New manufacturing approach slices lithium-ion battery cost in half

[NobleSavage]

An advanced manufacturing approach for lithium-ion batteries, developed by researchers at MIT and at a spinoff company called 24M, promises to significantly slash the cost of the most widely used type of rechargeable batteries while also improving their performance and making them easier to recycle.

“We’ve reinvented the process,” says Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT and a co-founder of 24M (and previously a co-founder of battery company A123). The existing process for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, he says, has hardly changed in the two decades since the technology was invented, and is inefficient, with more steps and components than are really needed.

In addition to streamlining manufacturing enough to cut battery costs by half, Chiang says, the new system produces a battery that is more flexible and resilient. While conventional lithium-ion batteries are composed of brittle electrodes that can crack under stress, the new formulation produces battery cells that can be bent, folded or even penetrated by bullets without failing. This should improve both safety and durability, he says.

The company has so far made about 10,000 batteries on its prototype assembly lines, most of which are undergoing testing by three industrial partners, including an oil company in Thailand and Japanese heavy-equipment manufacturer IHI Corp. The process has received eight patents and has 75 additional patents under review; 24M has raised $50 million in financing from venture capital firms and a U.S. Department of Energy grant.

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/manufacturing-lithium-ion-battery-half-cost-0623

 

[skepticalbip]

In addition to streamlining manufacturing enough to cut battery costs by half, Chiang says, the new system produces a battery that is more flexible and resilient. While conventional lithium-ion batteries are composed of brittle electrodes that can crack under stress, the new formulation produces battery cells that can be bent, folded or even penetrated by bullets without failing. This should improve both safety and durability, he says.

The company has so far made about 10,000 batteries on its prototype assembly lines, most of which are undergoing testing by three industrial partners, including an oil company in Thailand and Japanese heavy-equipment manufacturer IHI Corp. The process has received eight patents and has 75 additional patents under review; 24M has raised $50 million in financing from venture capital firms and a U.S. Department of Energy grant.

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/manufacturing-lithium-ion-battery-half-cost-0623

Dunno but I would have thought that if someone is using their laptops in places where bullets are going through them they would have much more to worry about than how cheap their batteries were.

 

[NobleSavage]

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/manufacturing-lithium-ion-battery-half-cost-0623

Dunno but I would have thought that if someone is using their laptops in places where bullets are going through them they would have much more to worry about than how cheap their batteries were.

Think of all the battle field applications that use or will be using batteries and it makes sense. And if the military is using it, you know the cops will want it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I've been reading articles like this for years... nothing ever comes from it. Once the technology is actually being sold, I'll care.

 

[NobleSavage]

I've been reading articles like this for years... nothing ever comes from it. Once the technology is actually being sold, I'll care.

True, I'm still waiting for the fuel cells they were promising 10 years ago.

 

[fromderinside]

.... I'm still waiting for the fuel cells they were promising 10 years ago.

Yeah, I know. You didn't say invented. But

1839: This was followed by pioneering work on what were to become fuel cells by the scientist Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1838. William Grove, a chemist, physicist and lawyer, is generally credited with inventing the fuel cell in 1839.