Can Flow Batteries Finally Beat Lithium?

⁨227⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨flango@lemmy.eco.br⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://spectrum.ieee.org/flow-battery-2666672335

Amazing stuff.

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

MeanEYE@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Betteridge’s law of headlines… “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”

source
- Mr_Blott@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  100% the reason I didn’t even click it, thanks!
  
  source
- pluja@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  en.wikipedia.org/…/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines#…
  
  source
  - wikibot@lemmy.world [bot] ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    [deleted]
    source
    -> View More Comments
ch00f@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t get it. For the average consumer, EVs as they exist right now are fine. Charging is generally 20 mins every 2-3 hours and only on road trips. Charging an EV at home is a trivial technical challenge. I understand that there aren’t chargers on street corners, but vehicles are rarely parked more than 20 feet from some kind of electrical service.

The idea of shipping liquid fuel in trucks and dispensing it out of hoses at special fuel stores is just silly. Rolling out that kind of infrastructure is unnecessary, and hydrogen has already showed that it doesn’t work. We only did it with gasoline because there was no other way.

I can see liquid fuel being useful in certain applications, but for the typical consumer, BEVs are the way to go.

source
- surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I can explain. You’re thinking like a scientist, not a capitalist. Money will go into this tech because it forces you to be dependent on that charging system. They want that. It’s better margins than electricity creation.
  
  source
  - just_another_person@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You are not completely incorrect here, but the capitalist side of this entire industry shifted to obtaining the rights to the raw resources a long time ago. There’s a reason Tesla and Toyota have been snatching up mineral rights via acquisitions for years now. They want the entire supply chain, not just the proprietary means to deliver the product.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- throwawayThePie@lemmynsfw.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  For the average consumer most EVs are too expensive. The batteries probably aren’t going to get much cheaper due to the rarity and expense of lithium. Finding a better battery tech could make the whole idea of mass electric car ownership make sense. I do wish people would stop caring about the range issue so much tho. Just charge the battery every night and you’ll almost never need more then 80 miles of range
  
  I hope we drop the idea of mass car ownership tho. Effective mass public transit and micro mobility seems like a much safer and more efficient direction to go
  
  source
  - Tja@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Any base on those claims that batteries aren’t going to get cheaper? They have been for 15 years. There is still progress to be made. There are LFP that get rod of cobalt. There are sodium batteries in testing that will reduce lithium demand.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - frezik@midwest.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Batteries almost certainly will get cheaper. Lithium isn’t particularly rare. There are sources where it isn’t economical to extract it currently. That’s what “reserves” measure: a source that is economical to extract right now.
    
    We tend to find new ways to extract minerals, which expands our reserves. Happens all the time, and lithium is no exception. The big one right now is the Salton Sea and seawater extraction in general.
    
    There’s also an interesting (string-based method)[…princeton.edu/…/revolutionizing-lithium-producti…] that could bring costs down and avoid the large pools of water that cause environmental damage and high water usage of current methods. It still needs to be proven at scale, however. I usually don’t like to focus on any singular advancement; battery tech advances by trying 100 things, and 10 of them are practical at scale. This one does look promising, though.
    
    source
  - WFStarbuck@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    How do I charge the battery every night when I don’t own a home but rent. No apartment complex will install a charging station just for me. And I will never own a home. So how do I charge this electric car?
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- kameecoding@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s because people have this mindset that they might need to travel 600+kms twice a year, therefore they need a 700km range BEV because Despite 99% of their car usage is sub 200km ( and 90% is sub 100) it is somehow prudent to carry all that extra battery material and weight around unused
  
  I think hydrogen makes sense in a few applications namely trucking and long range cars for the few who need it, though I would say it’s probably better to invest heavily in trains and handle most shipping with trains then put the stuff on trucks for the last 50kms and stuff
  
  source
  - ImpishCook@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hydrogen is also important in construction when utilities aren’t typically present.
    
    source
- chaogomu@kbin.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The only place I see liquid fuel being used is in commercial transportation, particularly in shipping and rail. Anhydrous ammonia would be perfect for shipping, and a nightmare anywhere else. That shit will fucking kill you in an instant, and those who survive just wish they were dead.
  
  So it should only be used in highly regulated professional settings.
  
  That said, it's still a wonderful fuel option for those settings.
  
  This electrolyte swaps shit? I see it as an attempt to reuse all that gas station infrastructure all over the place.
  
