# Li-Iron/phosphate batteries with 20 second charge you say !!!!



## sunworksco (Sep 8, 2008)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7938001.stm

Here is a link to one of the greatest battery breakthroughs at MIT.
Charge your batteries faster than any gas pump can fiill up your gas tank !


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## Guest (Mar 12, 2009)

I thought that TS were Li-Iron Phosphate batteries. No word from them that they can be charged that fast. I'd love to see that.


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## sunworksco (Sep 8, 2008)

There is so much BS out there about battery technology but you can believe that there is more advanced batteries out there than they are telling.This industry is potentially worth many billions of dollars and will continue to be very secretive,industry wide.


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## Guest (Mar 12, 2009)

Lithium Iron is already being sold. No reason to hold back that they can be charged real fast. Unless they really can't yet. Anyway I am leaning towards getting lithium next year for my Ghia. I am mostly wanting to get a good BMS system first. Then by then some more info on Lithium will be out and I can better decide which direction I want to go. With some extra over time this next year I could buy my lithium and BMS before the year is over. : )


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## sunworksco (Sep 8, 2008)

gottdi said:


> Lithium Iron is already being sold. No reason to hold back that they can be charged real fast. Unless they really can't yet. Anyway I am leaning towards getting lithium next year for my Ghia. I am mostly wanting to get a good BMS system first. Then by then some more info on Lithium will be out and I can better decide which direction I want to go. With some extra over time this next year I could buy my lithium and BMS before the year is over. : )


 Did you read the web-link above? Would you rather have a smaller,lighter battery pack that charges/discharges fully in minutes or a heavy,large pack that charges/discharges in hours ? Less expensive ,too.


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## Guest (Mar 12, 2009)

sunworksco said:


> Did you read the web-link above? Would you rather have a smaller,lighter battery pack that charges/discharges fully in minutes or a heavy,large pack that charges/discharges in hours ? Less expensive ,too.


Of course I read the article. It seems like a decent advancement but until it becomes available it is nothing. Maybe by this time next year it will be common and cheaper to purchase. I'd love more power and lighter weight. Who would not? I am hoping for battery life in the 10 to 15 year or better range and affordable. Affordable does not mean dirt cheap but within a decent price range of most. It would be an investment like many things are anyway. If it provides what it claims for a decent period of time then it will be worth the investment. 

I actually read two articles. Nothing solid but a good talk. 

Pete


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## donmurray (Jan 21, 2009)

I'm wondering what size cables, cooling system, and home service panel I would need to charge an EV in 20 seconds?  The next question is: During this super high rate charge, how many feet away will I have to be to keep any future heart pacemaker from decomissioning itself. 

It's obvious any quick charge operation rated in minutes will require special commercial charging stations. In any case it would be handy to home charge with a high amp 240v outlet. And, do it safely inside the garage instead of a clear outside area while you stand by with one hand at the main breaker, and an extinguisher in the other.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

The technology has been licensed to two entities but they say it won't hit the market for 2-3 years. Also said charge times were *10-20 seconds *on one site I saw. That will be about the time my pack is exhausted I expect.


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

ElectriCar said:


> The technology has been licensed to two entities but they say it won't hit the market for 2-3 years. Also said charge times were *10-20 seconds *on one site I saw. That will be about the time my pack is exhausted I expect.


Hopefully this battery will just make regular lithium polymers way cheaper.

 Who needs a 1000v 500a connection for their car


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

Chew on this...

Amperage needed to transfer 24kwh to your pack using a 240V system typical of US household power system.

1hr - 100A - NO problem for most homes
20 minutes - 300A - Won't work on typical residential systems (200A max).
20 seconds - 18,000A - No need to even think about this *until superconductors are available. * There was a lot of research into this a few years back with quite a bit of progress.


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## HDS (Aug 11, 2008)

Thanks, ElectricCar, for the math. I have no doubt that it is accurate. 

Expanding on that, it would be 1,200 amps for 5 minutes. This is within a commercial or industrial service. It would be 600 amps for 10 minutes. Well within the ability of commercial or industrial services. That of course means 300 amps for 20 minutes. Four hundred amp services are available for residential services now. And 150 amps for 40 minutes; within the reach of a 200 amp service but you may need to hold off on the dryer and hope that the 'frig or A/C doesn't come while you are charging. The Tesla Roadster claims that with the 240V charger, it can reach 80% capacity in 45 minutes. 

Ten minutes is not much longer than it takes to fill up an ICE. While it is nice to conceive of a battery pack that can charge up in 20 seconds, what good does it do if the electrical infrastructure cannot deliver it. 

Still, it is an advancement that I look forward to. It might be what takes EV's into the mainstream of public transportation. 

