[enslavedrobot]

Solid state batteries come in several flavours. Most of them don't stop dendrites.

The flavour you want is polymer, single ion conducting solid state with an ion transport activation energy below 10kJ/mol at room temperature and no phase transitions from -40C to 80C.

That is the holy grail of SS batteries.

[BiraIgnacio]

> The flavour you want is polymer, single ion conducting solid state with an ion transport activation energy below 10kJ/mol at room temperature and no phase transitions from -40C to 80C.

what makes it so? I don't know anything about this subject, I'm really curious now about what the perfect battery would be.

[marcosdumay]

No idea why polymer single ion conducting would stop dendrites (I know people are looking for it, I don't know why).

But 10kJ/mol of activation energy is another way of saying less than 100mV of internal loses, and avoiding phase transitions means that your battery won't stop working on that temperature range.

[jarbus]

I’m still a novice on the material science behind it, but what is QuantumScape lacking here if anything, and why is it a dealbreaker?

[dirck-norman]

The only thing different from this list is the ceramic separator. It’s not polymer. However, the ceramic is ultra thin to the point that it’s flexible so volume expansion isn’t a problem and it solves the dendrite problem.

Perhaps a polymer will be invented that can’t be pierced by dendrites. But existing polymers need to be heated for ion transfer efficiency and are combustable.

Technically, QuantumScape also uses an organic liquid catholyte inside the cathode. So it’s not “pure” solid state.

[stronglikedan]

I'll just take one that charges at ridiculous speeds and can't burn my house down.

I wish BYD could bring their new infra to the US - it looks pretty ::ahem:: solid!

[aeonik]

Lithium Titanate batteries can do this now, somewhat. I have some 35 Ah batteries that claim they can charge in 9 minutes (compared to traditional Lithium Ion, that would take hours).

I don't have a charger that can supply the necessary 350 Amps though.

They also have ridiculous amount of charge cycles. 10x higher than regular Lithium Ion IIRC.

They are more expensive and are larger and heavier for the same stored energy though.

And, while they CAN still catch fire, they are apparently way harder to do so.

[rawgabbit]

Are anyone building the battery you described?

[jdiff]

No. The holy grail goes undiscovered for now.

[j45]

Seems to be some progress on learning more about it: https://news.mit.edu/2026/discovery-helps-explain-why-solid-...

[NuclearPM]

Is anyone.

[moffkalast]

Aliens somewhere, presumably.

[pseudohadamard]

Well technically those are zero point modules, not really batteries.

[inigyou]

If you can extract some energy then by definition it is not zero-point energy.

[gadflyinyoureye]

I presume that was a Stargate reference.

Zero Point Module, often abbreviated ZPM, is a power source, created by the Ancients, capable of supplying tremendous amounts of energy. It is one of the most formidable power sources known to exist, having been developed by the Ancients several million years ago during their reign of the Milky Way galaxy

https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Zero_Point_Module

[pseudohadamard]

They use crystals, and quantum, so they're obviously the real deal.

[Razengan]

Isn't their tech powered by portable black holes?

[moffkalast]

The regulatory approval for those is just too expensive in practice. I mean you blow up one star due to cost cutting and nobody trusts the tech ever again...

[HappMacDonald]

I love how Carter blows up a star system, and then later McKay blows up 5/6ths of a star system which it turns out is deeply more complicated to pull off.

On the other hand Carter did what she set out to do while McKay fscked up and wasn't trying to blow anything up, so there is also that.

[inigyou]

But that was a Joviet power plant with a severe design flaw. They had a foot of up-quark matter at the bottom of their control rods, which increased the reaction rate for a brief moment after the emergency ABSCOND button was pressed. Plus, they were running the reactor at dangerously low graviton flux levels, leading to a pion buildup, during a shift change. Everyone knows those Joviets can't do anything right.

Our Amearthican designs would never have such flaws. They are completely safe, and several are operating around the galaxy already, producing hundreds of exawatts. Unlike the stellar panels recommended by those ill-advised "environmentalists" which can't work in nebula weather, or helioshock plasma turbines that rely on the stellar wind, our plants provide a sustainable base load in all conditions.

[TeMPOraL]

The problem was that the science behind those fancy power plants of yours is so complicated, the rest of the galaxy found it easier to just oxidize biomass, and are now scouring every known sector for M-class planets they haven't yet strip-mined from all organic matter.

I say was, because the current problem is that those "environmentalists" you mentioned managed to scare remaining interstellar governments away from this technology, which made them double down on biomass extraction.

[marmakoide]

This is ridiculous, there are plenty of stars and most of them are red dwarfs with tidally locked rocks blasted by flares anyway

[thebruce87m]

AA battery size is black holes. Can’t quite get the technology to scale for AAA so you still have to swap the TV remote.

[agumonkey]

their benefit boiled down (sic) to flammability, or the lack thereof, right ?

[lightedman]

"no phase transitions from -40C to 80C."

Well that's fine for terrestrial use but aerospace needs that range to be expanded a little in both directions, otherwise it won't be much of a holy grail if it won't cover the needs of one of the largest growing industries.

[vitally3643]

[flagged]

[dang]

Please don't attack another user like this, no matter how wrong someone is or you feel they are. It only makes things worse.

I believe I get the positive intention behind your post, btw - to defend conversation against shallow dismissals - and of course appreciate that. But if you'd please express it in a respectful way in the future, then you'll be contributing to good conversation rather than degrading it further.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[bracketfocus]

To be fair, the poster said “holy grail” which implies perfection.

[nerdsniper]

Absolutely. No idea what’s going on with these downvotes.