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Proton batteries - new still-in-the-lab batteries that use hydrogen ions instead of lithium ions (also a different anode/cathode)
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- Title
- Proton batteries: an innovative option for the future of energy storage
Yes, that's not the best title, but the original title contains far too much wank and no useful information:
That said, I'm super hopeful for this tech. It gives a broader range of potential raw materials to work with that aren't an obvious downgrade (like sodium-ion is), which means a lower potential cost of battery over time since costs will trend towards the cost of raw materials. Not to mention the incredible geostrategic implications of those various geographically-limited metals not being necessary for high energy density anymore. Meanwhile, hydrogen seems potentially superior to lithium, while also being 1/10th the cost as a raw material, so I'm excited (but not assuming) for a potential improvement to energy density gains over the next few years/decades.
If nothing else, a competitor to lithium-ion would be good (unless it halves the scale of each type of battery, and thus splits research between them and slows down both their progress).
I'm not convinced sodium-ion is a downgrade in anything but energy density, which for many applications isn't an issue already. They are already energy dense enough for vehicle use in China and for applications like solar-paired batteries they appear to have most of the advantages of lithium and few of the disadvantages.
Energy density is the main reason why lithium ion is so dominant in the first place. Costs came down because tons of process improvement resources were thrown at them since they were so useful due to energy density.
You can use a less energy dense chemistry, but it's a tough sell if you make a car that only goes 75% as far as your competitors.
I think there are niches where a far cheaper, safer, less dense alternative can eat up lithium ion; variants like LifePO4 are already the standard for solar storage, and I imagine they'll start eating up the UPS and backup power market too since they're so much safer and more stable than LI.
Cost and energy density are really the biggest competitive measures for batteries though.
Energy density has a ton of knock-on effects - transport costs, manufacturing rates (if you can tweak one process to make the same battery 2x as energy-dense, then your factory is effectively producing 2x as many batteries), cost floor (manufacturing costs trend toward just the cost of raw materials, and energy density determines how much capacity you can wring out of said raw materials).
FWIW "vehicle use in China" doesn't mean a lot; there are plenty of new vehicles (basically mopeds and tuktuks IIRC) that use lead-acid batteries there. In small, relatively low-speed vehicles with low range, the energy density of the battery doesn't really matter, but price absolutely matters when the whole vehicle costs $1k (and lithium has only very recently (mostly) defeated lead-acid batteries in price). So yeah, sodium batteries can go toe-to-toe with lead acid, great.
No seriously, that is great. I love sodium batteries as a concept, and I love low-speed absurdly-dirt-cheap alleged cars (they cost <$1000 because they don't make massive the engineering demands that inevitably balloon mainstream cars up to $30k+, like "must go faster than 30KM/h" or "must have 4+ seats" or "must have more than 100KM range". We've outlawed these cars from our roads even though they're more than adequate for all sorts of jobs, because they impeded the $30k+ cars from going 60KM/h. These $1k cars are the modern version of a horsecart and there are some jobs that don't and never needed anything more, but we're paying 30x the price regardless.
...anyway sodium-ion batteries are cool because throwing energy-density at stuff has makes me suspect a failure of imagination, and if you ignore energy-density then sodium-ion is definitely the coolest battery (outside the lab, at least).
But energy density has a ton of knock-on effects for everything including price, so saying "just energy density" is like saying "just white" when talking about the color spectrum - everything is in there.
Also, much like airships, sodium's big problem isn't its downsides but its lack of upsides to compensate for its downsides, and the fact that its dominant competitors are really quite good, actually. Even though airships are obviously really cool, especially when you realize they have basically infinite room for solar panels and thus could be solar-powered electric airships without herculean engineering efforts at optimizing the panels and power use like in solar planes.
If I had to guess, most companies are laser focused on being competitive/cutting edge in a very much still emerging and highly competitive market. So for anything that moves, they aren’t willing to take risks or sacrifice energy density.
But for anything stationary, where weight and volume aren’t a concern, even sodium ion is overkill. Just build a giant thermal battery and fill it with soapstone, granite or something similar that’s going to have good thermal mass. This is perfect for grid scale solar since it’s cheap, can be easily scaled and doesn’t use any specialized materials for the battery itself.
Sodium ion then, has to compete in a sort of in-between niche that doesn’t need to be cutting edge or save on weight, but also doesn’t have the freedom to be as big and heavy as thermal storage. And while I’m sure there is a market there, it’s going to be more limited, which restricts the amount of research and development goings towards the technology.
While this does sound interesting, I'm no longer allowing myself to get excited about battery tech demos assembled in a lab. Get back to me when they're building a production facility.