Stanford Researchers Make Batteries Better!

[Photonic]

Nanoparticle electrode for batteries could make large-scale power storage on the energy grid feasible, say Stanford researchers

 

[Mr. H.]

NANO NANO!

 

[JimBowie1958]

Nanoparticle electrode for batteries could make large-scale power storage on the energy grid feasible, say Stanford researchers

Cool, then we can use that to store the power we generate from an e-cat hooked up to a Stirling engine and generator.

Cheap over-whelmingly available energy is going to be a reality by 2010, is my bet, and all the bullshit about the ME will be a thing of the past.

In twenty more years we will have such technology that no one need to work except what they want to to have a little extra.

Technological utopia as we approach the technological singularity.

Hold on to your britches, bitches, lol.

 

[waltky]

Future batteries may rely on liquid metals...

Liquid metal promise for future batteries
5 December 2012 - Inside the Sadoway Lab's liquid metal battery workshop

Batteries have come a long way since Italian professor Alessandro Volta invented the first iteration some 200 years ago. Even so, there are few candidate battery types that are suitable for storing energy on large scales - within an electrical power grid, for example. Given that electricity is generally not stored, the grid has to carefully balance consumer demand for electricity with the amount being supplied by generators. Grid-scale energy storage - sequestering electricity and then releasing it on demand - would be highly desirable. But any technology designed for such a purpose would have to deal with daunting amounts of power, be very cheap and have a long service lifetime.

Prof Donald Sadoway, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US, has been working on one technology designed to fulfil these requirements - liquid metal batteries. The effort is now approaching a critical juncture. Sadoway has been working to scale up the technology through his company Ambri and is aiming for a commercial prototype to be ready by 2014. "At least 18 months from now, we'll have something we can put in the hands of an independent assessor," Prof Sadoway told BBC News. "We want to make sure we've got something that's durable and will perform to specification. This is a very tough market to get into. "We can't afford to have a failure because something wasn't quite right. That could tarnish the image of the technology to the point where it would be set back irreparably."

Most of the hurdles encountered during the scale-up are related to manufacturing issues; Donald Sadoway says the basic chemistry is scaling "beautifully". A conventional dry-cell battery uses two electrodes separated by an electrolyte. But building a giant battery using dry-cell technology would require thousands of individual cells - about the size of a soft drinks can - to be strung together in a massive installation. Prof Sadoway's concept relies on similar principles, but the key components are liquid. A molten-salt electrolyte is sandwiched between two liquid metal electrodes. A dense positive electrode lies at the bottom of the battery, while a low-density negative electrode floats atop the electrolyte. The difference in composition between the two liquid metals gives rise to a voltage.

The MIT electrochemist thinks it is possible to build giant batteries using 50-100 fewer individual cells this way than would be possible with a conventional battery array, reducing cost and complexity. It's an idea that has attracted some $15m of investment from Bill Gates, Total and Khosla Ventures, run by Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla. The most basic version of the battery used magnesium for the top layer and antimony for the bottom layer. Prof Sadoway calls this iteration "generation zero". The work on campus at MIT has since moved on: "We now have chemistries that we're calling fourth generation, fifth generation," Prof Sadoway explains.

MORE

 

[Mad Scientist]

Nanoparticle electrode for batteries could make large-scale power storage on the energy grid feasible, say Stanford researchers

Cool, then we can use that to store the power we generate from an e-cat hooked up to a Stirling engine and generator.

Cheap over-whelmingly available energy is going to be a reality by 2010, is my bet, and all the bullshit about the ME will be a thing of the past.

In twenty more years we will have such technology that no one need to work except what they want to to have a little extra.

Technological utopia as we approach the technological singularity.

Hold on to your britches, bitches, lol.

So you think yer gonna' benefit from that? That's funny!

Need I remind you of what Eisenhower said: "A Military Industrial Complex ruled by the Technological and Industrial Elite".

The only thing you're gonna' be is a Debt Slave.

 

[mamooth]

We already have liquid metal batteries. 'Course, it's molten sodium, 30-year-old technology, but being commercialized more now. Huge heavy batteries, twice the storage of lead-acid, and they operate just as well when it's very hot or very cold outside, being that they're well insulated and always 500F inside. That makes them good for such things as cell-phone tower backup batteries, or for wind farm storage batteries.

GE's molten salt battery offers lessons - SFGate

 

[KissMy]

Liquid metal batteries (Ambri Inc.) makes The Colbert Report

How the hell do I invest in this company??????? Ambri, formerly Liquid Metal Battery Corporation, investors including Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates and Total Oil company.