in the press release.
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the coolest innovations improving our lives and saving our planet.

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Calliban · 2023-07-05 13:48:25

Sodium sulphur batteries have been around for some time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium% … ur_battery

They are cheap, composed of very common materials (liquid sodium, liquid sulphur and a steel shell). Unfortunately, they operate at high temperature (350°C) and have safety problems as a result of liquid sodium catching fire if exposed to air. Presumably, this wouldn't be a problem on Mars, with its thin CO2 atmosphere.

tahanson43206 · 2023-07-05 18:19:25

For Calliban re #3

Thanks for contributing to this new topic about Lithium Sulphur batteries.

It is good to be reminded of other chemistries, as we seek to understand this new research.

It appears that sodium is not involved in this new chemistry.

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tahanson43206 · 2023-07-05 18:25:53

Because of the interest in this new topic shown by Calliban, I decided to investigate a bit further:

https://www.lis.energy/

The world needs better batteries
The demand for batteries is forecast to increase 10x by 2030 with climate change driving the move to renewable energy and electric vehicles. To drive this growth, industry is demanding more energy dense, lighter, faster, environmentally friendly batteries.
At Li‑S Energy, we’re pioneering that change. Our new lithium sulfur and lithium metal batteries will power the world’s future energy needs.
More

And ...

Lithium sulfur and lithium metal batteries have a much higher energy capacity than today’s lithium ion, but until now they have tended to fail quickly, making them unsuitable for most commercial applications.
There was something missing – and we made it our mission to find the answer.
Our breakthrough? We embed unique nanomaterials — Boron Nitride Nanotubes (BNNTs), and a new nano-composite we created called Li‑nanomesh™ — into the cells to enhance their strength, life cycle and performance.
More

I note that the text above includes the word "metal" in association with Lithium ...

I asked Google and found that Sodium is indeed a metal ...

About 168,000,000 results (0.40 seconds)
Sodium is a soft metal that tarnishes within seconds of being exposed to the air. It also reacts vigorously with water. Sodium is used as a heat exchanger in some nuclear reactors, and as a reagent in the chemicals industry. But sodium salts have more uses than the metal itself.

The offering at the top level of the web site is unclear about the nature of the "metal" that the company is working with.

Finally, I asked Google about Sulfur:

About 1,560,000 results (0.40 seconds)
nonmetallic
sulfur (S), also spelled sulphur, nonmetallic chemical element belonging to the oxygen group (Group 16 [VIa] of the periodic table), one of the most reactive of the elements.Jun 26, 2023
Sulfur | Definition, Element, Symbol, Uses, & Facts | Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com › ... › Earth Sciences
Sulfur - Wikipedia
Sulfur | Definition, Element, Symbol, Uses, & Facts | Britannica

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kbd512 · 2023-07-06 04:57:18

Edit: Posted removed, per request from tahanson43206.

Last edited by kbd512 (2023-07-06 08:36:23)

tahanson43206 · 2023-07-06 06:06:30

For kbd512 re post #6

Please copy your post about sodium-sulfur batteries to another topic. SpaceNut created a generic topic but it is for Lithium used in batteries.

This topic is about Lithium Sulfur chemistry. I would ** really ** really ** like to keep this topic focused on Lithium Sulfur.

I am looking for contributions to this topic that are focused upon a product in development by Li‑S Energy.

However, upon reflection, I recognize that even though early responses have been about a completely different battery chemistry, they ** are ** responses, and in the forum business, a wrong response is better than no response at all.

Louis was a master of the "wrong" response, and his goading caused our members to produce some of their best writing.

With any luck at all, this new topic will prove enlightening for future readers.

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tahanson43206 · 2023-07-06 06:34:16

Because of continuing confusion about battery chemistry, I've attempted to find more information about the prospects for Lithium Sodium.

