Solid power: Planar Energy CEO Scott Faris holds a solid-state battery cathode printed using new manufacturing techniques.
Planar Energy
A startup company has a printing method for solid-state batteries.
An Orlando startup has developed new manufacturing techniques that could improve the stability and lifetime of batteries used in electric vehicles. Planar Energy, a spin-off of the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL), is working on scaling up solid-state lithium-ion batteries.
Conventional batteries, which typically use a liquid electrolyte, can suffer from undesirable chemical reactions that damage the battery's cathode. Replacing the liquid electrolyte with a solid ion conductor can improve battery stability and lifetime, and also allow a battery to be smaller because additional components aren't needed to maintain stability. Solid electrolytes are also compatible with a wider range of battery chemistries that could potentially offer higher power or storage density.
But solid-state batteries are expensive to make and have been difficult to scale up to the size needed for laptops or vehicles. Like other solid-state devices, solid-state batteries are normally made using complex, costly, vacuum-based deposition methods. The vacuum deposition limits the thickness of solid-state batteries, which, in turn, limits their energy storage capacity. So these thin-film batteries have been limited to use in small devices.
Efforts to use printing processes to make thicker solid-state batteries have been stymied by the lack of a printable solid electrolyte material (printed electrodes must usually be combined with a liquid electrolyte to carry the ions back and forth during charging and recharging).
Planar Energy has developed a roll-to-roll process for making larger solid lithium-ion batteries. The company, which received $4 million in funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy program this spring, says it can print solid batteries that offer three times more storage than liquid lithium-ion batteries of the same size. This boost in energy storage is possible primarily because the company's all-solid batteries don't require many of the support structures and materials that take up space in conventional batteries, making more space for energy storage.
Planar Energy expects to reduce capital costs by half compared with solid-state battery manufacturing using high-vacuum machinery. And the company says its processes can be used to make cells big enough to power electric vehicles.
Transparent batteries could lead to designs for cell phones and other gadgets.
A new printing process could increase battery capacity by over 10 percent.
Battery breakthroughs could lower costs and improve performance for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage--but commercializing these new technologies will be challenging.
I wonder what the longevity will be in service and if there are any heating effects to worry about? looks like they have an impressive solution, I will follow with interest
Very good question, since there are very high energy cells that operate only for a few cycles! The Planar cell design is based upon all solid-state, inorganic materials with high stability windows. We anticipate shelf and cyclic lifetimes similar to the thin film batteries, and thermal tolerance that is better than current Li-ion batteries. The packaging materials may turn out to be the limitation on thermal tolerance. It is worth noting that if our efforts to minimize the interfacial impedance between the active materials are successful, internal heat generation will not be a significant issue, even at high C-rates.
If planar can adapt this technology to Lithium Sulfur battery chemistry, we could end up seeing even higher energy densities than with the Lithium-Ion chemistry.
Sulfur looks interesting, the voltage is a little lower, the capacity may be quite large. Cyclic stability appears to be one of the main issues with using sulfur as a cathode. There are some interesting ideas out there about how to stabilize sulfur, so if these appear to be working, Planar will take a hard look at going this route.
How fast can this battery be charged up?
For cars people are used to 5 - 10 min to gas up...
8 hours seems too long to me.
Could you quick charge a Super-Capacitor at a charging station ("Go get a Charge at the Station") and have the SP charge the battery.
SPs have quick charging times. The SP sounds good for recapturing Braking energy in Transportation uses also.
For comparison most cars go 300 miles on a tank of gas. 300 Miles doesn't seem an impossible goal for an electric.
If you don't charge up on the road what will happen to all the "mom and pop gas stations?" About one on every corner...
Great thing to do but please try to make them in the USA, not China.
Re: Longer-Lasting Auto Batteries
Planar's plan is to manufacture these batteries in the U.S. We see a lot of value in keeping the manufacturing process on shore.
Planar's experience with solid-state, thin film batteries indicates that the materials can be pushed pretty hard without damaging them. However, as we make the electrodes thicker and higher capacity, there may be some limitations. There is a balance between providing higher charge and discharge rates and keeping the capacity of the battery high, so there will be some trade-offs that will have to be made. Batteries for some applications may be designed a little different than for others. The use of supercapacitors on the front end of the battery may be required for some applications, not for others. For transportation applications, a battery for hybrid vehicles may benefit from a supercapacitor front end. A massive battery that provides long ranges in all-electric mode may need less. Planar's solid state batteries have different operating characteristics than Li-ion batteries and may not require as much current management on the front end, but that also depends upon size. Cost is also one of the considerations. The final configurations will be the result of a lot of testing and optimization.
