Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the Future says we're gonna rock
Speaker 1: down to Electric Avenue and then we'll take a higher
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan and I'm Joe McCormick. That was a good one,
Speaker 1: Thank you. It was relevant to today because we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about something that has to do with electricity. Yes,
Speaker 1: in fact, we're going to talk about batteries and why
Speaker 1: you know, I think in any discussion about the future
Speaker 1: and we talk about like the amazing electronics we have
Speaker 1: right now in the present, there's always this discussion that
Speaker 1: happens about why aren't batteries better yet? Yeah, people overlook
Speaker 1: the fact that batteries are awesome. They like, they don't
Speaker 1: pay attention to batteries being such an integral part of
Speaker 1: all the technologies we really enjoy. Well, it's really easy
Speaker 1: also to to kind of wench on about how, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: my iPhone only keeps a charge for a day. It
Speaker 1: keeps a charge for a day, it keeps a charge
Speaker 1: at all, Like you can unplug it from the wall
Speaker 1: and it still works. Yeah, that's pretty incredible in itself.
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine if every electronic device you owned had
Speaker 1: to constantly be plugged into the power grid in order
Speaker 1: to work, or have an internal combustion engine or something
Speaker 1: like that. Everything is, everything is either connected by cables
Speaker 1: or has some other form of generating power. But on
Speaker 1: the battery lets us store energy for later use, right,
Speaker 1: So you don't have to use all this energy now.
Speaker 1: You can use it later if you want. You can
Speaker 1: use in it, use it at different times later on.
Speaker 1: And that that's actually pretty incredible. It it enables all
Speaker 1: kinds of things we don't even take the time to
Speaker 1: think about. That's right. So batteries they share a lot
Speaker 1: in common with another technology, the fuel cell. Fuel cells
Speaker 1: are differ from batteries, and that with fuel cells you
Speaker 1: keep adding fuel into the compartments of the fuel cell
Speaker 1: and then you generate electricity. And you have to keep
Speaker 1: filling up the fuel cell with fuel in order for
Speaker 1: it to continue to generate electricity. Batteries have an electrochemical
Speaker 1: reaction at the heart of them, just like a fuel
Speaker 1: cell does, but everything is contained within the battery itself. Right.
Speaker 1: Batteries are, at bottom, I would say, a good way
Speaker 1: to put it, Is there an easy way to get
Speaker 1: electricity from chemistry? Yes? Yeah, So you have these chemicals
Speaker 1: that are reacting to produce an excess of electrons, something
Speaker 1: that happens with certain chemical reactions. So you get this
Speaker 1: excess of electrons that are gathering on one side of
Speaker 1: the battery that's the anode side, and then you have
Speaker 1: an electrical difference between the anode side of the battery
Speaker 1: and the cathode side of the battery. Right, So if
Speaker 1: you think about a battery with two sides, the anode
Speaker 1: side has all these little minor symbols on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and those minor symbols, if they could, would really love
Speaker 1: to go to the opposite end of the bat right.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost as if you've got a pipe full
Speaker 1: of water that's tilted way up on one side at
Speaker 1: the an outside and down at the bottom is the
Speaker 1: cathode side, right, and there's something that's blocking the water
Speaker 1: from running down that pipe. So if you were to
Speaker 1: create a pathway, a different path that has lot lots
Speaker 1: of little curly cues and crazy straw like uh contraptions
Speaker 1: and maybe even a little water wheel in there, but
Speaker 1: it led to that bottom side and you allowed gravity
Speaker 1: to do the work. The direct route down to the
Speaker 1: bottom would be blocked off, but this other pathway would
Speaker 1: be open the water would flow through. That's kind of
Speaker 1: similar to what happens with a circuit. A circuit is
Speaker 1: where you've built a pathway for electrons to move from
Speaker 1: the anode to the cathode, so that you have the
Speaker 1: electrons moving over into that to fill up the holes,
Speaker 1: the positive slots on the opposite side of the battery,
Speaker 1: and while they're in motion, you can make them do work,
Speaker 1: turn those little water wheels, the little electron wheels. If
Speaker 1: you don't if you don't have anything, if you don't
Speaker 1: have a load attack to the circuit, you're gonna burn
Speaker 1: out that battery really quickly because all all it's doing
Speaker 1: is electrons are just going to rush from one side
Speaker 1: to the other through this pathway. But by putting a
Speaker 1: load on there, then the electrons have to do work
Speaker 1: along the way. So that might be something as simple
Speaker 1: as lighting an led, or it could be something as
Speaker 1: complicated as playing my favorite music on my MP three player,
Speaker 1: because that it's drawing its power from the battery. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing about these electrochemical results, right you know the
Speaker 1: electrochemical reactions. You get these, you get this stuff that
Speaker 1: essentially becomes a NERT. Right, it's no longer able to
Speaker 1: produce the electrons needed to continue this reaction. You're essentially
Speaker 1: using up the useful chemicals within the battery. They're turning
Speaker 1: into something that is no longer going to generate those electrons.
Speaker 1: This is when the battery goes dead, when you've completely
Speaker 1: drained the charge and there's nothing there's not enough there uh,
Speaker 1: not enough active chemicals left within the battery to keep
Speaker 1: it going. So you know, you might have a battery
Speaker 1: like you may have used a flashlight, where it starts
Speaker 1: going dim before it goes out. It's because the battery
Speaker 1: is able to still generate some electricity flow, but not
Speaker 1: enough to continuously power that that bulb. Now, that's if
Speaker 1: you have what's called a primary cell battery or a
Speaker 1: single use battery. But there are also batteries called secondary
Speaker 1: cell batteries. These are rechargeable batteries. You're essentially reversing the
Speaker 1: chemical reaction by reversing the flow of electricity. That's right,
Speaker 1: You reverse the polarity. So you just think about it
Speaker 1: working the opposite way. Whereas when the battery is discharging,
Speaker 1: you're having electrons flowing out of one end to the
Speaker 1: other and doing work on the way. Uh. To make
Speaker 1: it go back the other way, you put work into
Speaker 1: the battery to force electrons to go back from the
Speaker 1: cathode to the anode. Right now. The issue here is
Speaker 1: that as you do this over and over, you start
Speaker 1: to lose some of the active ingredients inside this battery
Speaker 1: and they start degrading. Yeah, so eventually the battery will
Speaker 1: still be dead, or at least will be It will
Speaker 1: store only enough juice for it to be moderately useful,
Speaker 1: and then you have to replace it with a new
Speaker 1: battery anyway, But it does mean you can reuse the
Speaker 1: same battery multiple times before that actually happens. It's not
Speaker 1: like you know, most batteries have lots of cycles charge
Speaker 1: cycles they can go through before they're they're inactive. But yes,
Speaker 1: that that is the major difference. So a primary cell,
Speaker 1: once it's used up, that's it. You cannot recharge it.