From the company web site:

Our solution:
lithium sulfur technology
In the past, lithium sulfur batteries failed to reach commercialisation because the cells had a poor cycle life, having to be replaced too often. There was something missing — we made it our mission to find the answer.
Our secret?
We embed unique nanomaterials — Boron Nitride Nanotubes (BNNTs), and a new nano-composite we invented called Li‑nanomesh™ — into the cells to enhance their strength, life cycle and performance.
Why lithium sulfur?
Lithium sulfur is superior to lithium ion in many ways.

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kbd512 · 2023-07-06 08:15:31

tahanson43206,

Apologies, I composed this offline. I posted it to the wrong topic after a search. I'll re-post it elsewhere.

Lithium-Sulfur cell chemistry uses a material with an even greater sourcing problem (Sulfur), combines it with a metal that already has a severe sourcing problem (Lithium), and then introduces an even more energy intensive material (BNNT).

SpaceNut · 2023-09-16 21:09:55

Sodium-ion batteries are gaining traction thanks to a ‘game-changing’ new partnership: ‘The battery of the future’

This is a typical blade design for the batteries in many EV's in use today.

AA1dBvAU.img?w=640&h=426&m=6

tahanson43206 · 2023-09-16 21:39:54

For SpaceNut re #10

Thanks for bringing this topic about lithium-sulfur batteries back into view.

For kbd512 ... your comment about the scarcity of sulfur was surprising to me, because I had the impression sulfur was not rare....

Here is something Google found:

Sulfur makes up almost 3 percent of the Earth's mass, according to Chemicool. That is enough sulfur to make two additional moons.
Sep 28, 2017
Facts About Sulfur | Live Science
www.livescience.com › Chemistry › Elements
About Featured Snippets

Here's another quote from the same fetch;

How does most sulfur exist on Earth?
It occurs in its native form in the vicinity of volcanoes and hot springs. Sulfur is the 10th most abundant element, and it is found in meteorites, in the ocean, in the earth's crust, in the atmosphere, and in practically all plant and animal life. The abundance of sulfur in the earth's crust is 0.03–0.1%.

This is an opportunity for someone to contribute to the topic with information about how sulfur is mined and prepared for use.

In addition, I'd appreciate any updates that folks might run across reporting on developments in this technology.

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kbd512 · 2023-09-17 17:23:28

tahanson43206,

Around 68 million tonnes of sulphur are produced annually, of which around 99% is a by-product of oil and gas production and refining.

Sulfur scarcity wouldn't be as much of a problem if we weren't trying to re-power human civilization using batteries, photovoltaic panels, and wind turbines. Maybe it will never sink in that this falsely promised "energy transition" is not going to happen during the lifetime of anyone alive today, nor their children, nor their children's children. All that Sulfur is presently being used by various industries. What's the solution to producing more, besides producing more oil?

You and everyone else who visits this forum can "know this" in the same way that I "know it", by doing add / subtract / multiply / divide mathematics (grade school math), by looking at the amount of any given material that we would need to make enough photovoltaic panels / wind turbines / batteries, the amount we produce every year, and the amount of energy we presently consume. Any energy reduction benefit you think you're getting from electric efficiency is immediately and negatively offset by the stupendous amounts of energy required to obtain the necessary metals and minerals.

Prove me wrong if you think I'm wrong, but do it with basic math, not YouTube videos. You cannot watch a YouTube video from someone who never has "just had a think" (about the implications of the ideas he wants pursued) and believe that he has "debunked" a 1,000+ page report by a triple-PhD who has spent more than a decade of his life examining the material requirements of the proposed solutions. Dr Michaux's work is now a peer-reviewed report that 25+ other PhDs have examined and cannot find major glaring faults with. The mere fact that you think some "green tech cheerleader" with a YouTube channel can "debunk" a report he's obviously never read, just shows me how deep in denial some of you are about this.

What was your last suggestion about the oil?

Oh, right, "we should just leave the oil in the ground". Brilliant. Kiss 99% of global Sulfur production goodbye. Are you starting to get my point that there are no simple solutions, and that what we're presently doing is "solving" much of anything?

The people who sold this utter nonsense to you never did the grade school math to "know this". They're perfectly capable, but how do you sell the idea of making Lithium-battery EVs when your Lithium supply will be gone long before you replace a major fraction of the existing vehicles?

