Eh, give em the clout they need to develop it further.

Well tbf this was a university lab which isn't focused on commercial production but just trying to prove their experiments

To be fair, commercial long-life nickel-iron batteries are already being sold for grid storage. The main reason they aren't used more widely is they cost more up front.

That's ok, because they still cost less than alternatives over the full life span of the battery.

The risk is that the higher purchase cost required will likely be wasted as new battery tech surpasses it long before its life is over.

So for now, it's all about weighing opportunity cost, tech lock-in, and early obsolescence

And yet we have somehow gone from rechargeable phone batteries that were about 3 times bigger than the phone I'm typing this on and had a capacity of about 500 mAh to where we are now with the battery that powers my phone being some small part of it and having a capacity of 3000 mAh, with only two major technology changes on the way. Meanwhile, we've been using the same technology for over a decade and the capability keeps getting better. I wonder why that is?

Sometimes it's not pure bullshit, but instead intentionally misses details

Like articles going "new battery lasts 1000 years in one charge!" - which is true of Nuclear Batteries, because they give basically a maximum of 1 watt of energy per hour. (Which is useful for very specific purposes like a pacemaker)

The problem is that batteries must meet a whole set of other criteria as well to be competitive, for example cost and energy density. If they are not mentioned, they are probably worse in that aspect. Which just means they are still useful for some applications, just maybe not for cars, laptops or cellphones.

yep.

SHould be a blanket ban on miraculous battery technology stories until they are actually in production and proven.

Cause lets face it, if one of these miracle batteries using cheap, common materials with amazing capacity and longevity was real, it wouldnt take long for companies to jump on them.

Technically, a copper wire is a battery that charges in (a very tiny fraction of ) seconds.

About tree fiddy

Two important parts of a battery are how much energy it can store in a certain space and how much it weighs. If it is bigger and holds the same amount of energy that might be ok for a non mobile storage if it costs less, like a house. If it weighs more for a certain energy that wouldn't be useful for cars and mobile things but might be ok for small things where the weight is negligible anyway. For cars you want a small energy dense battery that is light as possible

Abstract

Downsizing metal nanoparticles into nanoclusters and single atoms represents a transformative approach to maximizing atom utilization efficiency for energy applications. Herein, a bovine serum albumin-templated synthetic strategy is developed to fabricate iron and nickel nanoclusters, which are subsequently hydrothermally composited with graphene oxide. Through KOH-catalyzed pyrolysis, the downsized metal nanoclusters and single atoms are embedded in a hierarchically porous protein/graphene-derived carbonaceous aerogel framework. The carbon-supported Fe subnanoclusters (FeSNC) as the negative electrode and Ni subnanoclusters (NiSNC) as the positive electrode exhibit remarkable specific capacitance (capacity) values of 373 F g−1 (93 mAh g−1) and 1125 F g−1 (101 mAh g−1) at 1.0 A g−1, respectively. Assembled into a supercapacitor-battery hybrid configuration, the device achieves an excellent specific energy (47 W h kg−1) and superior specific power (18 kW kg−1), while maintaining outstanding cycling stability of over 12 000 cycles. Moreover, FeSNCs displayed a significantly reduced oxygen evolution overpotential (η10 = 270 mV), outperforming the RuO2 benchmark (η10 = 328 mV). Molecular dynamics simulations, coupled with density functional theory calculations, offer insights into the dynamic behavior and electronic properties of these materials. This work underscores the immense potential of metallic subnanoclusters for advancing next-generation energy storage and conversion technologies.

Article says 47 Wh/kg. Thats around a third of LFP cells. But the power density is way higher. Meaning it can do enormous peak currents.

For grid energy storage, energy density is not the most important factor, but the power density is a great plus. It means these cells can rapidly charge or discharge in the grid, offering flexibility to buffer in any way that is required. And the cycle life is also way higher.

5nm nano fabrication will cost a fortune. this week's cure-all battery.

Ooh, they'll figure a way to make it clock out on the last monthly payment. One little chip will do, or just a few lines of code in the right place.

Then a new player will become dominant in the industry.

My solar panels have a 25 year warranty.

After 12,000 cycles it breaks down into rainbow sprinkles

Well Edison is dead, but we do hear about him alot so I'm not sure what's going on.

Eeehhhhh — yeah

Aerogel. So not gonna be good for mobile applications— cars etc.

But might be workable for static applications????

NIckel Iron is fantastic without any revolutionary improvements. Batteries made 100 years ago still work today. They are large and heavy so are only of use for home power.

The big "down side" which is the reason it isn't commercially developed at large scale is that they last forever. No investors are going to give billions to a business that can't generate revenue forever with a product that needs replacing every 3 years.

Looks like it's more like NiMH than LiPo, but higher power than NiMH (which I guess lines up with their claims of charging super fast).

Poorly. According to a random Wikipedia query, commodity lithium ion is ~270 Wh per kilogram. So this is around 20% of that, according to the above.

"Excellent" may be in comparison to other byzantine specialty battery chemistries, but lithium ion remains resolutely enthroned.

Most li-ions land around 120-160 W-h /kg. So much poorer, but much cheaper on density

The specific power (power density) is kind of crazy though. I think most li-ions top out around 10kW/kg, any more and they will overheat and boil their electrolyte which usually leads to fire.

Herein, a bovine serum albumin-templated synthetic strategy is developed to fabricate iron and nickel nanoclusters, which are subsequently hydrothermally composited with graphene oxide.

Is this how Doom starts?