Best of luck to all, 
HDS


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I agree that it's a nice advancement. You won't be fast charging at home, and of course you don't need to. But it will allow fast charging at "gas" stations in the future, a 5-10 minute fill up is quite practical. Of course Altairnano and A123 already allow that if I'm not mistaken, especially since you probably won't be completely empty and you don't need to go to 100% full, which cuts down on charge time.


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## sunworksco (Sep 8, 2008)

HDS said:


> Thanks, ElectricCar, for the math. I have no doubt that it is accurate.
> 
> Expanding on that, it would be 1,200 amps for 5 minutes. This is within a commercial or industrial service. It would be 600 amps for 10 minutes. Well within the ability of commercial or industrial services. That of course means 300 amps for 20 minutes. Four hundred amp services are available for residential services now. And 150 amps for 40 minutes; within the reach of a 200 amp service but you may need to hold off on the dryer and hope that the 'frig or A/C doesn't come while you are charging. The Tesla Roadster claims that with the 240V charger, it can reach 80% capacity in 45 minutes.
> 
> ...


The commercial scale molten metal battery can store energy on off peak times storing vast amount of kws.You will be able to slower charge your EV battery pack at home or trade your solar energy for the molten battery charge.You can bet that Starbucks and the like will have robot arms plugging in a non-conductive charging paddle into your battery while ordering your coffee.You may even be able to trade solar energy for 
coffee.


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

sunworksco said:


> The commercial scale molten metal battery can store energy on off peak times storing vast amount of kws.You will be able to slower charge your EV battery pack at home or trade your solar energy for the molten battery charge.You can bet that Starbucks and the like will have robot arms plugging in a non-conductive charging paddle into your battery while ordering your coffee.You may even be able to trade solar energy for
> coffee.


I still don't think you realize how much power 660v by 5000 amps is (to charge a 55kwh battery in 1 minute).

No paddles will be coming out of starbucks... you could pull down the entire power grid within a one or two block business radius pretty easily.

The fastest they should even consider charging a battery pack is 10 minutes... and only for long duration trips. No batteries like such fast charges so building the infrastructure would just have batteries breaking down after 400-500 cycles.

Maybe if large format capacitors ever become cheap and light, but even then I question this lack of "foresight" to spare 1-2 hours to charge a battery.


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

These discussions always come down to "The Chicken or the egg problem".
Who is going to lay out the 100's of millions needed for Quick Re-Charging Stations with an unknown customer base?

Who is going to lay out extra dollars for Quick Charge Batteries with an unknown charging infrastructure?

Consider the Lo-Jack example. Remember that company? 
A stolen vehicle recovery system with an advertized 90% recovery rate. Your comprehensive insurance premiums should go way down right? 

How many of you have the Lo-Jack system installed on your car? No many given the market cap of the this 20 year old company.....77M. Stock still trades OTC for $4.00
So what happened to this company touted years ago as the best thing since flush toilets and the end to stolen vehicles? 

It's The Chicken & Egg Problem. 
First off the installation price of $700 per vehicle. 
Are you going to spend the extra money if your local PD doesn't have the Tracking Computer and antennae?
Then the price of the Municipal Tracking Computer installed either in a central location (limited range) or individual police cars. Does your town have Lo Jack in their police cruisers? The first question a municipality asks: "How many of our residents have the device installed in their vehicles?" 

You see where this is going? Little wonder that only cities with high population density would even consider the Lo Jack system despite its phenomenal recovery rate.
IMHO.....recharging stations are way off into the future.


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## Technologic (Jul 20, 2008)

Voltswagen said:


> These discussions always come down to "The Chicken or the egg problem".
> Who is going to lay out the 100's of millions needed for Quick Re-Charging Stations with an unknown customer base?
> 
> Who is going to lay out extra dollars for Quick Charge Batteries with an unknown charging infrastructure?


I think electric cars at all are a first step... none of this hybrid crap 

Once you actually have a few million fully electric cars out on the roads then businesses might start thinking about charging stations.


