Interesting new battery using potassium, probably years away, but the issues they had was dendrite formation.

Dendrites form “shorts” between the battery “plates” in rechargable batteries, and are the main problem people often see with nicads, and others, where you charge it, it appears to be fully charged but very little capacity.

The picture in the article is a nice graphic that gets the message across (the other failure in rechargables is the electrolyte just “wearing out” normally drying out) and you can see how the dendrites reduce the amount of electrolyte that can be used for storing charge.

Also interestingly their method for eliminating dendrite buildup is the same as we used to do on nicads, a high current “Blast” whichsort of vaporizes the shorting dendrites, so a 50 year old technique applied to a new battery but supposedly more controlled in application.

https://newatlas.com/energy/self-healing-potassium-metal-batteries/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=bec66db3d9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_03_02_39&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-bec66db3d9-89926646

I still have 2 BFC’s (Big F**king Capacitors) for zapping old nicads…

Funny how some things still do not change much…

Greg

Greg Elmassian said:

Interesting new battery using potassium, probably years away, but the issues they had was dendrite formation.

Dendrites form “shorts” between the battery “plates” in rechargable batteries, and are the main problem people often see with nicads, and others, where you charge it, it appears to be fully charged but very little capacity.

The picture in the article is a nice graphic that gets the message across (the other failure in rechargables is the electrolyte just “wearing out” normally drying out) and you can see how the dendrites reduce the amount of electrolyte that can be used for storing charge.

Also interestingly their method for eliminating dendrite buildup is the same as we used to do on nicads, a high current “Blast” whichsort of vaporizes the shorting dendrites, so a 50 year old technique applied to a new battery but supposedly more controlled in application.

https://newatlas.com/energy/self-healing-potassium-metal-batteries/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=bec66db3d9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_03_02_39&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-bec66db3d9-89926646

I still have 2 BFC’s (Big F**king Capacitors) for zapping old nicads…

Funny how some things still do not change much…

Greg

Yep why re-invent the wheel, just modify it to suit the purpose.

Interesting news… We’ll have to see where this goes. There was noise a few year ago about dendrite free designs utilizing glass fiber and Li metal anode/separators. I haven’t followed the industry changes of late, OLD ideas are NEW again it seems herein.

Around “2000” or so; Lithium 18650 cells first came to the Radio Control Giant Scale industry. They were Tadiran 800mAh Lithium metal cells! Li-Ion came a few later with Li-Po several years thereafter. The Tadiran Lithium-Metal batteries didn’t weather the need as well as hoped due to their life cycle and diminutive specifications as I recall. That said, they were quickly phased out with Li-Ion. I believe the Lithium-Metal cells short life cycle then (figuratively and physically) can be attributed to the dendrite formation.

Michael

Before that, Molicel made AA lithium metal cells, for use in Motorola hand helds… (somewhere 1985 to 1990) an I had a few (from my battery mentor) and as they became useless (limited charge/discharge cycles), I overcharged one to see what happened… burned a hole through the plus contact and spouted like a roman candle with a 5-6 inch flame like a torch.

They were taken off the market since they could fit in anything AA cells could… what a recipe for disaster!

Greg