As far as I can tell battery research seems to consist of mixing every single element with lithium, and seeing if it makes a battery.
Followed by advertising it and never releasing the new tech.
This is more accurate than you would think. I’ve seen people synthesize a new inorganic compound, and is then more or less forced by supervisors to test it as an intercalation host for Li- or Na-ion batteries without really having thought through whether that makes sense at all.
Li is small, and as long as there is room for it (sites for it to sit when intercalated and paths to diffuse through the material), and there is some species that can accommodate the additional charge (as one Li+ is introduced into the material, there needs to be a charge compensation to maintain charge neutrality - typically this is a transition metal cation that is reduced from a higher oxidation state to a lower one). In that sense a lot of materials could serve as hosts, and depending on the intercalation potential, it could be used as a cathode (LiCoO2 for instance, where the intercalation potential vs. Li/Li+ is so high that it makes for a good cathode) or an anode (LTO for instance, where the intercalation potential vs. Li/Li+ is so low that it rather makes sense to pair it with a high potential cathode, and instead make for a more niche application where things such as safety is more coveted). That said, only three structure types have been widely used commercially as intercalation hosts for Li-ion batteries: layered rocksalt types (like LiCoO2 and its deriviates, NMC and NCA), spinels (LiMn2O4 or LTO) or olivines (LiFePO4, or LFP).
Li-S is not someone randomly mixing Li with some other elements though, it has been researched for a long time and is considered one of several “holy grails”
That’s because lithium is in the most electropositive group of elements and sodium/potassium are too reactive for current technology. Theoretically I think Na and K based batteries should perform better as they’re even more electropositive than Li.
(Forgive the spelling error in the picture but it was the simplest one I could find quickly)
Na and K based batteries should perform better
What I’m hearing is throw some salt on a banana and power my phone for days.
I wasn’t very good at chemistry.
It’s the difference in electronegativity that makes the battery. That’s why you see lithium and oxygen a lot; lithium doesn’t want electrons, oxygen does want them. Sodium and potassium are very close in electronegativity so the salty banana battery wouldn’t be good.
I’m waiting for the cesium / fluorine battery, should theoretically be awesome. Or extremely explosive
That’s a much more serious and informative answer than I deserved.
Thank you for the explanation.
Gotta put my chemistry education to good use somehow, certainly not using it in the IT career I ended up getting in.
The other thing for lithium is that its light, VERY light, which of course is ideal for hand sets. Manufacturers love the light and slim designs even though consumers would prefer to have a handset that can go 7 days without a charge
You aren’t so far away from the truth!
To make a battery you need to have something that holds negative electrical charge and something with a positive electrical charge and both need to be able to change to a different state when you use it or reverse that change when you charge it.
Lithium is the lightest and smallest metal, meaning for the same size and electrical charge, your battery will weigh less.
Then you just need to find ways to make two kind of lithium compounds which have different electrical charge and can be changed between two states.
And if it doesn’t explode when a child throws their battery powered bear on the ground, that would also be a good characteristic.
Flow batteries specifically don’t use Lithium and are very promising in price to performance https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/03/flow-batteries-are-the-future-of-renewable-energy-and-australia-could-be-a-world-leader-if-theres-funding
Change lithium with Group IV elements and that’s also how semiconductors are made: playing around with different impurities.
“Fully charged in 12 minutes” is meaningless without a capacity.
What the general public thinks: Car or phone battery.
What the scientists mean: Button cell battery for hearing aids.
Reality: never makes it past the article/news cycle to scalable manufacture.I agree, the title is pretty useless.
Even something like “Fully charged a double A battery in 28 seconds” would’ve been useful/interesting.
Indeed. A modern Nissan Leaf with a 62 kWh battery can charge in a little over 11 minutes if you have a 2kV 160 amp line to toss into it. Because you know, it’s completely safe and cool to deal with those kinds of values for the average consumer.
Ok it has the ‘capacity’ to charge in 12 minutes - can you smell smoke?
If only the claim were accompanied by a detailed explanation of what the people involved have actually achieved.
Did you want to add anything to the discussion or just make a snarky comment? I looked through the paper linked in the article and didn’t see a capacity listed.
Our approach directs an alternative Li2S deposition pathway to the commonly reported lateral growth and 3D thickening growth mode, ameliorating the electrode passivation. Therefore, a Li–S cell capable of charging/discharging at 5C (12 min) while maintaining excellent cycling stability (82% capacity retention) for 1000 cycles is demonstrated. Even under high S loading (8.3 mg cm–2) and low electrolyte/sulfur ratio (3.8 mL mg–1), the sulfur cathode still delivers a high areal capacity of >7 mAh cm–2 for 80 cycles.
A 5C charging rate is great, but it’s pretty useless if the battery is too small to be practical.
No I didn’t want to add anything to the discussion, thank you.
I’ve read news about better battery technology for YEARS, and then nothing. Repeat the cycle.
Let me know when it’s released to the public and actually usable.
In my lifetime, about the only rechargeable battery the average person had in their home was the one in their car. Now we’ve added 4 new major battery chemistries to the commercial space, some with multiple variants within them and all with improvements throughout their lifetimes. This is what science and technology looks like. The results you’re looking for would be magic or wishful thinking.
Lots of small, incremental improvements. The news predictably is always promising a huge breakthrough
“We made a minor incremental improvement to our manufacturing process using existing technologies what will improve battery cycles by 1%! Amazing!”
But the battery technology did improve in these years.
You need to look at battery lab research on a 10-20 year time before it gets commercialized at scale.
Moreover, go look at your rechargeable batteries from 10 or 20 years ago. They’re heavier, less energy dense, have shorter lifespans, have much slower charge rates. A lot of those advancement started in a lab and look many years to make it to your laptop or car.
How many years?
The amount of utility I accidentally extract from my phone over the course of a day on one charge is pretty incredible.
Writing headlines is a selection process. You write about all the useless but cool stuff while ignoring all the boring but important stuff.
Improving Li-ion by 1% doesn’t make headlines, but that sort of stuff has been going on in the background for a few decades already. That’s why current batteries are so useful and widespread.
Lab prototypes are sexy, even if they’re 50 years away from becoming commercially viable. Sure, these things can charge fast, or hold a huge capacity, but they also tend to die after 10 cycles. Fixing that is going to take a long time, just like it did for Li-ion batteries.
You’re expecting revolution. You’re getting evolution.
I dont give a shit fucking care untill i can buy it. Ive heard a million “this new battery tech will change the world” headlines.
New battery tech HAS changed the world though. We wouldn’t have modem EVs, smartphones, etc with the batteries of yesteryear.
Then get out of technology and start reading posts in buy it for life.
Even under rapid charging conditions with a full charge time of just 12 minutes, the battery achieved a high capacity of 705 mAh g⁻¹, which is a 1.6-fold improvement over conventional batteries. Furthermore, nitrogen doping on the carbon surface effectively suppressed lithium polysulfide migration, allowing the battery to retain 82% capacity even after 1,000 charge–discharge cycles, demonstrating excellent stability.
Assuming that this is scalable for production… Which is a big if for many of these “breakthroughs”, then this could replace current Lithium Ion batteries in most devices with a noticeable bump in capacity. Everything else is pretty par for the course though with current technologies.
The full charge time is meaningless without knowing what capacity they were working with. And a quick skim didn’t seem to have that in the article.
Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge can go from 0% to 100% in 15 minutes. And it’s a 2021 phone.
