Material science has just been crushing it for a good long minute now.
There are materials possible that will completely change the world.
Theres probably a room temperature superconductor for example.
The number of possibilities is effectively infinite though, since its not just which atoms, but also how they’re arranged.
Theres probably a room temperature superconductor for example.
I thought that one was a no go? Did I miss more news?
As in, one probably exists but has not been discovered yet. Every year scientists get them running closer and closer to room temperature
There was one team fairly recently that thought they had developed one that got a lot of press, but it turned out to not be true.
But that was only for that one specific case, it didn’t prove that room temperature superconductors can’t exist in general, there are still other teams working on developing them, and theoretically they could be possible, we just haven’t quite worked out what materials will exhibit superconductivity at room temperature, under what circumstances, and how to make them.
And we have some materials that come pretty damn close, Lanthanum decahydride can exhibit superconductivity at temperatures just a few degrees colder than some home freezers can manage (although at very high pressures)
That’s why we name our ages after the materials within. Material science is the foundation for almost all other physical sciences.
We’re currently in the information age, which is due to silicon. In a few hundred years, this time may reasonably be called the silicon age. Society has only recently transferred to the silicon age from the previous iron age. If we don’t cause a total collapse of our society, then we will be in the silicon age for a few hundred more years, and that will likely include space colonization.
The space age you’re referring to is likely the 60s, when space exploration was beginning. A decade or two isn’t long enough to be considered an age.
the information age is easy: the silicon age!
not sure about the space age…maybe titanium age? that’s about the time we figured out how to machine titanium on large scales, and for highly specialized, extreme applications (talking about the SR-71 here, mostly). could also call it the alloy age, since a number of important alloys were discovered around that time
There have been constant news articles coming out over the past few years claiming the next big thing in supercapacitor and battery technologies. Very few actually turn out to work practically.
The most exciting things to happen in the last few years (from an average citizen’s perspective) are the wider availability of sodium ion batteries (I believe some power tools ship with them now?), the continued testing of liquid flow batteries (endless trials starting with the claim that they might be more economic) and the reduction in costs of lithium-ion solid state batteries (probably due to the economics of electric car demand).
FWIW the distinction between capacitors and batteries gets blurred in the supercapacitor realm. Many of the items sold or researched are blends of chemical (“battery”) and electrostatic (“capacitor”) energy storage. The headline of this particular pushes the misconception that these concepts can’t mix.
My university login no longer works so I can’t get a copy of the paper itself :( But from the abstract it looks first stage, far from getting excited about:
This precise control over relaxation time holds promise for a wide array of applications and has the potential to accelerate the development of highly efficient energy storage systems.
“holds promise” and “has the potential” are not miscible with “May Be the Beginning of the End for Batteries”.
I’ve been seeing a lot about Sodium-ion just in the past week.
While they seem to have a huge advantage in being able to charge and discharge at some fairly eye-watering rates, the miserable energy density would seem to limit them to stationary applications, at least for now.
Perfect for backup power, load shifting, and other power-grid-tied applications though.
They’ve also got much better lifespans, being able to cycle many more times with less capacity loss. As they currently stand, they’re much better choices for stationary storage applications. However, I have seen them implemented in power tools and cars for their discharge rates, but it doesn’t hurt that they will stay healthy for longer.
I thought one of the main advantages of sodium-ion batteries was price? Great for the applications you listed
I’m doing research on high energy density Na-ion batteries. We’ll get there eventually
I mean, I wouldn’t mind a car with “only” 200km range, but that can charge up to full in just 5 minutes. I use my car just for work 99% of the time anyway, the times I need to go somewhere further away I can easily stop midway to charge, get a coffee in the meantime and then be on my way.
Unfortunately what’s shipping today seems it would offer maybe half that.
For the batteries that were announced this past week, a larger-than-refrigerator-sized cabinet held a capacity of around 15kWh.
Around half the energy density by mass of Lithium batteries, and in the order of a sixth of the density by volume.
Now if only we could come up with a system where your car could be charged while stopped at traffic lights, we might be onto a winner (:
Considering however that the price of sodium is around 1-2% that of lithium, I expect we will see significant R&D and those numbers quickly start to improve.
|My university login no longer works so I can’t get a copy of the paper itself :(
Scihub my brother 🙏
There have been constant news articles coming out over the past few years claiming the next big thing in supercapacitor and battery technologies.