Speaker 1: You've got to toss it away, especially since most of
Speaker 1: these chemicals when they're done are corrosive and will eventually
Speaker 1: start to eat through the casing of the battery. Itself
Speaker 1: and can cause damage to people in property. Well, when
Speaker 1: you think about a battery, it's kind of amazing that
Speaker 1: they're as safe as they are because what is a battery. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a huge amount of potential energy stored up into
Speaker 1: a tight little space. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to essentially
Speaker 1: was amounts to a paste that can create this this
Speaker 1: chemical reaction. Although this is why, i mean, one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why you don't generally want to apply say
Speaker 1: fire to batteries. Oh yeah, and why sometimes batteries can
Speaker 1: catch on fire. Sure, yeah, yeah. There's also issue with
Speaker 1: other basic things in electronics, Like you've probably heard the
Speaker 1: term resistance. Uh, generally, we we talked about resistance in
Speaker 1: the way that that something will start to generate heat
Speaker 1: because there's there's not a perfect path for the electrons
Speaker 1: to flow through. There's going to be some energy lost
Speaker 1: in the form of heat. And uh, if you're charging
Speaker 1: a a secondary cell battery for too long, or if
Speaker 1: you have placed a rechargeable battery in the wrong type
Speaker 1: of charger, then you can overcharge one of those batteries
Speaker 1: and you end up generating a lot of resistance and
Speaker 1: damaging the battery in the process. Which could result in
Speaker 1: something as catastrophic as a fire, or it could just
Speaker 1: significantly decrease the useful life of that rechargeable battery. Either way,
Speaker 1: it's a negative outcome. This one is obviously way more
Speaker 1: negative than the other one. But yeah, that's an issue. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what are the main ways of
Speaker 1: making batteries today. But main oh you mean like the
Speaker 1: different types. Yeah, sure, okay, So we got alkaline cell.
Speaker 1: Those are the probably the those are the most common. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you go out to the store and buy you
Speaker 1: some double A batteries to probably alkaline cell. If it
Speaker 1: if it doesn't say rechargeable on them, then they are
Speaker 1: most likely alkaline batteries. There are also lithium non rechargeable
Speaker 1: batteries those those do exist too, so those are also
Speaker 1: primary cell batteries. But uh, you know, if it in general,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see alkaline ones which are using sodium hydroxide
Speaker 1: or potassium hydroxide as the electrolyte and like we said,
Speaker 1: not rechargeable. They produce about one point five four volts
Speaker 1: and the chemicals created as the battery produces electricity are corrosive.
Speaker 1: These are the ones that are gonna eat through that
Speaker 1: zinc case eventually and possibly cause damage. They have to
Speaker 1: be really careful when when you get rid of them.
Speaker 1: They are the most widely used batteries in the world.
Speaker 1: They're inexpensive relatively speaking. I know that anyone who has
Speaker 1: gone to a convenience store because they desperately needed to
Speaker 1: get those double A batteries for something or or mine
Speaker 1: is always getting like the nine volt battery for the
Speaker 1: smoke detector. When I realized that, oh it's beeping, I
Speaker 1: need to go out and get a battery in the
Speaker 1: closest place is this is this convenience store, then it
Speaker 1: feels like it's the most expensive thing I've ever seen
Speaker 1: in my life. But in general, they're They're much more
Speaker 1: practical and cheap than say, the chargeable batteries often are okay.
Speaker 1: But let's say you go to traffic court and you
Speaker 1: do what they actually tell you to do, but nobody does,
Speaker 1: which is take the battery out of your cell phone.
Speaker 1: What's in that battery? Ah, So those are lithium ion batteries.
Speaker 1: These are the batteries that okay, so weill. Alkaline batteries
Speaker 1: are technically the most popular batteries in the world. The
Speaker 1: ones that people are having more and more experience with
Speaker 1: these days tend to be in the lithium ion side
Speaker 1: because it would be a huge pain in the butt
Speaker 1: to have to change out the double as in your
Speaker 1: cell phone. Yeah, not that there aren't phones out there
Speaker 1: that do that kind of thing. Certainly, you know you
Speaker 1: need a good burner phone then, obviously. But now lithium
Speaker 1: ion batteries are rechargeable. They are UM. They are often
Speaker 1: found in things like computers and electronics UM as well
Speaker 1: as other places. They store about hundred fifty what hours
Speaker 1: per kilograms, so their energy density is pretty good, especially
Speaker 1: compared to some of the other batteries. Lithium ion are
Speaker 1: sort of the primo consumer rechargeable batteries these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there there are some people would say this is the
Speaker 1: barrier that's holding us back. Right the lithium ion is
Speaker 1: as good as we can do right now. But there
Speaker 1: are people who are working on creating better battery technologies
Speaker 1: in the future, and we're going to talk a lot
Speaker 1: about those in just a little bit. But right now,
Speaker 1: lithium I on I mean, that's when you look at
Speaker 1: the different kinds of batteries that are out there, and
Speaker 1: the energy density energy densities. Really we're talking about how
Speaker 1: much energy is packed in per unit of weight, and
Speaker 1: when it comes to packing a punch, lithium ion has
Speaker 1: one of the bigger punches in the game. Yeah. Even then,
Speaker 1: it's typically described in terms of a few hundred watt
Speaker 1: hours per legram. Yeah, you're not. We're not at a
Speaker 1: point where it's equivalent to say, the amount of power
Speaker 1: you would generate from an internal combustion engine with a car.