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## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)




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## sunworksco (Sep 8, 2008)

Recently, researchers from MIT have designed a new kind of battery that, unlike conventional batteries, is made of all-liquid active materials. Donald Sadoway, a materials chemistry professor at MIT, and his team have fabricated prototypes of the liquid battery, and have demonstrated that the materials can quickly absorb large amounts of electricity, as required for solar energy storage.
"No one had been able to get their arms around the problem of energy storage on a massive scale for the power grid," says Sadoway. "We're literally looking at a battery capable of storing the grid."
The battery consists of three layers of liquids: two electrode liquids on the top and bottom (electrodes are usually solid in conventional batteries), and an electrolyte liquid in the middle. In the researchers' first prototype, the electrodes were molten metals - magnesium on the top and antimony on the bottom - while the electrolyte was a molten salt such as sodium sulfide. In later prototypes, the researchers investigated using other materials for improved performance.
Since each liquid has a different density, the liquids automatically form the three distinct layers. When charging, the solid container holding the liquids collects electrons from exterior solar panels or another power supply, and later, for discharging, the container carries the electrons away to the electrical grid to be used as electricity.
As electrons flow into the battery cell, magnesium ions in the electrolyte gain electrons and form magnesium metal, rising to form the upper molten magnesium electrode. At the same time, antimony ions in the electrolyte lose electrons, and sink to form the lower molten antimony electrode. At this point, the battery is fully charged, since the battery has thick electrode layers and a small layer of electrolyte. To discharge the electrical current, the process is reversed, and the metal atoms become ions again. 
As Sadoway explained in a recent article in MIT's _Technology Review_, the liquid battery is a promising candidate for solar energy storage for several reasons. For one thing, it costs less than a third of the cost of today's batteries, since the materials are inexpensive and the design allows for simple manufacturing. Further, the liquid battery has a longer lifetime than conventional batteries, since there are no solid active materials to degrade. The liquid battery is also useful in a wide range of locations compared with other proposed solar storage methods, such as pumping water. Most importantly, the liquid battery's electrodes can operate at electrical currents tens of times higher than any previous battery, making it capable of quickly absorbing large amounts of electricity.
The researchers hope to commercialize the liquid battery in the next five years. As Sadoway explained, connecting the batteries into a giant battery pack to supply electricity for New York City would require nearly 60,000 square meters of land. Such a battery pack could store energy from enormous solar farms, which would replace today's power plants and transmission lines as they become old.
via: Technology Review


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

That's pretty slick! Wonder what would happen in a vehicle with the liquids with all the jarring bumps etc? Would they begin to mix as it sloshes around? Would the battery fail as the layers begin to mix?


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I thought it was pretty clear that these are not intended for mobile applications. I wonder how these compare to already existing large scale Flow batteries?


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## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)

Interesting technology.

Batteries could be placed directly on top of commercial/city rooftops as long as the dead weight is figured in on the buildings structure to compensate. 

Too bad one of the energy gathering methods to recharge in places like rooftops is the high cost of photovoltaic solar collectors that are still needed.


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

How would they keep metals in liquid form? That would require significant amount of "starter" energy and complex thermoinsulation, which reduces "bottom line" efficiency of the battery. But overall, pretty slick approach for industrial size battery systems. Maybe these could find a place in nuclear power plants for temporary energy storage during low grid usage, and then give it back during peak times, reducing the need to change reactor's duty cycle which I think reduces its lifespan. And there is plenty of heat to keep those metals molten.


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## IamIan (Mar 29, 2009)

Didn't see anybody else mention these things... So I figured I would 

*Here* is another review of the same article... that has some interesting points... such as the test samples... have only shown to increase discharge times ... it is suspected that they will also help reduce charge times... but that is not the scientific claim... that is just the other reporters ... and their "version" of the truth.

or forget the 2nd hand "translated" version... it the actual report from the actual scientists that did the work:

Here is the abstract the reporters based their articles on:


> The storage of electrical energy at high charge and discharge rate is an important technology in today's society, and can enable hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and provide back-up for wind and solar energy. It is typically believed that in electrochemical systems very high power rates can only be achieved with supercapacitors, which trade high power for low energy density as they only store energy by surface adsorption reactions of charged species on an electrode material1, 2, 3. Here we show that batteries4, 5 which obtain high energy density by storing charge in the bulk of a material can also achieve ultrahigh discharge rates, comparable to those of supercapacitors. We realize this in LiFePO4 (ref. 6), a material with high lithium bulk mobility7, 8, by creating a fast ion-conducting surface phase through controlled off-stoichiometry. A rate capability equivalent to full battery discharge in 10–20 s can be achieved.


which only talks about discharge rates... they haven't been able to get it to work at all for faster charge rates... notice how all the reports use the word 'could' when they describe the fast charging.

Some of the graphs from the people who did the work are also useful:

*Here *

&

*Here*



> a, Discharge rate capability after charging at C/5 and holding at 4.3 V until the current reaches C/60. C/n denotes the rate at which a full charge or discharge takes n hours. The loading density of the electrode is 3.86 mg cm-2. At 2C, the capacity is close to the theoretical value. b, Capacity retentions when performing full charge–discharge cycles at constant 20C and 60C current rates for 50 cycles. The loading density of the electrode is 3.60 mg cm-2 for the 20C rate and 2.71 mg cm-2 for the 60C rate. The voltage window is approximately 2.5–4.3 V. The electrode formulation is active material (80 wt%), carbon (15 wt%) and binder (5 wt%).


