The Future of Batteries
A primer on battery technologies and applications, the 10x professional, crypto, careers in tech, jobs, events, and more
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The Future of Batteries
Batteries single-handedly power some of the most impactful technologies in our lives. Although they date back centuries, they only recently became such a cornerstone for societies and a hot topic in the geopolitical agenda — phones, tablets, laptops, vehicles, renewable energy storage, and much more. Today, we’re going to get into the past, present, and most importantly, the future of batteries with Nikolaos Kateris, a postdoc researcher at Stanford University, focusing on the cutting edge of battery technologies. We discuss:
what is a battery, and how it works
how we evaluate battery performance
from lithium-ion to sulfur-based, solid-state, and lithium-air batteries
challenges of non-electrochemical energy storage systems
electrification of ground transportation and flights
the geopolitics of battery technology
Let’s get to it.
Nikola, thank you for joining! Let's start with the basics before we go into more complexity. What is a battery, its different components, and how does it work in simple terms?
NK: A battery is an electrochemical energy storage device. It's a very old technology. Alessandro Volta invented the first battery in 1799, which stored and released a charge through electrochemical reactions, meaning chemical reactions that consume or release electrons. This was known as the voltaic pile — a stack (or pile) of discs made of two types of metal, silver and zinc. Since Volta's invention, batteries have greatly improved in performance and longevity; however, their primary operations have remained pretty much the same throughout the centuries.
All batteries have three components: the anode, cathode, and electrolyte. The anode and cathode are the battery's electrodes, and they are typically conductive materials such as metals or metal oxides. When a battery is discharged, metal ions travel from the anode to the cathode through the electrolyte. Then, on the cathode surface, they undergo chemical reactions, which release energy in the form of electrical current. On the other hand, when a battery is charged, ions migrate from the cathode back to the anode, where they accumulate and store energy.
How do we evaluate battery performance? What are the important factors?
NK: There are a few very important factors, and we prioritise them differently depending on the application.
Energy density: The energy we store per weight or per unit volume of a battery. We want to store energy in devices that are as light or compact as possible.
Energy efficiency: The ratio of energy retrieved from the battery to the energy provided to the battery.
Cost: The cost of the battery over its entire life. While this is not crucial for batteries in small devices such as phones or laptops, it becomes a priority for storing larger amounts of energy (e.g. power grid, electric vehicles, etc).
Safety: I'm sure you have seen incidents of electric vehicles exploding or catching fire. Safety is very big on people's minds when they design new battery systems.
What are the different battery technologies and the applications each one is more well-suited for?
NK: Lithium-ion are the most common rechargeable batteries nowadays. They are typically used in consumer electronics such as phones or laptops. Therein, we mostly care about the battery's lifetime (number of charge and discharge cycles before replacement), how fast it charges (nobody wants to wait several hours to charge their devices), and perhaps most importantly, energy density (batteries need to be compact and light for devices we carry everywhere).
Other than personal electronics, we are seeing a huge surge in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. However, these are so heavy that if we put more batteries on a Tesla, even though the carried energy increases, the car's range doesn't rise because it transfers more weight. We are reaching a plateau in the range electric vehicles can cover on a single charge. Therefore, energy density and safety are the north stars here. Keep in mind that internal combustion engine vehicles (petrol, diesel) use an older technology for engine start-up: lead–acid batteries.
Meanwhile, with the rise of renewables, the next frontier becomes energy storage, which can help power our homes, cities, factories, etc. When we design battery systems for energy storage, we mostly optimise for cost instead of energy density. It doesn't matter how big or heavy a battery that can store a lot of energy is, as long as it is affordable.
In that regard, people are working on improving electrochemical batteries and commercialising new structures such as chemical (e.g., hydrogen, ammonia) or mechanical (e.g., pumped-storage hydroelectricity) energy storage systems. As it currently stands, it's not profitable to build massive warehouses filled with lithium-ion batteries that can store excess electricity generated by solar, wind farms, etc.
Are there specific challenges with non-electrochemical systems that prevent us from deploying them on a large scale?
NK: The problem is their energy efficiency is not very competitive. You pay a price every time you convert energy from one form into another. For instance, you convert electrical energy to mechanical work to pump water up/down and then from mechanical work through a turbine back to electricity, and so on. Same with converting electricity to chemical energy to turn water into hydrogen. You never get the same energy in and out. Electrochemical systems, aka batteries, have the advantage of storing electrical energy in as few energy conversion steps as possible. Therefore, they are the best at recovering the energy stored in the first place.
Any exciting new battery technologies you are paying attention to?
NK: There are plenty. My research is in lithium-sulfur and sodium-sulfur batteries. Sulfur-based batteries have the advantage of being very energy-dense and more affordable than lithium-ion, as the latter requires expensive and difficult-to-obtain metal elements for their cathode materials. Sodium-sulfur batteries, in particular, are incredibly cheap because both the cathode and anode materials are inexpensive to obtain (readily available in seawater, and large underground sulfur deposits exist in many parts of the world). Hence, for energy storage, I think the future is bright for sodium-sulfur. But the challenge we have to overcome is ensuring they can last for many charge and discharge cycles.