"Just stop oil", right?

Okay, just stop making Lithium-Sulfur batteries. Just stop making plastics, so no more electrical insulators for electrical machines. Just stop making microchips and photovoltaic cells. Just stop making composites for wind turbine blades. Just stop making batteries mined by trucks powered by diesel fuel. Just stop making rubber tires. Just stop making every mineral and metal known to man while we're at it, because it's all made and delivered using gas, coal, and diesel powered machines.

I'd much rather that people just stopped being so ridiculous and ignorant in their demands of technology.

Whenever this finally does sink in, which normally happens right after the "math denialism" ends, I get one of two responses:

1. The person throws a tantrum over being told that they can't have their favorite toy to play with

2. The person has an "oh crap I've been lied to" moment, and then they start asking about what an actual solution might look like

People seeking exceptions to the rule are constantly trying to construct a reality to their liking. Math and physics have never been amenable to their demands. Ultimately, you come back to very simple things that, simple though they may be, are quite powerful and profound.

If we had spent the past 50 years undertaking a serious build-out of long-term sustainable nuclear and solar thermal power plants, we wouldn't find ourselves in this predicament, because we could scale-up the existing solar thermal plants to synthesize our liquid fuels. There is no replacement for natural gas and diesel fuel, nor all the diesel powered machines that do the real work of maintaining the living standards everyone on the planet has become accustomed to. For all the people wishing to run electric trucks, City of Chicago came back and said, "You must be joking. Your small electric truck recharging station is going to draw as much power as the entire city."

Nobody is producing the vast numbers of new electric power plants required to make this work, so even if the materials were unlimited, we don't have the infrastructure in place to handle the rest of this idea. That was a reasonably good place to start, but nobody did. That's why we have regular brownouts and blackouts in California. The infrastructure to power the EVs isn't even where you should start, but we can't even do that part correctly.

I'm patiently waiting for everyone else to figure out that this isn't going to happen, so we can then explore alternative solutions that might actually work.

tahanson43206 · 2023-09-17 19:06:04

For kdb512 re sulfur ...

Thanks for confirming we humans have plenty of sulfur on hand, for any application we might have for it.

(th)

kbd512 · 2023-09-18 00:16:46

tahanson43206,

As long as we keep refining oil and gas, we're in little danger of running out. If we think we're going to leave the oil and gas in the ground, but find an alternative way to make high purity Sulfur, I think prospective Lithium-Sulfur battery manufacturers are going to be very unhappy with the result (no Lithium-Sulfur batteries). I'm also guessing that eating your next meal ranks above batteries after you've missed a few, because the Sulfur we do produce is primarily used for agricultural purposes.

Calliban · 2023-09-18 03:02:30

Liquid sulphur 1st group metal batteries, have been around for a while now. Lithium sulphur batteries are similar to sodium sulphur batteries, but based on lithium instead of sodium as the anode material. These batteries have a molten sulphur cathode and the liquid metal anode floats on top. Back in the 80s an attempt was made to develop a sodium sulphur vehicle battery. These batteries have high energy density and are based on common elements. On that basis, they should have been the perfect choice for vehicle batteries. But there were problems. Both the metal and sulphur must be molten for the battery to work. The various oxidation states of sulphur are highly corrosive to most of the metals that can be used as containers. Sodium leaks through corroded containers caused fires. Lithium would do the same. It was found that these problems coukd be mitigated but not eliminated, by scaling batteries up to MWe scales. This made them suitable for stationary, grid-scale frequency control units, an applucation that they retain to this day. The spontaneous fire problems requires that each battery be seperated from its neighbours by thick concrete fire barriers. They weren't suitable or safe as vehicle batteries. Little has changed since the 80s in this respect. What would lithium sulphur batteries do that sodium sulphur batteries do not do already?

Last edited by Calliban (2023-09-18 03:02:59)

Calliban · 2023-09-18 03:18:23

Here are the eternal problems that any alternative propulsion system will face.