Catch that? They used a charge rate of c/5 until 4.3V then holding 4.3V until current dropped bellow c/60.... yeah... that isn't a revolutionary charge rate at all. 

Considering that they only got 50mAh out of their test cell when discharging it in 9 seconds... compared to the same type of cell giving 170 mAh at a 2C discharge rate... yeah... the "magic pixie dust" needs allot of work, as long as this reduces the batteries capacity to less than 1/3 of what it would be normally.... and of course the "magic pixie dust" needs to work in the other direction to charge the battery... as they have only managed to yet get it to work for discharging.


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## sunworksco (Sep 8, 2008)

I guess that MIT can fake just about everything , including the present day Lithium batteries that are being utilized in electric cars now.They also have faked the nano-carbon batteries!LOL!!!


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

IamIan said:


> Catch that? They used a charge rate of c/5 until 4.3V then holding 4.3V until current dropped bellow c/60.... yeah... that isn't a revolutionary charge rate at all.


I always assumed if you can take it out quickly you can put it back in quickly as well. They may have used the lower charge rate because that's all the capacity their charging system has. Just because they didn't charge it quickly doesn't mean they can't.


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## IamIan (Mar 29, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> I always assumed if you can take it out quickly you can put it back in quickly as well. They may have used the lower charge rate because that's all the capacity their charging system has. Just because they didn't charge it quickly doesn't mean they can't.


The chemical reaction to charge a battery is not the same chemical reaction to discharge it... This is why charge rates are never the same as discharge rates.

You are correct... just because it hasn't been tested to do fast charging does not mean it can't be fast charged ... but it is a two sided penny ... until they do the test and then get 3rd party validation of the results... it doesn't mean it can do the fast charging either... that is why science requires testing and 3rd party validation ... it isn't good enough to have a theory that just looks good on paper... and it isn't good enough that someone with a PHD at MIT says it 'could' work.

For instance if the added chemical compounds act as a chemical diode in the battery cell... high discharge rates might be possible... and it could actually inhibit or prevent any type of fast charging to get current to flow in the other direction.

The point is... until it is tested and verified ... at this point all we know ... is that it can discharge quickly ... and that it reduces the batteries capacity to 1/3 of what it normally is... so you pay for a ~100 wh / kg battery and after being treated like this you only get ~30 wh / kg of usable battery power.... all so you can discharge the ~30 wh / kg in ~10 seconds from full to empty.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I'm unfamiliar with any lithium battery, or other chemistry, that can be fast charged but not fast discharged, or vice versa. Thinking of A123 or Altairnano for lithium, Hawker/Odyssey for AGM.


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## IamIan (Mar 29, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> I'm unfamiliar with any lithium battery, or other chemistry, that can be fast charged but not fast discharged, or vice versa. Thinking of A123 or Altairnano for lithium, Hawker/Odyssey for AGM.


I guess the term 'fast' is relative .... 

Using the example of A123 26650 cells ... they are rated for up to 120 amp pulsed discharges ... but only up to 10 amp charge rates... 12 to 1 ratio difference... what causes that difference ? there is a different chemical reaction involved with discharging than what is involved with charging... try to charge a A123 26650 cell at 70 to 120 Amp rates... and watch the chemical reaction kill it.

There is a reason that Li battery charging requires a CV... in order to yield ~20 second charge rates ... you would have to ignore CV Li charging and use CC charging well past the recommended CV Voltage level.

Also just because other different chemistry and structured batteries do something... is not evidence that this new type of battery chemistry and structure will react in the same way... if one could use this kind of evidence , the other battery slower discharge rates would be evidence against it being able to discharge as fast as it has been tested to do.

I subscribe to the thinking of extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof... if you want to claim you can fast charge a battery in 20 seconds ... than at the very least... you need to do a test and show that you can... than get a 3rd party to validate / verify your results.

Still.... even if some of the reporters guesses turn out in a few years to be true... and they can fast charge it in ~20 seconds like they have shown they can discharge it... do you want to pay for a Li battery priced battery pack that without this treatment would give you ~100 wh per kg ... but with this treatment will only give you ~30 wh per kg? I wouldn't.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

You're right, "fast" is an ambiguous term, and my thinking was that if it can be discharged faster than a normal battery it can probably be charged faster than a normal battery, though not necessarily the same speed as the discharge. I do agree that the loss of capacity is not desirable, and I'm not even convinced that extreme fast charging is even necessary. 5-10 minute recharge would really be plenty fast enough.


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