[confident_inept]

We get several of these stories every year. It's news if something makes it out of a laboratory and even into prototype production.

Do these articles do anything to help spur research or draw interest? What's the point?

[adrian_b]

The article contains too little information about the exact chemical composition and structure of the new cathode and of the new solid electrolyte to allow one to assess whether the company will be able to deliver real products soon.

On the other hand, all the claims are theoretically possible, sulfur could indeed replace the much more expensive cobalt or nickel oxides, if a cathode structure allowing good reversibility has been found.

If the claims of the company are true and their batteries will start qualification tests during this year and mass production next year, it would be a very important development, by allowing in a few years much cheaper batteries, produced in much larger quantities.

Of course, until further information, the claims could also be over-optimistic and the new batteries might have some undisclosed problems that will not be solved in time to permit the announced schedule.

One possible problem is that the batteries have a solid electrolyte, which is presumably necessary to avoid a degradation of the cathode after too few recharge cycles. A solid electrolyte might limit the density of current, which would lead to a low maximum power per volume. In that case the new batteries might be disadvantaged in high-power applications, like power tools or electric cars.

There is absolutely no information about how many charge-discharge cycles they have achieved with their completely new cathode structure. This is usually a major problem with most new promising cathodes. Their new battery might be twice cheaper than the current batteries, but it might have a lifetime of only a third of the lifetime of the current batteries.

[_0w8t]

The article mention about future trials in aerospace industry. So presumably the current is not a problem. But the number of recharging cycles can be the one. On the other hand if the new chemistry allows applications that were not possible before, quickly degrading but cheap batteries can be a useful option.

Edit: according to https://newatlas.com/energy/rare-form-sulfur-lithium-ion-bat... it is possible to address the degradation problem. So maybe this is not vaporware.

[adrian_b]

At your link about the research done at Drexel University there is much more information about the structure of the cathode and about the obtained results, so it is more credible than the parent article, but it also refers to a research that does not appear to be close to commercialization.

They have used a slightly different cathode structure, with carbon nanofibers instead of nanotubes, and with a different electrolyte.

So, as shown by other posters, during the last couple of months there have been at least 3 announcements, from 2 commercial startups and from an university, all claiming to have solved the reversibility problem of the cathode in lithium-sulfur batteries, using either carbon nanofibers, carbon nanotubes or boron-nitride nanotubes, and the 2 startups claim that in a year or so such batteries may become commercially available.

Having 3 such announcements instead of 1, makes it much more believable that at least 1 of them is not overly optimistic, so indeed the lithium-sulfur batteries might replace soon the lithium-cobalt and lithium-nickel batteries, making the batteries much more affordable.

[mark-r]

I wouldn't count on those batteries being any cheaper for a long time. There's a reason they applied for so many patents - they intend to capture all the savings through licensing fees I'm sure.

[chris_overseas]

Li-S Energy[0] is a company with Lithium-Sulphur battery tech that looks to be close to commercial production. They just announced today[1] that they're building a commercial plant that will produce 1000 cells/week (equivalent to 2MWh of batteries annually). Arguably still somewhat vapourware at this point, but much better than most others I've seen.

[0] https://www.lis.energy/

[1] https://www.lis.energy/site/PDF/0f90f952-4a18-45ea-bce9-3c52...

[adrian_b]

It appears that this other company uses a similar cathode structure, also based on nanotubes, but the nanotubes are made of boron nitride instead of carbon.

So presumably the patents of these 2 companies are non-overlapping.

In any case, having 2 companies with products based on very similar ideas, but still different, both claiming that are about a year away of starting production, is a good sign that this is something that might be real.

[ogrisel]

And here is another one:

https://oxisenergy.com/

but this one was set "in administration" on 19 May 2021...

[giantg2]

I like to hear about them so I have an idea of what could be in the future. Granted it might not happen, or take years longer than expected. But I do like to know that it could potentially mean that I have an electric vehicle to chose from when my current one dies in 10+ years.

Also, these sound great for ultralight planes. Even though the electric motor weight is much lower than the gas engine options, battery weight makes electric almost impossible without significantly sacrificing flight duration.

[greggsy]

Ironing out the issues around scaling can take years, and investors are skittish to back projects that might reach well into the 100’s of $millions, and there’s so much other development in the market that it’s hard to pick the winning horse. Innovations gained during R&D might also be picked up by competitors, or they might rely on some complementary licensing that makes the whole thing unprofitable.

I’d expect there to be more and more interest and investment in this space over the coming years, given the latest developments around energy security.

(Interestingly, the Back Bay Battery Company simulation maintained by Harvard is commonly used as a case study in MBA programs.)

[datavirtue]

Has the Biden team mentioned anything about battery tech research funding? Or are they staying away from it so as not to spook current startups and investors that are making progress?

[quaintdev]

What I've observed is if something is breakthrough and profitable we directly see it on streets instead of years of the related experiments in lab.

[vardump]

Indeed.

Most true progress comes out of hundreds if not thousands small improvements and innovations.