1. None of the proposed alternatives to diesel and gasoline have comparable energy density. They are all inferior in that respect. Battery systems are substantially poorer in terms of power and energy per unit weight.

2. All require substantial invested energy to manufacture. By contrast, the source material for diesel and gasoline is mined rather than manufactured and that source material provides the energy needed for its own refining.

We have examined dozens of battery and fuel alternatives for mobile applications on these forums over many years. None of them beat diesel or gasoline on a performance or cost effectiveness basis. They are all substantially more cumbersome, have poorer range, greater upfront cost, high embodied energy, low energy density, etc. We have yet to find anything that beats liquid fossil fuels in terms of overall performance. I begin to doubt that we ever will. A lot of people appear to look upon technology as a sort of magic and think it can solve any problem so long as we look hard enough. But technology is always constrained by physics. And there are limits to what it can do. That is not say that lithium sulphur batreries are useless. They will have applications, as sodium sulphur and lithium ion batteries do already. But we must be realistic in our expectations.

Last edited by Calliban (2023-09-18 03:21:43)

tahanson43206 · 2023-09-18 06:33:13

For Calliban re Post #15

Thank you for the valuable historical perspective on early attempts to use the chemistry of Lithium Sulfur, and sulfur in general.

The problems and challenges you have reported would ordinarily cause most humans to simply give up on the potential of the technology that might be created.

However, it appears that a very small group of humans decided to continue studying the capabilities of these two atom types, to see if the problems you reported might be overcome with technology that has only recently become available. Post #1 of this topic reports on just such research.

It is important for this topic to contain both the forward looking information with which it started, and the backward looking information you provided.

If you have time, please re-read post #1. The researchers described in the post appear to have addressed the problems you described, and they appear to believe they do not need concrete walls to separate sections of a battery. It is ** definitely ** good to know that the concrete wall solution has been developed.

(th)

kbd512 · 2023-09-18 09:08:58

Tesla Model 3 Battery Pack & Battery Cell Teardown Highlights Performance Improvements

Electric vehicle expert Jack Rickard recently took to the Tesla Model 3 battery pack with his unique combination of “stoic heroism” and battery know-how, in order to shed some light on the battery setup in the Tesla Model 3. Why heroism? Jack tore down a nearly fully charged 2170 battery, defying battery handling best practices and common sense, for your benefit. But I digress.

Jack Rickard says Lithium-ion batteries are only about 2% Lithium by weight, that we have plenty of Lithium, and the Lithium supply is not a problem. You can watch his commentary on the Tesla Model 3 2170 battery packs in the YouTube video from the page in the link above. He says that financial experts concerned over the global Lithium supply don't know what they're talking about. Let's do some grade school math to see if financial experts were capable of doing the math that old Jack has failed to do.

Out of the 26 million tons of global lithium reserves as per the U.S. Geological Survey published in January 2023, Chile was home to the largest lithium reserves base with 9.3 million tons of proven lithium reserves.

26,000,000t of total estimated global Lithium reserves = 26,000,000,000kg of Lithium Carbonate

2022 was a record year for Lithium Carbonate production, totaling 130,000t across the entire world.

Tesla Model 3 Battery Pack Contents: 2,976 Panasonic 2170 Lithium-ion battery cells (18.23Wh per cell)
1. Each 2170 Lithium-ion battery cell weighs 68g, so total battery weight is 202,368g
2. 202,368g * 0.02% = 4,047.36g or 4.047.36kg
3. 2022 Total Global Lithium Carbonate Production: 130,000t / 130,000,000kg, all-time record or peak production
4. 1,100,000,000 * 4.047.36 = 4,452,096,000kg
5. 4,452,096,000kg / 130,000,000kg = 34.25 years of 2022 Lithium Carbonate production

Tesla Semi Truck contains 48,162 Panasonic / Tesla 2170 cells per truck = 3,275,016g of total battery cell weight (500 mile range)
65,500.32g / 65.50032kg per truck of Lithium Carbonate and Lithium Hydroxide

65.50032kg * 200,000,000 = 13,100,064,000kg
13,100,064,000kg / 130,000,000kg = 100.77 years of 2022 Lithium Carbonate production

1 generation of Tesla semi truck production to replace most of the existing fleet of diesel trucks will consume HALF of the total known global Lithium reserves.

