Greener Alternative To Lithium-ion Battery
Greener Alternative To Lithium-ion Battery
Australian boffins develop 'proton battery' that allegedly removes the environmental challenges posed by toxic lithium-ion batteries
This isn't really an "emerging" battery tech, and there have been all kinds of hyped "breakthroughs" about hydrogen batteries for a long time. The issue here, like always, is that it does not scale, the cost is absurd, the tech is improving slower than Lithium batteries, and this essentially takes the working parts of a fuel cell but makes the storage foolishly low.
There are also no end-of-life environmental challenges with a proton battery, since all components and materials can be rejuvenated, reused or recycled.”
The same is true of Lithium cells, but the problem historically has been that recycling is more expensive because the volume of cells being recycled is vanishingly small. The ability to recycle a product doesn't determine whether or not it is recycled, which is a really unfortunate truth we have to face.
40Yep, RecycLiCo in Canada proving they can extract the minerals from the recycled batteries black mass to get as good as or better than original
12Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/H85oUBsvBN8?feature=shared
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The oil industry is behind the the push for hydrogen.
They desperately need to replace fuel for fuel or they'll cease to exist.
7Without a doubt. But they're also behind nat gas powered plants, solar and wind farms, charger networks, etc. The thing about the oil companies is they became multinational juggernauts by always winning. And they've lined themselves up to win on "green" energy as well as renewables, solar, wind, and tidal.
2I spoke to a partner of a friend whose working on hydrogen cells and "low temp" (600c, though earlier versions were 800-1000c) cerium or Cesium yttrium catalyst electrolysers. The point of the electrolysis pathway is that you're able to use excess energy from green sources (solar/hydro/nuclear) that we currently don't have the infrastructure to store, to produce hydrogen for use in hydrogen cells or to be used as an alternative to fossil fuel derived hydrogen in metallurgical processes (steel making etc)
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So what is this made of if not lithium?
7The battery uses a carbon electrode to store hydrogen that has been split from water, and then works as a hydrogen fuel cell to produce electricity
Carbon. Much cheaper, and basically, infinitely abundant. Big big big deal if they can scale it.
24From the linked article
The battery uses a carbon electrode to store hydrogen that has been split from water, and then works as a hydrogen fuel cell to produce electricity
Chatgpt says:
Proton batteries are an emerging energy storage technology that uses hydrogen ions (protons) to store and release energy. They split hydrogen gas into protons and electrons at the anode, with a membrane allowing only protons to pass to the cathode. At the cathode, protons combine with oxygen and electrons to generate electrical energy. Proton batteries offer high energy density and potential environmental benefits but are still in early development and face efficiency and cost challenges compared to traditional batteries
-6What is the energy density (by volume) of this? It sounds like a rebrand of a hydrogen fuel cell, which has some limited applications, but has been supplanted by lithium-ion due to hydrogen’s low energy density and the fuel cell/electrolysis combo having poor energy efficiency.
Edit: specified density by volume, as density by weight was never the issue
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Hey Vsauce, Michael here…
vibraphone intensifies
2Everyone likes a good boffin
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