More like decades. Anyone remembers buckyballs and buckytubes? What happened to that?
Nanotubes are still a thing, but most of the hype now seems to be around ‘buckysheets’ (graphene)
There’s an old saying: “Graphene is so versatile it can do anything except leave the laboratory”.
Yup. How long have we been waiting for graphene batteries to revolutionize technology? About a decade now?
The article is listed on ResearchGate.
For anyone looking for an alternative to Sci-Hub (the GOAT), you can make a free account on RG and send a request to the authors for a copy of their paper (about two clicks to perform).
Most researchers will send you a copy within a day, maybe two. If you copy the title or the DOI link into a search with “ResearchGate” it usually shows up in most search engines.
Serious question: How is this different than all the other sensationalized headlines about some technology that’s gonna change everything, and then you later hear nothing about it?
I had a little discussion with a guy complaining about sodium batteries and how you keep hearing these wild claims and then nothing. I did a quick search and saw an article about a $2 billion partnership agreement to work on a pilot plant for sodium batteries. He claimed it was yet another sensational headline and doubted anything would happen from it. Less than a week later I saw an article about a plant in America being announced.
This stuff is hard. It’s not like Master of Orion where you throw money at a specific research and get access upon completion. Different groups around the world are researching a multitude of different ideas, some related, and after a while a bunch of these ideas are combined and associated and researched, and all of a sudden you have a new product that’s significantly different from what was available before. And then you see incremental improvements for decades, not unlike the internal combustion engine or rechargeable lithium batteries.
It’s the same with many infrastructure problems. You hear about some interesting infrastructure project that’s going to transform regional travel, improve transit, make biking/walking safer, or prepare for future natural disasters. Then it takes forever for them to go into place because it takes a long time to plan, do the legal work, and build. But then the infrastructure goes into place and no one thinks twice about the long process behind it.
And we should also consider the longevity of these infrastructures. Cities that built their subways in the 19th century are still running them today and are vastly superior in terms of transit abilities than car cities. The population densities of today are unimaginable without central sewers and water infrastructure. Having continent spanning electricity grids are gigantic achievements. All these have shaped our lives for decades and sometimes centuries already and they are set to do so for centuries to come.
Then it takes forever for them to go into place b
I have an item that costs me 40 to buy. I sell you the item for 200. I get a hundred now and a hundred when you get the item. If I fill the order now I get my 100. However if I wait a year I get an interest free loan on the 40 bucks. Maybe I push you off for 10 years. I not only get the 100 you owe me I also doubled that 40. If I am a big company I can pull this off, if I am a one man operation I can’t. Guess who gets hired for these projects. Hint it isnt Jeff’s gutter repair.
And that is just fixed priced contracts. You can imagine the horrorshow of open ended ones.
Although we don’t see it, all of these developments do actually eventually make their way into battery tech. The batteries of today are not the batteries of 2014.
If you remember what battery powertools were like in early 2010s, it’s super obvious how far we’ve come. The higher end things like battery powered lawn mowers didn’t exist, and if you wanted real power, you needed a cord.
I just wish it was an either/or situation.
I don’t always need my lawn mower/blower/weed trimmer on batteries. I wish I could easily plug them in when doing light dut work close to the house. But then they couldn’t tie me into their battery ecosystem as easily.
I’ve seen a Makita eletric brush cutter with an adapter to plug straight into a standard outlet. The person who bought the machine told me it was more expensive than a battery pack but at least it made the machine usable for longer periods of time when energy is available.
I still remember that in the 90s till the 2000s you would get maybe 60 to 90 minutes of battery life out of a new laptop. Then it jumped to 4 or more hours thanks to better batteries, more energy efficient CPUs and displays.
I mowed my grass with a corded mower for a decade until the motor bearing finally disintegrated. Cost me $100 and one blade replacement. No small gas engine was ever that reliable for me
It’s not what the article says. Still interesting application of mixed 2D/3D technologies. Always hopeful that these energy developments leave the lab though.
Ha, exactly. We’ve seen the “start of the end” of batteries for decades now.