Speaker 1: But but the voltage isn't bad for these guys compared
Speaker 1: to the size of those alkaline batteries. We're talking like
Speaker 1: four volts here. So, uh, that's for for a regular
Speaker 1: lithium ion cell. Okay, But let's say I pop open
Speaker 1: the hood of my old car, my old, rusty, beat
Speaker 1: up car, and look at the battery in there. What
Speaker 1: is it? Probably that's more than likely than not a
Speaker 1: lead acid battery. So that we're not talking about electric
Speaker 1: vehicles or hybrid vehicles necessarily here, but in your classic
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine that needs to have a battery so
Speaker 1: that it can fire off the spark plugs and and
Speaker 1: also operate all the cabin electronics. That kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: You're talking about a lead acid battery. These do not
Speaker 1: have a very good energy density. No, not at all
Speaker 1: hours per kilogram. Compare that back to the lithium ion.
Speaker 1: It's just not doesn't pack a huge wallum. No, What
Speaker 1: these things are really good at is hanging out and
Speaker 1: then giving you a big jolt right when you need it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a last a really long time, and you know
Speaker 1: it's it's another one of those things where if you
Speaker 1: start to run out of juice, you really need to
Speaker 1: go and get a new battery. You're not going to
Speaker 1: be recharging these like I'm sure most of us have
Speaker 1: been a situation either where we had to get a
Speaker 1: jump start from someone or we helped someone else get
Speaker 1: a jump start from our vehicles. So usually that means
Speaker 1: you just give it enough electricity for the vehicle to
Speaker 1: to start up so you can get it to the
Speaker 1: closest place where you can get a replacement battery. But yeah,
Speaker 1: lead acid, and you know it's pretty much what sounds like.
Speaker 1: You've got some electrodes made out of lead and you've
Speaker 1: got sulfuric acid as a as a component. So this
Speaker 1: is also a battery you do not want to bust
Speaker 1: open Um, it's got calastic material and don't give it
Speaker 1: to your baby to play with. No, this is dangerous stuff.
Speaker 1: After that, you've also got nickel based batteries, don't you
Speaker 1: like You used to have nickel cadmium a lot. Now
Speaker 1: you've got nickel metal hydra yep. And these are often
Speaker 1: used in hybrid vehicles. They use rare earth materials. We
Speaker 1: talked a lot about that in our last episode about
Speaker 1: solar powered vehicles, the idea of rare earth elements and
Speaker 1: why that's such a big issue in electronics. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: a big issue with batteries as well. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of different batteries that are reliant upon some form
Speaker 1: of rare earth element in as part of the components.
Speaker 1: They also combine these rare earth elements with some some
Speaker 1: stuff that's a lot more common, like nickel being a
Speaker 1: big one, aluminum, cobalt, other stuff as well. They store
Speaker 1: about a hundred wide hours per kilogram, so again not
Speaker 1: as energy dense as lithium ion, but much more so
Speaker 1: than say lead acid. And they also are rechargeable, so
Speaker 1: you can just uh buy these there. There are several
Speaker 1: that are in the same kind of style as alkaline batteries.
Speaker 1: So most of the time, when you see a rechargeable
Speaker 1: battery that's like a double a rechargeable battery ends up
Speaker 1: being a nickel metal h hydride. So those are your
Speaker 1: basic types. I mean there are others as well. Of course,
Speaker 1: we didn't even go into the historic batteries like voltaic
Speaker 1: piles and all that kind of stuff, which is fascinating.
Speaker 1: You don't really use those to power a laptop. Might
Speaker 1: you might you might use it as a science fair project,
Speaker 1: right to build to build your own homemade battery, But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not something that's going to be used in any
Speaker 1: real capacity for modern conveniences or anything like that. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the problems that exist with the batteries
Speaker 1: we have today and how could batteries be improved for
Speaker 1: future uses. So that energy density thing, yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: big one. That's a big limiting factor. It's big, especially
Speaker 1: for say like hybrid or electric vehicles. Sure. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you you know, one of the complaints a lot of
Speaker 1: people had, or at least one of the things like
Speaker 1: a misgiving people have about electric vehicles is this idea
Speaker 1: of I don't want to be driving this vehicle and
Speaker 1: then run out of charge and then be stranded somewhere. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then even if I'm someplace where I can plug in,
Speaker 1: I'm stuck there for hours on end until I get
Speaker 1: a full charge. Never mind the fact that most of
Speaker 1: us drive well below the driving range of one of
Speaker 1: these electrical vehicles in our day to day activities. So
Speaker 1: if you're talking about using an electric vehicle for just
Speaker 1: your daily driving, like you know, you're driving around from
Speaker 1: to and from work, that kind of stuff, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: you're pretty much okay because you can just recharge at
Speaker 1: night and you're fine. It's when you're when you're want
Speaker 1: to go on an extended trip then it might become
Speaker 1: more of a concern. I think. Also, most people who
Speaker 1: have who have driven a gas engine car have at
Speaker 1: some point run out of gas because they really thought
Speaker 1: that they should go to Starbucks first before they hit
Speaker 1: the gas station. He doesn't, He doesn't mean empty, E
Speaker 1: means enough. Yeah, nobody who used to say that until
Speaker 1: you had to call Triple Aid help him out too
Speaker 1: many times? One too many times? Yeah. Um. So yeah.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing though, with energy densities, there's only so
Speaker 1: much we can do because unlike microprocessors, you know, you
Speaker 1: know More's law, this idea that within every two years
Speaker 1: or so, the power of microprocessors doubles because we are
Speaker 1: able to cram more discrete components onto these these chips
Speaker 1: were able to manaturize. That doesn't apply to batteries because
Speaker 1: we're talking about chemical reactions, not some sort of electronic circuitry.