Thus the prices of Lithium Carbonate Ex-Shenzhen settled at USD 47,267 per tonne at the end of Q1 2023.

47,267 * 13,000,000 = $614,471,000,000 USD - assuming the price doesn't budge one lousy penny as demand increases well beyond the available supply (so, no tangential resemblance to economic reality as it relates to supply and demand)

That's just for the Lithium.

$250,000 per Tesla semi truck * 200,000,000 trucks = $50,000,000,000,000 (50 trillion dollars)

The world economy, comprising 194 economies, in 2021 is projected around US$93.86 trillion in nominal terms, according to the IMF. This figure is almost $9.3 trillion more than compared to 2020.

Unless Tesla semi trucks are going to become a major part of the total global economic output over the next 10 to 30 years, then this is looking more and more like a pipe dream. We're assuming that Jack is dead-on accurate in his weight percentage estimates. I'm taking him at his word, because Inside EVs is touting him as an "electric vehicle expert". Assuming he's spot-on, it shows how silly his assertions are about economics experts not knowing what they're talking about. To be an economist, you have to be capable of the grade school level math. If it's more than 2% of the total weight of materials in the battery, then Jack is talking out his rear end, just like the people he claims are talking out their rear ends. If it's actually 4%, the battery materials cease to be available after 1 generation of the technology is built, so all production must then come from recycling, a process well known for 100% recovery efficiency.

Is it abundantly clear that grid scale energy storage won't be using Lithium-anything for electrical power storage?

Can anyone here name any given metal or mineral whereby total global production has more than doubled, year-over-year?

Riddle me this, Batman...

If 2 million Tesla trucks plug into the grid, and each draws 1MW of electric power, what is the power draw on the grid?

Since grade school math seems to escape so many people, the answer is 2,000,000,000,000, or 2 TeraWatts.

The U.S. electric grid is an engineering marvel with more than 9,200 electric generating units having more than 1 million megawatts of generating capacity connected to more than 600,000 miles of transmission lines. The electric grid is more than just generation and transmission infrastructure.

1 million megawatts = 1,000,000 * 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000, or 1 TeraWatt

Fast charging 2 million electric trucks in 15 minutes?

8X the current total US electric grid's installed generating capacity (oil, coal, gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar).

Fast charging 20 million electric Model 3s (7.25% of the total number of passenger cars in America) in 15 minutes?

Same as the current total US electric grid's generating capacity.

Is the US going bat guano crazy building out new electric generating stations that don't run on coal, oil, or natural gas?

In the past century, the electricity generation capacity in the U.S. increased by nearly 45 percent, amounting to 1,177 gigawatts in 2021.

It took nearly 100 years to build out 1.1TW of generating capacity, using hydrocarbon fuels and nuclear power almost exclusively.

Even if there were no material scarcity issues to deal with, this is your rate-limiting factor. If we could wave our magic wand to make every vehicle in the world an electric vehicle by tomorrow, that doesn't mean our existing electric grid, primarily natural gas, coal, and nuclear, can charge all of them.

Who here thinks we're going to double or quadruple that using photovoltaic panels and wind turbines in the next 10 to 30 years?

If you do, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'm willing to sell to you for a great price.

All I see and hear is more and more fantasy-based thinking from people who refuse to do grade school math because it disagrees with their climate religion. Well... I'm an atheist. That means I don't believe in any religion. This refusal to acknowledge, respond to, and engage with solving the actual problems is precisely why I don't believe in any religion. This is why I proposed solar and nuclear thermal alternatives that at least have a chance to work at the scale required. Education isn't failing us, because it's failed completely. We have people touted as experts in technical subjects who can't or won't do grade school math.

tahanson43206 · 2023-09-18 09:59:25

The discussion of Lithium availability that appeared in this topic recently inspired me to ask Google how Lithium is made... Instead, it reported another way it is used .... in fusion... The folks at Iter seem to be overlooking the competing demand for lithium from the electric battery industry... here is a snippet showing their optimistic forecast:

Is there enough lithium for fusion?
Fusion specialists generally consider that, in a world where all energy would be produced by fusion, the quantity of lithium ore present in landmass would be sufficient to provide the required tritium for several thousand years. As for lithium present in oceans, it could last us millions of years.
Question of the week | Will fusion run out of fuel? - ITER.org
www.iter.org › newsline

I will continue looking for information about how lithium is made in stars. Obviously, it ** is ** made by some process.

