Really interesting to compare with the publication itself:<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03757-z" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03757-z</a><p>They don't mention six times more charge anywhere. Rather, the novelty is that it they make a discharge reaction re-chargeable for the first time. The final paragraph hints at a rapid drop-off after the first discharge:<p>> The battery delivered about 3,309 mAh first discharge capacity and was cyclable at 500–1,200 mAh.<p>One can see a benefit in that a previous single-use battery could be cycled (e.g. a hearing aid). The press release claim is such a stretch as to be essentially a lie:<p>> a high-performance rechargeable battery that could enable cellphones to be charged only once a week instead of daily and electric vehicles that can travel six times farther
Yet again, the useless milliamp-hours per gram for one component of a cell instead of actual energy per unit mass for a whole cell. What is the Watt-hours per kilogram????
While it was interesting at first, by peppering inaccuracies or at best oversimplifications, it makes me doubt the veracity of the rest of the content. For example:<p>>Non-rechargeable batteries have no such luck. Once drained, their chemistry cannot be restored.<p>Rechargeable batteries have limited cycles due to problems, mainly solidification or breakdown of electrolytes that prevent restoration, but there are others like mechanical effects.<p>Most "Non-rechargeable batteries" can actually be restored as well in the same sense of those labeled as rechargeable ones, but usually have a much lower cycle count due to these effects. For example can usually get a few cycles from your alkaline batteries, as long as you are trickle charging them since they don't usually have good venting.
Novel chemistries in nano scale in the lab are fun to puzzle about, but pure silicon anode Li-ion batteries really are coming in the next six months, notably from Enovix, and will actually change things. A 2x density upgrade that's real is a whole lot more interesting than a 6x density upgrade that isn't ready for commercialization.
"sodium chloride (Na/Cl2)"<p>I'm not chemist, but if I recall correctly, sodium chloride is NaCl, not NaCl2, ie common kitchen salt.
If Lithium is dangerous, Chlorine is taking it up a notch. As far as I understand it basically sets anything it touches on fire, and at high concentrations is deadly within a few breaths.
More features to add to the upcoming superbattery to end all battery problems. If we get all the battery innovations promised in the past 30 years, our energy problems are solved.
Dear battery technology claimant,<p>Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will likely fail, because:<p>[ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale.<p>[ ] it will be too expensive for users.<p>[ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles.<p>[ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels.<p>[ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures.<p>[ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable.<p>[ ] it has too short of a lifetime.<p>[ ] its charge rate is too slow.<p>[ ] its materials are too toxic.<p>[ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode.<p>[ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care.<p>[ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then.<p>[ ] by this time it ships li-ion advances will match it.<p>[ ] your claims are lies.<p>credit: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26633630" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26633630</a>
Rule #1 for any battery article: if Ctrl+F "patent" doesn't find anything, close the page without reading it. If it's not practical enough to patent you will <i>never</i> see it in your hands.
For how important it is to modern society, the somewhat stagnating state of battery technology in comparison is baffling. Obviously there is a lot of $ thrown on this problem (securing the constant flow of such hopeful articles in the since the 2000s) but per feeling most of the gains since the Nokia days comes from improving HW/SW efficiency.