Speaker 1: So we can make electronics more efficient so they sip
Speaker 1: less power, but we can't, you know, just make a
Speaker 1: magical maturization machine for batteries and get the same kind
Speaker 1: of advances that we've seen on the electronic side. Although
Speaker 1: certainly different chemicals are more efficient at creating these reactions,
Speaker 1: so we can't. We can't make chemicals. We can't make
Speaker 1: these same chemicals better at what they do necessarily, but
Speaker 1: we can experiment with different chemicals and different approaches to
Speaker 1: making these chemicals and and exploiting different physical properties of
Speaker 1: materials to make better batteries. In any case, it's going
Speaker 1: to be really hard to create a battery that comes
Speaker 1: close to compete eating with the energy density of gasoline. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: that's one of the main appeals of gasoline today. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's cheap and it's got great energy density. So
Speaker 1: the energy density of gasoline is something like twelve thousand
Speaker 1: or thirteen thousand watt hours per kilogram. Compare that to
Speaker 1: the lithium ion batteries, which store, as we said, like
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty or maybe a few hundred watt
Speaker 1: hours per kilogram. So it's a huge difference. If you're
Speaker 1: trying to make electric cars an attractive proposition, increasing the
Speaker 1: energy density of electric batteries is huge. What you end
Speaker 1: up with is this large, extremely heavy brick in your
Speaker 1: car that won't let you drive as far as the
Speaker 1: tank of gasoline. Now, as you've said, that's exactly it's
Speaker 1: exactly right that people have misconceptions about the range anxiety
Speaker 1: of electric cars. Well, there's also there's also the issue
Speaker 1: that you're talking about twelve thousand and thirteen thousand watt
Speaker 1: hours per kilogram energy density of gasoline, but an internal
Speaker 1: combustion in and is not as as efficient as an
Speaker 1: electric motor. That's exactly right. So a lot of that
Speaker 1: energy is lost as heat in an internal combustion engine.
Speaker 1: But still that difference is gigantic, and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: some ways that energy density gap might be closed by
Speaker 1: different battery designs. But we've still got a lot more
Speaker 1: problems that batteries have that we have to contend with.
Speaker 1: Some depending upon what approach we use, some of these
Speaker 1: are bigger concerns than others. Some batteries are more prone
Speaker 1: to some of these problems than others. So one of
Speaker 1: them is the self discharge problem. So this is where
Speaker 1: you've taken a battery of the package, you put it
Speaker 1: into some form of electronics, and it starts to essentially
Speaker 1: leak electricity. It's it's it's leaking its effectiveness, and depending
Speaker 1: upon the type of battery, that could be significant. We're
Speaker 1: talking like up to in the first day losing the charge,
Speaker 1: so it goes from a charge to eighty percent charge.
Speaker 1: You haven't even turned anything on, You've just plugged the
Speaker 1: battery in and let sit just from the circuit being completed. Now,
Speaker 1: not all of them are are prone to this. Nickel
Speaker 1: metal hydride are particularly vulnerable to self discharge, but not
Speaker 1: everything is. And if you if you are storing stuff
Speaker 1: in a cool not cold, but a cool environment, then
Speaker 1: you you slow this down because we're talking about chemical reactions.
Speaker 1: Chemical reactions tend to happen faster when you apply heat,
Speaker 1: and they tend to be slower when you take heat away.
Speaker 1: But you don't want to put batteries in the fridge
Speaker 1: or freezer because then you just slow it down so
Speaker 1: much that it's going to take you forever for the
Speaker 1: juice to start flowing when you actually want to use
Speaker 1: the batteries. I've heard this myth before that you should
Speaker 1: put batteries in the freezer to prolong their life. Apparently
Speaker 1: that is not true. In fact, the battery manufacturers have
Speaker 1: facts on their website telling you not to do this
Speaker 1: because it actually doesn't improve it. And in fact, if
Speaker 1: you put a battery in the freezer, they say that
Speaker 1: the condensation that forms on it could cause damage to
Speaker 1: the batteries and in fact cut down on its its
Speaker 1: life well. And when you see with electric vehicle producers,
Speaker 1: one of the things they talk about is testing the
Speaker 1: electrical vehicles in uh in cold environments because there's this
Speaker 1: concern that the cold weather would retard the function of
Speaker 1: the battery, so you wouldn't get your vehicle started when
Speaker 1: you would want to. So let's say you're heading out
Speaker 1: the door to go to work and you have to wait,
Speaker 1: you know, a half hour for the car to warm
Speaker 1: up enough to be able to drive it. That would
Speaker 1: be another example. Then you have the memory effect. This
Speaker 1: is when you recharge a device, and each time you're
Speaker 1: recharging it, it's not quite going all the way back
Speaker 1: to percent normally because you have the old rechargeable batteries
Speaker 1: really had this problem where let's say I've got my
Speaker 1: cell phone and I plug it in and I let
Speaker 1: it charge up to and I think that's good enough.
Speaker 1: I need my phone. I'm going on the way way,
Speaker 1: and I unplugged it and I go on, I'm married
Speaker 1: a little way. The next time I plug in my
Speaker 1: cell phone, it charges up, but now the new one
Speaker 1: is just the percent of what it's original full capacity was,
Speaker 1: So it gets up eighty percent of its original full capacity,
Speaker 1: and that's the stops. Yeah, I don't I don't have
Speaker 1: access to that extra power. So now I'm saying, you know,
Speaker 1: this phone used to give me like twenty four hours
Speaker 1: of service before I had to plug it in, but
Speaker 1: now I'm only getting like eighteen or sixteen hours or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: That would be the memory effect, And with some batteries
Speaker 1: it's worse than with others. There are other things that
Speaker 1: come into play here. Sometimes it's not just the battery.
