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tahanson43206

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Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,237

Nickel - Hydrogen Battery - reliable - long history - Expensive

The video on YouTube at the link below reports on the long history of successful deployment of Nickel-Hydrogen batteries.

The energy density is lower than Lithium, and the catalysts are very expensive ... on the order of $1000 per ounce in 2024...

However, it appears there may be less expensive alternatives for the catalysts....

Despite the low density and high cost, these batteries appear to be competitive for large grid scale applications where 30 year+ lifetimes will pay off (ie, return the investment to the investors).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zG-ZrC4BO0

The video is by Brilliant...

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tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,237

Re: Nickel - Hydrogen Battery - reliable - long history - Expensive

This post is reserved for an index to posts NewMars members may contribute over time.

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tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,237

Re: Nickel - Hydrogen Battery - reliable - long history - Expensive

An article about a battery invented by Thomas Edison many decades ago caught my eye...

It was the early 1900s, and the driver of this particular car was Thomas Edison. While electric cars weren't a novelty in the neighborhood, most of them relied on heavy and cumbersome lead-acid batteries. Edison had outfitted his car with a new type of battery that he hoped would soon be powering vehicles throughout the country: a nickel-iron battery. Building on the work of the Swedish inventor Ernst Waldemar Jungner, who first patented a nickel-iron battery in 1899, Edison sought to refine the battery for use in automobiles.

The article is on the lengthy side... it provides the (to me surprising) revelation that the production of hydrogen (which was annoying a hundred years ago) is a most definite advantage in today's world.  It appears that when the battery is fully charged it makes hydrogen more efficiently than traditional electrolysis.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the- … wtab-en-us

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kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,812

Re: Nickel - Hydrogen Battery - reliable - long history - Expensive

Modern Day Nickel-Iron Batteries
The Iron Edison battery company went out of business in 2023 after 12 years.  Their 48V system weighed 560lbs and stored 4,320Wh of energy at a 20 hour discharge rate, so its gravimetric energy density is 17Wh/kg and maximum discharge rate is 216 Watts per hour.  At the 5 hour rate, maximum discharge rate is 768 Watts per hour, capacity is 3,840Wh, and energy density is 15Wh/kg.  A Tesla Model 3 uses about 250Wh per mile at highway speeds.  A similar setup could include 2 of those 48V systems for about equal weight, so you're looking at a range of about 30.72 miles.  List price for a 48V setup was $4,840, or $9,680 for a 30 mile battery.  That's a healthy chunk of a what a Tesla Model 3 battery costs.  That said, there are some niche users of Nickel-Iron batteries.  I don't know the particulars, I just know that they're out there and have their reasons.

GM's EV1, The First Practical EV, Initially Lead-acid Powered
Lead-acid powered prototype EVs had ranges of 90 miles for a lot less money.  Modern Lead-acid is 50Wh/kg to 75Wh/kg.  I think the entire GM EV1 was projected to cost $30K to $35K if mass manufactured using the more energy dense Lead-acid batteries provided by Panasonic, a 18.7kWh / 590kg battery.  I honestly think it could've gone below $25K, which is where it starts to look appealing for everyday city driving, at least to me.  Lead-acid cell chemistries are also the only kind of battery recycled at a rate of 95%+ (all materials that go into the battery- they recover nearly everything).  No other kind of battery achieves a recycling rate anywhere near that, and the metal that comes out of the recycling process is sufficiently pure to make a brand spanking new Lead-acid battery for less energy and money than mining virgin metal, unlike Lithium-ion.  The EV1 was a real EV with a gasoline powered car's curb typical weight, rather than a truck's curb weight, so energy usage per mile was even lower than the Tesla is today, because it had a lot less electronic trash.  Range was quite limited, but it could recharge overnight using a standard 120V wall socket, thus it was vastly more practical than the EVs we have today, which would take multiple days to recharge on a 120V outlet.

Nickel-Iron vs Lead-acid Energy Density Improvement
That absurdly low energy density of Nickel-Iron might have something to do with why Iron Edison went out of business.  From about the 1930s onwards, I think, Lead-acid were markedly better.  Such was certainly true of submarine Lead-acid batteries, especially after WWII, because the Navy poured development dollars into Lead-acid, as did the burgeoning automotive industry that started catering to ordinary people, rather than the wealthy.  Lead-acid is much better than that today, but Nickel-Iron tech hasn't markedly improved since it was invented.  I guess we could technically call NMC532 a "Nickel" battery, though?

Longevity / Service Life
Iron Edison claimed 11,000 full charge / discharge cycles, but independent testing and customer self-reporting seems to indicate a service life well below that number of cycles.  It seems that kind of life might be possible but isn't typical.  Even if the claim is true, gravimetric energy density of "Iron Edison's" Nickel-Iron battery tech is on par with compressed air stored in steel cylinders.  That point aptly explains why it's not real interesting to anyone but Edison enthusiasts.

A Retrospective on Nickel-Iron Adoption Prospects
Nickel has always been expensive and difficult to come by.  High cost combined with its low energy density issue explains why those Edison / Mulder Nickel-Iron batteries never caught on during the early 1900s.  Henry Ford was always a forward-thinking and forward-looking man, but he also demanded performance, rather than lip service to the idea of performance.  Edison's idea couldn't deliver after significant money and effort was expended to commercialize the tech, so he moved on to internal combustion engines, because they delivered a real performance improvement for less weight, cost, and dramatically greater range.  There are few compelling reasons for Nickel-Iron, but I think we should keep the basic tech around, just in case someone invents a dramatically better version of it.  Until then, it's another technological curiosity that came and went.