[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.