Speaker 1: There might be a sensor in the electronic device you're using,
Speaker 1: and that can get out of whack where the sensor
Speaker 1: actually shuts down the recharging. So it's trying to avoid
Speaker 1: overcharging the battery, right, So the sensor shuts it down,
Speaker 1: the battery has not received a full charge. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it's because the sensor needs to be recalibrated. Usually you
Speaker 1: have to, you know, reset a phone or other computer device,
Speaker 1: sometimes completely power it down and power back up and
Speaker 1: then normally will reset. That's usually one of the basic
Speaker 1: things that happens with electronics. That's also an issue. So
Speaker 1: sometimes it's not just the battery. Sometimes it's the electron
Speaker 1: device itself. And then we have overcharging, which I've already
Speaker 1: mentioned this idea that you have poured too much energy
Speaker 1: into the battery in some way or another and that
Speaker 1: ends up damaging the battery, sometimes catastrophically. More often than not,
Speaker 1: you've just reduced the useful life of the battery. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then there's charging cycles. This is kind of similar to
Speaker 1: the memory effect. It's it's really the number of times
Speaker 1: you can fully drain and fully recharge a battery and
Speaker 1: still like and expect it to give you useful operating life.
Speaker 1: So you usually get this in the number of thousands.
Speaker 1: Like again, that's that's the degradation of the chemicals over
Speaker 1: a period of time, right. Yeah, so even even rechargeable
Speaker 1: batteries are not going to stay absolutely perfect forever. They're
Speaker 1: They're going to degrade, some more slowly than others, and
Speaker 1: eventually you will need to replace them, which is why
Speaker 1: you get people who like, um, not to pick on
Speaker 1: a particular company, but people who talk about Apple products
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, they make the batteries inaccessible. There's
Speaker 1: no way to get in there and change the battery. Now,
Speaker 1: for most of us, we're probably going to upgrade our
Speaker 1: phones more frequently than it would require you to worry
Speaker 1: about the battery. Yeah, so it's you know, especially when
Speaker 1: it comes to Apple, which wants you to re re
Speaker 1: upgrade your phones twice as frequently as anybody else does.
Speaker 1: Although I'm an Android user and a new Android phone
Speaker 1: comes out every week, so I get phone in v
Speaker 1: all the time. So yeah, that's that's another issue. Then. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just again, we don't have a magic
Speaker 1: a magic switch to make battery technology catch up to
Speaker 1: other types of tech that we rely upon in our electronics.
Speaker 1: So this is one of those conversations that's on going about, Hey,
Speaker 1: my my computer can do all this amazing stuff, why
Speaker 1: have it batteries uh kept pace right right? Well, one
Speaker 1: of the reasons is, as we talked about before, you
Speaker 1: can't just keep scaling down. It's not a direct line
Speaker 1: of descent. It's not like you're just doing what you
Speaker 1: did before, but acting a little bit more power into it.
Speaker 1: You have to explore new areas of chemical configuration. And
Speaker 1: there is one big one that people have talked about,
Speaker 1: especially in the area of energy density, and that's lithium
Speaker 1: air batteries. Yeah. Now this is some crazy energy density.
Speaker 1: We're actually talking about approaching the energy density of something
Speaker 1: like gasoline. Yeah, lithium air based batteries have the potential
Speaker 1: to offer way way more energy density than standard lithium
Speaker 1: ion batteries. In fact, I've seen claims that they could
Speaker 1: reach up to say eleven thousand watt hours per kilogram. Now,
Speaker 1: remember the watt hours per kilogram of gasoline. We're just
Speaker 1: like twelve or thirteen thousands, so that's really close. And
Speaker 1: then when you coupled that with the fact that electrical
Speaker 1: motors are actually much more efficient, as we said, than
Speaker 1: internal combustion engines. You've actually got a more efficient total
Speaker 1: system there, and that's really cool. Okay, so how does
Speaker 1: it work? I got this. So we're talking about the
Speaker 1: process of oxidation. This is the same process where we
Speaker 1: see rust forming. I mean, you know, it's the whole
Speaker 1: oxidizing thing, except in the case of lithium, we're talking
Speaker 1: about electrons being released as part of this process, and
Speaker 1: so that is where you've got the anode. And then
Speaker 1: it's the same model as old batteries. You're just talking
Speaker 1: about different chemicals. Yeah, as you still have an anode
Speaker 1: and you still have a cathode. You still have electrics,
Speaker 1: electrons being generated and released or at least released really
Speaker 1: is what. You're not generating them, you're just releasing them
Speaker 1: into the wild. So the anode side is the oxidation
Speaker 1: of lithium, and then the cathode side is where you
Speaker 1: have a reduction of oxygen and that induces the electron flow. So, um,
Speaker 1: it's not not the not the easiest thing in the
Speaker 1: world to do. We've got lots of different groups working
Speaker 1: on lithium air batteries. But it's not it's difficult to
Speaker 1: make a stable one. Uh, it's more than difficult. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a real problem right now. In fact, I've seen
Speaker 1: it described as it's not just one research problem, it's
Speaker 1: multiple research problems at the same time. But yeah, like
Speaker 1: we said, people are actually working on it. IBM has
Speaker 1: a lithium air battery research project. It's called Battery five hundred,
Speaker 1: and their stated goals are to create a powerful new
Speaker 1: battery for electric cars that is a as good as gasoline,
Speaker 1: b gets five hundred miles or eight hundred kilometers range
Speaker 1: per charge, and see has a total electric drive system
Speaker 1: comparable in size, weight and price to a gasoline drive train.
Speaker 1: Though they admit that quote this is a very high risk,
Speaker 1: very high reward, long horizon project, so they're saying in
Speaker 1: their sort of mission statement that's public facing, that this
Speaker 1: may very well not work. It's just sort of research
Speaker 1: into something that would be a big score if it does.
Speaker 1: With the timetable they gave was three years basic science
Speaker 1: to know what the commercial applications would be before around. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things that could end paying off.
Speaker 1: But it may be that we aren't able to find
Speaker 1: a practical means of harnessing it. We know it works.