(th)

kbd512 · 2023-09-18 11:11:28

China is Throwing Away Fields of Electric Cars - Letting them Rot!

This is why China is a "global leader" in EV sales. It's ludicrous and insane.

kbd512 · 2023-09-18 13:11:01

Chinese E-Bikes are Exploding like Crazy - Self Destructing Spectacularly

Tens of thousands of e-Bikes are exploding in China. There are football fields after football fields of these e-Bikes, stacked 10 high in some cases, catching fire and exploding. There are batteries leaking chemicals into the environment, toxic smoke, and heavy metals. It looks really environmentally friendly to me.

kbd512 · 2023-09-18 13:18:20

China’s Outdated EVs Are Piling Up In Shocking Numbers

You need a factory to safely disassemble and recycle the Lithium-ion batteries, but it's quite clear that this is not actually happening. That was the promise. The valuable Copper, Lithium, Nickel, Aluminum, and rare Earth metals need to be recycled.

kbd512 · 2023-09-18 14:16:26

Experts say China's EVs are "Exploding in Huge Numbers"

What is this "Electric Viking" clown doing?

Well, he's pretending the links I've shown, where people walk through football field after football field after football field of abandoned or burned out Chinese EVs are "anecdotal evidence". Sure, buddy. Go vape some more THC oil. You look stoned out of your mind in half your videos.

He can't find any BYD EV outside of China that's ever caught fire.

Chinese BYD electric car explodes while charging outside shopping mall

A one-week-old Chinese BYD electric car exploded while it was charging outside a mall in Thailand. The grey BYD Atto 3 was found by firefighters with smoke gushing out from under its bonnet while parked in front of a shopping centre in Udon Thani province on September 3 afternoon. They doused the vehicle with extinguishers and disconnected its battery before spraying it with water. The shocked car owner, 41, told traffic officers that he was charging the vehicle while his family was out shopping. When the battery reached 50 per cent, smoke began to billow from its bonnet. He said the car, which had been bought only a week ago, had been charged both at home and at various stations. Authorities believe the fire was triggered by a short circuit. The car has been taken to a service centre for a comprehensive inspection to determine its exact cause. BYD and Rever Automotive, the distributor of BYD vehicles in Thailand, issued a statement on September 4 saying an engineering team had been formed to investigate the incident. The statement read: 'We are waiting for the inspection results from the engineers. The car must be disassembled and thoroughly inspected in order to determine the root cause. We will inform everyone again of the findings. 'BYD and Reve are well aware of this incident. We are determined to find the truth, and we will not distort information for commercial gain. If it is found that the fire was caused by an abnormality from the vehicle, Reve will accept this fault and will compensate for the damages incurred. We will continue to investigate and find solutions from now on.'

BYD Ireland:

Safety: The Blade Battery has successfully passed the nail penetration test, one of the most stringent safety tests in the industry, which proves it will never spontaneously ignite. The Blade Battery is currently the only power battery in the world that can safely pass the test.

BYD Switches to EV Batteries It Says Won't Ever Catch Fire

If I was a massive wanker, I would make a claim like Electric Viking, or indeed the CEO of BYD, that is directly contradicted by observable visual evidence with news stories and claims from BYD themselves that they're investigating the cause of a fire- again and again and again.

The BYD Atto 3 is equipped with BYD's new "won't ever catch fire" Blade battery technology. The car in question was purchased less than 1 week before it caught fire.

tahanson43206 · 2023-11-05 11:28:41

Here's a new report on lithium-sulfur development ... I don't think there is anything new here from NewMars perspective ... My guess is someone in public relations is trying to keep the company visible to potential investors...