  EV chargers are all over as well these days, but they're still not anything near as ubiquitous and gas stations.
  
  source
  - Garbanzo@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Owners of gas stations figured out a long time ago that attaching a convenience store to the business was a good idea, I think they’ll adapt to people hanging out for twenty minutes pretty well.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - SinningStromgald@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Gas stations around me are installing charging stations wherever they have room to do so. But I live in area with lots of baby boomers who have bought Teslas and Rivians. There is a group of 9 charging stations in the middle of strip mall parking lot a couple miles away as well.
    
    source
- Addv4@kbin.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Then what about trucking? Lithium is not nearly as energy dense, weighs a lot, and does take a significant longer time to charge than a diesel to refuel. If you don't believe me, look up the eCascadia by Frightliner. They are probably the current best option if you wanted a heavy electric truck, but they only get to around 200 miles with a load (for reference, a standard turbo diesel one would go around 600-800 miles and only take 30 min to refuel).
  
  Currently in trucking, I've found that everyone kinda laughs at the idea of electrification (except on medium duty, that wouldn't be too hard, just overly expensive). Current electric motors are fine, it's just that the energy storage is nowhere near what is needed for actual use.
  
  Yes, for most consumers current lithium is fine from a usability perspective, but from a cost one this might provide a much more useful alternative (assuming the cost isn't insane).
  
  source
  - ch00f@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I can see liquid fuel being useful in certain applications, but for the typical consumer, BEVs are the way to go.
    
    source
  - Garbanzo@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There’s got to be a significant amount of trucking going on that’s within a 100 mile radius, no? You’d have to charge more often than you’d have to refuel, but that seems like a problem worth offsetting to get the potential benefits of electrification.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - Soggytoast@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Pretty much everything you said was said about passenger cars 15 years ago. Can’t fix every problem right away. as much as 85% of trucking is under 200 miles (by freight tonnage). This defeatist mentality of ‘it won’t work for this application, or this application, it’ll never change’ will always fail as technology and engineering improves.
    
    The Tesla semi proved that fully loaded 450+ mi trucking is not only possible but better in every way, Pepsi is eager to incorporate them and Walmart too. Here’s the trick, Walmart and other companies doesn’t give a shit about charge times as long as it’s manageable, if it ends up saving even a dollar per freight delivery, they will switch. If it never improved and legit took 4 hours per 200 miles, companies will set up relay trucking. Trucking itself will change if technology can’t. It’s always about money, charge times only bother the driver
    
    source
- GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I just want a half decent second hand EV that will do 120 miles, for a reasonable price.
  
  I can buy an acceptable ICE car for £5k, and it’ll do that.
  But at that price range, the only BEVs can get are shagged leafs that will do 50 miles on a good day.
  
  source
  - themoken@startrek.website ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I test drove a Leaf and honestly it felt bad brand new. I got range anxiety just taking it on the highway and back to the dealer.
    
    So far, I think Tesla has a monopoly on practical EVs. Say what you will about the cars (or their leadership) but the charger network they built out and having ~150 miles of actual range is hard to beat in an existing product.
    
    source
  - CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    EVs are fairly new while ICE vehicles have been produced for 100 years. This is why you can get an ICE for $5k but currently not an EV.
    
    source
- phoneymouse@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Apparently, no one read the article. The primary application of this is for the military. The article is based on research being done by DARPA. For military use, lithium ion batteries have way too short of a life span and the charge times are too long.
  
  source
  - ch00f@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Why do people get hung up on the supercharging stop they would need to make 2-3 times a year and ignore the 40x a year they currently go out of their way to wait in line for cheap gas at Costco?
    
    Also, there are Teslas with 250k miles and 90% range. The batteries can already outlast their vehicles, and finally, recycling batteries is possible and a lucrative business.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- Tetsuo@jlai.lu ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  The idea of shipping liquid fuel in trucks and dispensing it out of hoses at special fuel stores is just silly.
  
  I don’t necessarily disagree with that but I hope you see that this type of infrastructure is exactly what we currently have and have proven to work.
  
  It wouldn’t be that stupid to reuse an existing infrastructure that is already built. The issue with our current fuel infrastructure is that it is moving fossil fuel.
  
  source
  - ch00f@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    What I don’t get is how gasoline even has an infrastructure. It’s delivered by trucks. If you replace the manufacture and dispensing with new equpement, what infrastructure are you left with? Trucks?
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Technically, yes. Most of the time. Beyond that, no. It isn’t good enough for a great deal of people. Lithium batteries are hard to recycle, hard and expensive as hell to replace, give constantly diminishing returns as range goes down every year it’s owned, people in apartments can’t charge them without going to charge stations that are more expensive than gasoline, and range anxiety is very much a thing that prevents anyone from exclusively owning electric vehicles.
  