Speaker 1: The principle is sound. It's just making it practical so
Speaker 1: that we can actually harness it. That's the problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just all kinds of problems with implementing this. One
Speaker 1: that I read about is the fact that lithium has
Speaker 1: an explosive reaction with water when they come in contact, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is problematic because well, water exists as vapor in
Speaker 1: the air, and if you're talking about exposing this lithium
Speaker 1: to the air, that that's a problem. Becomes an external
Speaker 1: combustion engine. Yeah, so you'd obviously need to find ways
Speaker 1: around that, and they're just it's really tricky from what
Speaker 1: I understand. Well, then you also have another potential lithium solution,
Speaker 1: lithium silicon batteries. So your lithium ion batteries usually they
Speaker 1: have graphine as part of the components. Not graphine, Uh
Speaker 1: is okay, but silicon actually is able to to hold
Speaker 1: a much larger energy density than the graphine based lithium
Speaker 1: ion batteries. It's hypothetically like ten times as energy densit.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you've got you know, if you're talking a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty hours. Now you're talking, you know, a thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred one hours. That's that's a big leap. But
Speaker 1: there's another problem, which is that when silicon starts to
Speaker 1: when when you're charging this battery, the silicon starts to
Speaker 1: swell to it's normal volume. So designing a battery that
Speaker 1: can handle that, the fact that you have a component
Speaker 1: that's going to grow in size by volume, uh, that
Speaker 1: is an engineering problem too, although there is research that
Speaker 1: is looking at making this possible. Um A team from
Speaker 1: Stanford has been working on a pomegranate inspired design wherein
Speaker 1: nanoparticles of silken are encased in carbon capsules and then
Speaker 1: kind of clustered together like seeds in tougher carbon rhymes.
Speaker 1: And this helps a protect that that's super expansive and
Speaker 1: and also very brittle silicon from from bursting out of
Speaker 1: the battery or falling apart during charging, and be minimizes
Speaker 1: its contact with the electrolyte, which helps prevent build up
Speaker 1: of this like reaction gunk on the anode that will
Speaker 1: degrade the battery's performance pretty quickly. Right right, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of think about it as uh, some folks get
Speaker 1: stuck in the doorway, and you can't have as many
Speaker 1: electrons passed through the path because you've got this build up,
Speaker 1: all right, So we got we got pomegrads, so we
Speaker 1: got our fruit based batteries, as I understand it, because
Speaker 1: I was totally listening just then, though not the only
Speaker 1: batteries from the produce section, as you will soon learn.
Speaker 1: But no, no, Lauren, I know that you also have
Speaker 1: something in here about liquid based batteries. Are you telling
Speaker 1: me we're like, we're going going back in time, because
Speaker 1: I'm thinking like the ancient batteries here, the heady yeah,
Speaker 1: or even voltaic piles and things like that. I kind
Speaker 1: of like that, except a lot more efficient and less dangerous. UM.
Speaker 1: These are sometimes called flow batteries, and the idea here
Speaker 1: is that you've got two chemical storage tanks hooked up
Speaker 1: to an electrochemical conversion hardware p thing UM and it's
Speaker 1: a technical thing, is the very technical term. So the
Speaker 1: fluids are pumped through and then the amount of energy
Speaker 1: that can be stored is really only limited by the
Speaker 1: capacity of your tanks. UM. This tech is really being
Speaker 1: looked at for for solar and wind energy kind of
Speaker 1: applications in order to to make them cheaper. You know,
Speaker 1: solid batteries are so expensive and so heavy, and you
Speaker 1: need a lot of them to effectively store the energy
Speaker 1: that's created through these these greener methods, and this, this
Speaker 1: could kind of solve that. Traditionally, the um electrolytes in
Speaker 1: flow batteries have been expensive metals like vanadium. I don't
Speaker 1: even know how to say that. I didn't look at Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that's what Captain America's shields made out of.
Speaker 1: That's vibranium wat brain stuff. I'm looking this up because
Speaker 1: I don't believe it's real. No, it's real. You're right,
Speaker 1: it's unobtainium. Now, these things are in use right now
Speaker 1: and in like Japan and China to help manage the
Speaker 1: power grids, so they are in fact effective, but at
Speaker 1: the price of some seven d dollars per kill a
Speaker 1: lot hour of storage capacity, like on the average, it
Speaker 1: can go way up from there. Um. According to the U.
Speaker 1: S Department of Energy, they need to hit more like
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars per kill a lot hour to make
Speaker 1: wind farms really economical. Now, all right, so you talked
Speaker 1: about pomegranates, and now on the next note on our list,
Speaker 1: here I see rue barb. What a potato battery. It's
Speaker 1: not really ruebar but it's just similar to a molecule
Speaker 1: found in rubarb. It's almost identical to a molecule that
Speaker 1: occurs naturally in ruebarb. This is research out of Harvard.
Speaker 1: They they've been making a carbon based molecule called quine on. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say quine on um. It's found in green
Speaker 1: plants and crude oil and can be pretty cheaply, uh,
Speaker 1: turned into this thing that you can use. UM that
Speaker 1: the molecules in this case are housed in water, which
Speaker 1: makes the batteries pretty non flammable, which is excellent all around. UM.
Speaker 1: It's it's performing as well as the vanadium so far
Speaker 1: and isn't degrading after repeated cycles. UM, although it needs
Speaker 1: a whole lot more testing. I mean they've they've got
Speaker 1: like a hundred cycles under their belt, and they would
Speaker 1: need thousands and thousands too. So the vanadium, the big
Speaker 1: problem there was that they're really expensive. You're talking about
Speaker 1: seven per kill a one hour or something like that.
Speaker 1: How do how does this approach measure up compared to that?
Speaker 1: According to the Harvard team, that could reduce storage costs
Speaker 1: to dollars per kill a lot hour. How does that
Speaker 1: compare to a potato battery. I don't know. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: get right favorably. What is what is the price per
Speaker 1: pound of rhubarb versus potatoes? Rubarb is fairly expensive, but
Speaker 1: I think they can grow it in many home gardens.
