Glass Battery Construction
A big issue with batteries is that they deteriorate. So loss of battery capacity over time is generally accepted. When there are claims that a battery can improve its capacity over time, there is a great deal of skepticism.
The claims come from a laboratory that belongs to one of the most celebrated battery pioneers today, and one of the inventors of the Lithium-Ion Battery itself, John Goodenough.
The glass part comes in, because the electrolyte is based on a glass powder that forms a ferroelectric fluid. So the glass powder based fluid physically realigns with each charge and discharge cycle, and even improve in alignment over time, which is how the battery gets better. Each cycle it optimises itself a little more.
Glass Battery Properties
The improvement in battery capacity was measured over 300 charge / discharge cycles. Which is the normal life of a conventional Lithium-Ion Battery.
The graph above shows that capacity reduces with the number charge / discharge cycles and the rate of discharge. So better life for gentler discharge. Not shown here is that the depth of discharge also matters so not fully depleting the battery as in the tests above also helps.
The other big factor is that not only does the capacity improve over time, but the projected number of charge / discharge cycles is more the 20,000. So that is also a huge game changer. This opens up lots of applications within:
- remote field deployed telemetry including space
- frequently used appliances
- reducing energy and waste
- Internet of Things, IoT, portable and rechargeable appliances
Articles are still being published and there are some still under peer review so you can expect to hear more about this in the future. The articles getting through the per review process means there is credible science and experimental results to back up the claims.
You can read the initial article that got my attention at A Glass Battery That Keeps Getting Better.
Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development, focusing on products that are intended to be Made In Australia. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for more than 30 years.
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