Hey.
What are the biggest limitations on improving today’s battery technologies?
In: Technology
A couple issues my mechanics prof used to talk about
1) size and density. It takes a lot of space to make a useful battery. That works against you when you’re trying to charge something portable. But are you talking about lithium cells like AA in a flashlight or like hydrogen cells connected to solar farms?
2) rechargeablility. Voltaic cells work in a certain way, but if you apply enough energy in the opposite direction, it can recharge. Unfortunately, that voltage has restrictions, so if you try to charge it faster, it degrades the cell’s capacity. Over time, the cell can still degrade because of the metals and acid.
3) solvent. It doesn’t quite look like it because they’re usually contained, but a battery needs a solvent to carry ions between the cathode (+) and anode (-). Water is a common enough solvent, but if you have too much voltage, your cell will vaporize the solvent. That means your cell has to either deal with the expansion (risk of explosion) or have a release valve (losing material in your battery). We think of the first one happening especially when AA batteries leak acid, but car batteries dying is often the second. They’re working on better solvents that can carry ions, have a higher vapor point then water, and carry less risk, but testing anything for a battery is a slow process and inconsistent.
So, your All Day batteries are probably more about rechargeable limits because they will charge during the day when energy is being produced, and consumed at night. But in order to preserve the battery life, we can only use power for about as long as the battery was charging. So, energy sources is another possible issue?
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