Speaker 1: We're looking at a molecule here that we can synthesize. Okay,
Speaker 1: we have the technology. What about the problem of disposing
Speaker 1: of batteries because batteries, like we've been talking about, tend
Speaker 1: to have things in them that you just don't want
Speaker 1: to get in to say, your water supply or in
Speaker 1: your body. Yeah, and there are certain things like there
Speaker 1: are people who who their lives depend upon medical devices
Speaker 1: that are implanted inside their bodies that require some form
Speaker 1: of power, usually provided by a battery. So what solutions
Speaker 1: are we looking at? Their researchers are indeed working on it.
Speaker 1: There's a team out of Carnegie Melon that's created a
Speaker 1: a sodium ion battery using the melanin from cuttlefish inc.
Speaker 1: For the anode and magnese oxide is the cathode that
Speaker 1: the whole thing breaks down into non toxic materials in
Speaker 1: the body. So you know, like like imagine being able
Speaker 1: to to swallow a smart pill that can release drugs
Speaker 1: after it's cleared the stomach. The stomach, of course, will
Speaker 1: destroy a lot of medications. That's why, for example, UM
Speaker 1: patients who have arthritis have to go into a doctor's
Speaker 1: office for injections. And then this way you could actually
Speaker 1: get more of the effective ingredient in that medication to
Speaker 1: enter your system. You wouldn't lose so much of it
Speaker 1: through you know, just going through your stomach, which also
Speaker 1: means that you could have a much more controlled dosage,
Speaker 1: which also means that you have reduced side effect if
Speaker 1: there are any. So yeah, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons why this would be a huge benefit to medicine,
Speaker 1: right or you know, okay, forget about wearable technology. What
Speaker 1: if you had swallowable fitness deck. Okay, so yeah, like
Speaker 1: what if what if I could put something inside me
Speaker 1: that can completely monitor everything from caloric burn to caloric intake.
Speaker 1: Like there are devices out there right now that say
Speaker 1: they can, uh, they can measure your caloric intake, but really,
Speaker 1: the technology right now for us to be able to
Speaker 1: measure that noninvasively exists, but exists in like big old
Speaker 1: macro bulk format. It's usually a machine where you you
Speaker 1: connect a device that's using light to go through your
Speaker 1: your veins and say your ear lobe or your fingertips.
Speaker 1: So that's not something that you can easily wear, but
Speaker 1: this could actually change that, yeah, or something that dispenses
Speaker 1: emergency medication. Like for example, if if your doctor knows
Speaker 1: that you are prone to epileptic seizures, you could have
Speaker 1: something it that could be triggered by that seizure to
Speaker 1: control it for you right away. Um or hey, outside
Speaker 1: the human body, these things could be useful as well,
Speaker 1: like like if you have an oil spill or another disaster,
Speaker 1: the whole army of these things could be dropped into
Speaker 1: the site and they would biodegrade into something that isn't harmful,
Speaker 1: isn't causing more harm right right, So it's not it's
Speaker 1: not further damaging the environment, and yet it's letting you
Speaker 1: keep an eye on what the conditions are that that
Speaker 1: definitely does have its use sure, And and this isn't
Speaker 1: the only that this Carnegie melon cuttlefish batteries is not
Speaker 1: the only one in development. All of the ones that
Speaker 1: I created are food based, aren't they wrote about it.
Speaker 1: This car's got forty cuttlefish power. I absolutely want that measurement.
Speaker 1: Cuttle Fish are not for eating, there for cuddling. That's
Speaker 1: very true. Then you don't eat cuttle fish. They're very nice. Um,
Speaker 1: I get really upset about cuttlefish. Okay, But so there's
Speaker 1: a team from the University of Illinois that is using
Speaker 1: a magnesium foil, anodes and cathodes made of stuff like iron, a, tungsten,
Speaker 1: all of which are non toxic in low concentrations UM
Speaker 1: and a staline electrolyte, and biodegradable packaging. They're they're estimating
Speaker 1: that that with this particular configuration, realistically, with with further
Speaker 1: research and improvements, could could create a quarter centimeter square
Speaker 1: by one micrometer thick battery that could power a wireless
Speaker 1: implant for an entire day. Wow, that's pretty incredible stuff.
Speaker 1: That's that's thinner than a sheet of paper. It's tiny.
Speaker 1: Have you heard Have you heard about the Robust Affordable
Speaker 1: Next Generation Energy Storage Systems a k A. Robust Affordable
Speaker 1: Next Generation Energy Storage Systems program also known as RANGE. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for repeating exactly what I said. Adding program
Speaker 1: at the bottom of it. Yeah. I read an interview
Speaker 1: with r PASE Deputy Director Dr Cheryl Martin from last
Speaker 1: year and she mentioned some cool battery innovation ideas that
Speaker 1: are going on under the Range program, and that's having
Speaker 1: to do with vehicles mostly um So, she talks about
Speaker 1: the idea of like doubling the role of a battery
Speaker 1: in an electric car, so it's not just a battery,
Speaker 1: it's not just providing energy, but it also plays some
Speaker 1: other important function within the structure of the car that
Speaker 1: helps you cut down on the total weight of the car. Say,
Speaker 1: for example, it absorbs impact and crashes. She actually talked
Speaker 1: about that there was a project led by oak Ridge
Speaker 1: National Laboratory where they're creating an impact resistant electro light.