  Transportable fluid that holds more density than lithium (which means vehicles won’t be so heavy which saves on a lot of issues) and doesn’t require a nationwide restructuring of the electrical grid system seems like a way better idea than adding an extra 1200 pounds of battery that will cost $12,000 to replace when it goes bad.
  
  I only wonder if the liquid can be safely disposed of or recycled/sustained. Regardless, setting up a system to use this would take two decades to really implement and we should have solid state batteries before then that should get rid of quite a few of the several shortcomings of lithium batteries.
  
  source
- mihies@kbin.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It has many benefits. Many. At least if article is correct. Doesn't burn. It allows for energy storage which is huge when you take into the account renewable energy generation. It might even allow you to store surplus at home. It's less weight which results in less consumption.
  Also what makes you say that hydrogen failed. AFAIK perhaps for cars is not viable right now, but for bigger vehicles it might be very convenient.
  
  source
- flango@lemmy.eco.br ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It seems to me that we’ll be living in a world with multiple solutions to the “fuel problem”. In a city environment, maybe the lithium solution will be the best way to go, but we can’t ignore that it isn’t scalable for other uses. It’s interesting to see how fossil fuels are powerful by the way they solve many problems at once; of course, after we built the insane infrastructure to support it.
  
  We need every thing we got to beat climate change.
  
  source
- supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Putting a charger on every street parking location will become disproportionately expensive.
  
  source
  - ch00f@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Most vehicles stay parked for at least 12 hours a day. The average American vehicle is driven 35 miles a day. A standard 15A 120V outlet would do fine. They can also be set to only draw power during off peak hours when electricity is cheap and plentiful.
    
    I think running a few dozen feet of wire is easier than inventing a new kind of fuel.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - Aux@lemmynsfw.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    No, it won’t. Chargers are already on every bloody street, they’re called lamp posts. You just need to retrofit a plug into them.
    
    source
sartalon@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This article uses “nano” way too much for me to take it seriously. It is written like a marketing piece.

source
- bruhduh@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Nano desu
  
  source
18107@aussie.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Flow batteries are great for long duration storage, but not good for high power delivery.

This means they will work far better as grid storage than as EV batteries.

source
- frezik@midwest.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The article is about advancements that are solving the density problem.
  
  source
- Jozav@lemmy.world [bot] ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What is your source?
  
  High power is a matter of scaling (and size/space constraints). To increase the power output, the membrane size can be increased or multiple power cells can be installed as explained in the article:
  
  If you want to store more energy, just increase the size of the solution storage tanks or the concentration of the solutions. If you want to provide more power, just stack more cells on top of one another or add new stacks.
  
  source
  - 18107@aussie.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    piped.video/watch?v=YyzQsVzKylE
    
    Lithium batteries scale power and capacity at the same time. Flow batteries can scale power and capacity independently.
    
    The advantage of flow batteries is that they can have enormous capacities without the added cost of upgrading the power, making it ideal for grid scale storage.
    
    Even if this new flow battery reaches the energy density of a lithium battery, and can output sufficient power, it would still need to reach price parity to be competitive.
    
    source
bizzle@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Lithium batteries are an ecological nightmare and I can’t wait for better technology

source
- Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What makes a lithium iron phosphate battery an ecological nightmare?
  
  source
  - bizzle@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If it still relies on mined lithium, it’s some pretty bad stuff. Come to find out mining isn’t super great for the environment.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - JustJack23@slrpnk.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Cobalt: earth.org/cobalt-mining/
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ve always hoped so. Finally deal with both range anxiety and charging time together.

source
- andrewrgross@slrpnk.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That’d be cool.
  
  source
- MeanEYE@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hydrogen solves that.
  
  source
  - smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hah, no. Storage and infrastructure are still non-existent. And low temperature operation is still an issue.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
QuarterSwede@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
That’s some crazy battery technology. This would greatly solve a lot of current issues.

source
squid_slime@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
make car battery big, use nano liquid, issue fixed?

source
onlinepersona@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What’s the energy density of these compared to Lithium Ion?

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

source