4 Million and we are a step closer to a better battery!
Makes one wonder if the companies and government actually wanted alternate energy how easy it would be.
If 4 Million gets us that far, think how much 400Billion that the criminals gave to the banks would have brought the world.
Share technology to make world gains
I am happy to hear that printing methods can be applied to this medium and that it promises a three fold increase in capacity, but I have also read that a carbon nanostructure could add many times the storage capacity also, and it seems that I keep hearing of new advancements in a particular area of lithium battery technology that are independant of each other. If we could all apply our own ideas and put them together to make one good battery it sounds like it would be forty or fifty times better through the sums of our boastings. I expect good things to come in the next year, but hate to hear that it will take five to ten years to flesh these ideas out into a marketable battery. We need to get together on these and get this out sooner. Or do we want to burn up every last drop of oil first? Keep up the good work fellas. Just out of curiosity has anyone applied iron sulfide as a stable cathode? And what about tungsten coatings? Can we join laser sintering in there for that, create a rough micro surface in printing? Just thinking on screen here.
Re: Share technology to make world gains
I fully agree with you inventive42. All around the world, there seems to be a lot of great ideas to improve battery efficiency, but I hate to hear that it will probably take at least 5 to 10 years to bring these ideas to the market...
Even though many individual companies are doing a great job on working on technologies to improve battery efficiency, I dream that many of those start-up combine their efforts to bring a disruptive battery on the market sooner than the 5 to 10 years range...
For example, many automotive manufacturers plan to launch at least one model of electric car in the next 2 to 3 years, but the battery autonomy would usually be around 100 miles (~160 km) maximum (and unfortunately probably a lot less in real usage), with also the disadvantage of costing probably at least 5000$ to 10 000$ more than a conventional gas oil car...
If many battery start-up would work in a collaborative manner, and with sufficient government (like ARPA-E) and venture capitalist funding support, maybe would it be possible to develop in a shorter time a battery that would top at least 300 miles that would meet all the different requirements for such a market (cost, longevity, number of cycles,...).
I think that the sooner the battery technology will be able to reach the target of 300 miles for the automotive market (with all the different requirements as cost, longevity, number of cycles,...), a lot higher will be the probability of the all electric car market begins to really take-off...
Anyway supporting the efforts of scientist like Roland Pitts and his team, seems to me a step in the good direction for the common good to probably improve everyone's way of life... I just hope that they will also try to work collaboratively with other battery start-up companies to bring even more improvements and more importantly bring them even faster on the market...
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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gaspercat
2 Comments
Amazing
If that technology reaches the potential it says, it will be a breakthrough for portable electronics, and could even mean a shift of paradigm on transportation.
It's speaking of 200 mah/g at 3-5v, being pessimistic and setting the voltage to that of current li-ion cells (3.7v), that means 3.5V * 1000g * 0.2A = 700Wh/kg.
That's about 4.5 times the energy density of current li-ion batteries, or 3.8 times that of li-po batteries, so we're talking of a 4x increase on electric cars range, or a 4x decrease on solar UAV/planes battery weight, which would pass from being 1/4 of the plane's weight to a despreciable amount.
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tsvieps
3 Comments
Re: Amazing
Energy density looks great, but I did not see even ball park cost estimates in the article...except that it will be less than previous solid electrolite processes.
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rolandpitts
6 Comments
Re: Amazing
This is a really great point! Battery cost for transportation applications is a huge issue, and this is one of the compelling arguments for changing the battery materials processing paradigm along with its structure. Planar is not using bulk powders of either electrode materials, but growing each active layer in situ from relatively low-cost precursors. Using current cost estimates for commodity scale precursor materials, the models indicate that we can get under the $300/kWh mark and meet the DOE goals for battery costs. Additional savings can be had because of the inherent safety of the solid-state format and their tolerance for abuse. This simplifies the balance of system and further reduces the delivered cost of the battery. How low can Planar go on the cost? We don't know yet, but keeping the battery cost low is part of the optimization process.
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rolandpitts
6 Comments
Re: Amazing
While your estimate is good for the specific energy of the cathode material, I would like to point out that inclusion of the other parts of the cell gives a more realistic value. The design point for the prototype Planar cell, fully packaged, with a capacity of 5 Ah, is a specific energy of a little over 400 Wh/kg. The energy density of this cell is a little over 1200 Wh/l. Larger cells will yield numbers that are improved a bit. These numbers are not as high as your estimate, but are still substantial improvements over current, high-end Li-ion cells. We anticipate having these cells in durability testing in less than a year.
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