Speaker 1: So when the battery gets hit with a strong force,
Speaker 1: like if you're in a car crash, the liquid electro
Speaker 1: light suddenly thickens up and it absorbs the energy from
Speaker 1: the impact. You know. I've also heard interesting ideas of
Speaker 1: incorporating new battery uh structures, so it's using using the
Speaker 1: same chemicals essentially as as sort of the stuff you're
Speaker 1: talking about here, but actually incorporating it so it ends
Speaker 1: up like molded to the frame of the vehicle itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like new solid state batteries to sort of fit the
Speaker 1: natural structure of the car instead of just being this
Speaker 1: big heavy brick sitting in part of the car. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Or on a much smaller scale, if you
Speaker 1: use our good friend now technology in order to uh
Speaker 1: create materials that have a a larger surface area, then
Speaker 1: you can you can improve some of the efficiency of
Speaker 1: some of this stuff. Yeah, and again a lot of
Speaker 1: the improvements and batteries aren't from the batteries themselves, Like,
Speaker 1: it's figuring out how to make more efficient electronics that
Speaker 1: make better use of the power, so that if we
Speaker 1: do get to a point where we have a real
Speaker 1: battery breakthrough, like some of the ones that are potentially
Speaker 1: could happen based on the ones we've we've just been
Speaker 1: talking about, we're really sitting pretty then, But what about
Speaker 1: electronics that don't need batteries at all? So are we
Speaker 1: going what back to plugging it into the wall as
Speaker 1: I was, you're talking about No, we're talking about wireless electronics,
Speaker 1: talking about like Tesla podcast towers. No, no, no, we're
Speaker 1: not talking about say, inductive coupling or any of these
Speaker 1: things we've talked about before, where it is possible to say,
Speaker 1: charge a device without necessarily touching it. Sure, sure an
Speaker 1: induction I mean, for examples of those medical applications that
Speaker 1: we were talking about. A moment ago is really great
Speaker 1: for stuff that could be implanted near the skin, But
Speaker 1: if you needed to swallow it or put it behind
Speaker 1: a bone or something like that, that would make it
Speaker 1: really difficult to use. Right, So that's not what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Instead, we're talking about very small devices that
Speaker 1: work on what's called ambient back scatter. So last year,
Speaker 1: researchers at the University of Washington announced they had created
Speaker 1: a group of small communication devices that did not require batteries,
Speaker 1: but they were able to transmix signals based on ambient
Speaker 1: back scatter from the transmissions that are going on all
Speaker 1: around us. So you've got TV towers broadcasting signals and
Speaker 1: your wireless router broadcasting signals. Basically, they designed them in
Speaker 1: such a way to reflect ambient train mission signals for
Speaker 1: their own purposes, to sort of create a Morse code
Speaker 1: of automatic reflection without having local power, so they can
Speaker 1: these little devices can communicate with devices around them. Now,
Speaker 1: this probably can't be translated into any big power hungry
Speaker 1: device like a laptop or a smartphone. But it might
Speaker 1: be really useful for small sensors and communication tags. That
Speaker 1: would be really important if we were ever going to create, saying,
Speaker 1: the Internet of things in our home. Now, this really
Speaker 1: reminds me of, uh, you know if I don't know
Speaker 1: if you guys ever built your own radio, but the
Speaker 1: old crystal radio kits, there are some where you could
Speaker 1: just you build a little crystal radio and you didn't
Speaker 1: have a battery, You had no power source whatsoever, except
Speaker 1: you use the antenna and the antenna would pick up
Speaker 1: radio waves and that would generate just enough power to
Speaker 1: operate the radio itself. It doesn't need another source. This
Speaker 1: sounds to me like engineers have figured out a similar
Speaker 1: way based on that same principle to make actual use
Speaker 1: of that. Because the little radio transmitter you could make
Speaker 1: where it doesn't need external power, it required an incredibly
Speaker 1: long antenna to work properly. Like it was not something
Speaker 1: that was practical. It was more of a here's how
Speaker 1: you can learn about electronics and radios, but not like
Speaker 1: this is going to be something that you're not going
Speaker 1: to be jamming in your in your dorm room listening
Speaker 1: to Pink Floyd on this The models that I saw
Speaker 1: were less than palm size, a few inches across. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Yeah. One of the really cool things
Speaker 1: about it that I saw on the video demonstrating this
Speaker 1: idea was that it could make in a way ideas
Speaker 1: along these lines, could make a technology I've been wanting
Speaker 1: for so long, which is the control f function for
Speaker 1: the real world. So like when you have lost your
Speaker 1: keys despite having had them in your hands no less
Speaker 1: than five minutes ago. Right, Yeah, So the idea they
Speaker 1: showed was that say you've got your key is or
Speaker 1: maybe your couch stamped with these communication devices. They don't
Speaker 1: need to have power batteries or anything. They can just
Speaker 1: reflect signals that are ambilently going through your home to
Speaker 1: send a signal to your phone that says your keys
Speaker 1: are on the couch, right, Like your couch would text
Speaker 1: your phone and be like, hey dude, you left your
Speaker 1: keys here. Wow, And that's a great I mean, that
Speaker 1: would save me so much time and sanity. I would
Speaker 1: love that. Well, you know, this has been a fun conversation.
Speaker 1: We we definitely acknowledge the fact that batteries have been
Speaker 1: kind of a a stumbling block for a lot of
Speaker 1: the technology we that could be all around us right
Speaker 1: now if it weren't for the fact that it's pretty
Speaker 1: power hungry and we don't have the power to supply
Speaker 1: to them. But I think also people should remember to
Speaker 1: be grateful for how amazing batteries are today. You don't
Speaker 1: even think about it. You've got a cell phone that
Speaker 1: you can carry around with you without plugging in and
Speaker 1: it will work for hours. Our batteries today. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we were got to wrap this up. But thank you
Speaker 1: for coming along with us on our journey down Electric Avenue,
Speaker 1: which actually isn't Atlanta by the way, There is an
Speaker 1: Electric Avenue in Atlanta I've been down at. But anyway,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for coming along with us. We uh,
Speaker 1: we're really excited about these kind of topics, you know,
Speaker 1: the challenging things in the future that that seemed to
Speaker 1: be pretty simple on the surface, but as you start
Speaker 1: to dig down you realize, oh, so these are these
Speaker 1: are real you know, science and engineering issues that lots
Speaker 1: of smart people are working very hard on to try
Speaker 1: and get the next development so that we're not held
Speaker 1: back by some fundamental issue from our potential. So if
Speaker 1: you guys have any potential electricity joke. If you guys
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future topics of forward thinking, you
Speaker 1: should let us know. Send us an email right just
Speaker 1: as FW thinking at discovery dot com, or drop us
Speaker 1: a line on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus. Our handle
Speaker 1: at all three is f W Thinking and we will
Speaker 1: pop to you again really soon. For more on this
Speaker 1: topic in the future of technology, visit forward thinking dot
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