The Ultimate Battery: Overcoming Infernal Challenges

[Astronuc]

The infernal battery
http://news.yahoo.com/holds-energy-tech-back-infernal-battery-221338549--finance.html

"We need to leapfrog the engineering of making of batteries," said Lawrence Berkeley National Lab battery scientist Vince Battaglia. "We've got to find the next big thing."

But none of the 10 experts who talked to The Associated Press said they know what that big thing will be yet, or when it will come.

"If you crack it ... it'll change the world," said Carnegie Mellon University materials science professor Jay Whitacre.
. . . .
To make the next breakthrough, researchers will have to master complex chemistry, expensive manufacturing, detailed engineering, a variety of different materials, lengthy testing, stringent safety standards and giant cost problems. It involves dealing with liquids and solids, metals and organic chemicals, and things that are in between, said Glenn Amatucci, director of the Energy Storage Research Group at Rutgers University.

"We're dealing with a system that you can imagine is almost alive. It's almost breathing," Amatucci said. "Trying to understand what's happening within these batteries is incredibly complex."

One reason the battery is the slowpoke of the high-tech highway is that it has conflicting functions. Its primary job is to store energy. But it's also supposed to discharge power, lots of it, quickly. Those two jobs are at odds with each other.

"If you want high storage, you can't get high power," said M. Stanley Whittingham, director of the Northeast Center for Chemical Energy Storage. "People are expecting more than what's possible."
. . . .
Experts say lithium ion batteries are more dangerous because their electrolyte, the liquid that allows ions to move between electrodes in the battery, is more flammable than the substance in older type batteries.

So the next big thing will be a battery with a less flammable electrolyte and that is compatible with the Li ion system, unless something better than Li ion can be developed.

Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics of Lithium-Ion Batteries
http://web.mit.edu/bazant/www/talks/Princeton_3-31-10_battery.pdf

Three-Dimensional Lithium-Ion Battery ModelUnderstanding Spatial Variations in Battery Physics to Improve Cell Design, Operational Strategy, and Management
http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/energystorage/pdfs/43166.pdf