For electric vehicles and consumer electronics, a lot of resources are going into solid-state batteries. What makes them unique is that the electrolyte (the material between the anode and cathode), which is liquid in most batteries, is instead solid. This may be associated with sacrifices in energy efficiency, but according to preliminary research data, it significantly increases energy density and safety.
Lithium-air batteries are the only technology with energy density approaching that of fossil fuels. Still, we don't yet have a reliable, controllable, and long-lasting means of producing them. They are designed to use lithium as the anode and air as the cathode, so they don't have to carry any cathode material. They work by taking in ambient air and using that to oxidise lithium in the battery.
What are some areas you think new battery technologies will revolutionise in the next decade and dramatically shape our economy?
NK: In my opinion, energy storage tops the list. Right now, renewable energy production is limited. Most parts of the world still rely on oil, gas, or even coal for electricity. A significant challenge of not increasing the percentage of renewable energy production is the intermittency of renewable resources such as wind and sun. So, it's clear that we need large-scale, both distributed and centralised, energy storage to move towards a more renewable future. I also hope to see all ground transportation, such as cars and trucks, be fully electrified in the future, as well as shipping.
Currently, lithium-ion batteries dominate the field, as they are the only technology that can last several years without losing much of its capacity. However, I believe we will see different sectors relying on different technologies.
You’re saying ground transportation will likely be electrified soon, but what about flights?
NK: Electric flight is a lot more challenging because when you have a flying vehicle powered by batteries, energy density becomes orders of magnitude more important. You carry a huge battery weight at a very high altitude, which costs a lot of energy. So, I'm not optimistic that we will see electric aircrafts flying people around the world anytime soon. Perhaps there's room for small propeller planes with limited cargo flying over shorter distances (between Greek islands is a good example); however, all in all, we still don't have a battery technology that can compete in energy density with fossil fuels. The only one that has a chance is lithium-air, but we are far from being able to produce them reliably yet.
Before we wrap up, I want to touch on the geopolitics of batteries and how new technologies could impact the geopolitical power map.
NK: That's a good point. Lithium prices fluctuate a lot because supply and demand are unpredictable. Lithium is mined worldwide, e.g., in the United States, Canada, South America, Asia, etc., but almost all of it goes through China to be processed. China has affordable infrastructure; therefore, it has a monopoly in processing lithium ore into lithium metal — an expensive process where lithium metal reacts with air and acid solutions in a very controlled environment. Moreover, lithium-ion cathode materials are costly and toxic, as they contain nickel and cobalt (primarily mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo).
From a materials accessibility standpoint, there are two ways we can drive costs down. First, we could change the battery's anode from lithium to a different metal, like sodium or potassium, which have similar chemical properties and are readily available in seawater. Second, we can switch to batteries with different cathodes and electrolytes, such as lithium-sulfur, lithium-air, and lithium solid-state. Either way, we can set up infrastructure in different parts of the world for more distributed processing.
That was really insightful, Nikola. Thank you!
NK: My pleasure, Alex.
Jobs
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News
Kaedim raised $15m Series A led by a16z Games for its AI-powered 3D asset creation solutions. (link)
Ellogon secured €1m to advance personalised immunotherapy. (link)
Terra Robotics announced a Pre Seed round led by Genesis Ventures, Zeno Capital and the Hellenic Business Angels Network to develop autonomous weeding robots. (link)
Jukebox Health announced a strategic investment from Home Depot Ventures to make affordable and accessible housing a reality for the ageing population. (link)
The Athens Stock Exchange could use distributed ledger technology powered by Mysten Labs and their smart contract platform Sui. (link)
EIT Digital Venture Incubation Program for startups accepting applications until April 28. (link)
Resources
The (not so) mythical 10x professionals from George Hadjigeorgiou, co-founder & CEO of Skroutz. (link)
Crypto at an inflection point, and a new age of exploration from Danny Sursock, Principal at Archetype. (link)
The story of InAccel and getting acquired by Intel with Chris Kachris, co-founder of InAccel. (link)
Future of work, crypto and proof of personhood, careers in tech, and more with Anastasios Andronidis, Staff Software Engineer at Worldcoin. (link)
Behind the velvet rope of healthcare for the 1% from Will Manidis, founder of ScienceIO. (link)
Building a plant-based meat company in Cyprus with George Vou, founder of Mighty Kitchen. (link)
Events
If you’re in Athens, join us at Open Coffee #117 on Apr 5
Social Meet-up in Thessaloniki by Greek Cryptocurrency Community on Mar 23
Data Strategy by Business Intelligence and Analytics Athens on Mar 26
Meetup #5 by ProductTank Athens on Mar 27
UX practices at Yodeck by Athens UX Community on Mar 28
39th Thessaloniki WordPress Meetup on Mar 29
Inside Kaizen Gaming: Product Teams, Ways of Working and more by Product Community Greece on Apr 4
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Thanks for reading,
Alex