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/comp … 00874.html

The Cool Down
Company pioneers sulfur-based battery that could replace lithium-ion cells — it’s all thanks to this amazing nanotechnology
Rick Kazmer
Sun, November 5, 2023 at 4:45 AM EST·2 min read
56

Lithium-ion batteries power much of our digital world, but the energy doesn’t come without environmental impact and risk.
Experts at Australia-based Li-S Energy said they have an innovative battery in the works that replaces lithium ions with lithium-sulfur. The result is a power pack that the company has indicated is cleaner, lightweight, and has greater capacity than alternatives.
“This outcome demonstrates the strength of our progress over the last year,” Li-S Energy CEO Lee Finniear said in a company press release noting the recent improvement in energy per unit of weight the battery can store.
The 20-layer battery cells are about the same size as their lithium-ion counterparts, but with half the weight, according to a description of the tech from InsideEVs. This latest generation from Li-S improves upon previous lithium-sulfur models.
The company is touting the battery’s low flammability as a big win. Lithium-ion batteries can catch fire and even explode. Li-S experts said in the press release that the materials that make up the electrolyte in the battery — the solution where the charge/discharge cycle happens — have a low combustion risk.
Part of the science sounds about as futuristic as you’d expect in groundbreaking battery tech. Li-S experts are using “nanomaterials,” “nanotubes,” and a house-made “nano-composite” they call “Li-nanomesh.”
Nanotechnology deals with very small objects. National Geographic describes it as manipulating individual atoms and molecules.
At Li-S, the researchers are putting the tiny tech “into the [battery] cells to enhance their strength, life cycle, and performance.”
The company is also billing its nanomaterial science as potentially helping NASA put humans on Mars.
The terrestrial applications could be high-flying, as well. Li-S officials are eyeing the drone and eAviation industries, where the company already has partners, according to the press release. They expect that market to be worth more than about $32 billion (USD) a year by 2035.
“In the coming months we look forward to commencing the production of commercial samples for our partners,” Finniear said in the press release.
More efficient batteries are important as an increasing amount of tech powers up using packs. The metals used in batteries are located deep in the Earth’s crust, requiring invasive mining to gather them. Battery recycling is a growing part of the solution to reduce mining’s impact.
Part of the answer could also be Li-S’s ability to bring their batteries, which promise to pack 45% more energy punch than the previous model, to market.
“The development of these new battery cells is another validation of the strength of our scientific and technical teams,” Finniear said in the press release.
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(th)

kbd512 · 2023-11-06 02:37:42

tahanson43206,

All of these articles on "revolutionary new battery technology" have common themes. They contain zero relevant technical details. They contain zero details about when mass production might begin. They contain zero details about anticipated costs and whether or not the required materials are available in the required quantities to facilitate mass production. It's fact-free propaganda that uses a lot of ink to say nothing of interest to anyone who might be interested in investing.

Something as simple as, "Our battery tech with XYZ form factor weighs #kg, stores #Wh/kg of energy, and when finally in mass production we expect our average cost to be about $# per Watt.", is always conspicuously absent.

It would be no great big deal, nor great big cost to the development company, to produce a standard form factor test cell, such as the 18650, so that technologies could be directly compared and inferences drawn. This should be a requirement to receive any further funding beyond money for basic R&D.

Any battery company worthy of investment should be required to produce 1,000 standard 18650 form factor cells, or some other standardized form factor submitted for testing to Underwriter's Laboratories (thus becoming UL Listed products), and the test cells are subjected to the same testing that all other 18650 cells are subjected to, and a Panasonic / Tesla 18650 cell is used as the benchmark to determine whether or not the company's claims are reasonably valid, or the more typical rah-rah electric malarkey masquerading as news.

Pretty much all commercial electrical or electronic devices used here in America need UL Listing numbers, or they're considered to be of unknown provenance and highly questionable quality. The relevant UL Code for Lithium-ion batteries, for those who are curious, is UL 1642.

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