If you've been keeping even a cursory eye on the sustainable energy market over the past few years
you surely can't fail to have noticed that there's been an awful lot of hype about the apparently
game-changing technology of solid-state batteries. We first looked at them on this channel back in
2018 and at that time there were very high hopes we'd see these lightweight high energy density
units powering mass-produced electric vehicles by about now. But it hasn't happened yet has it?
At least not at anything like the scale envisaged back then. Now I grant you we did get a little bit
interrupted by a global pandemic during 2020 and part of 2021, but nevertheless all we've really
had so far is an awful lot of promises and an awful lot of hope to go along with the hype.
And here we are in November 2022 with news that the folks at Nasa have decided to wade into the
fray with their own solid-state energy storage system that they reckon has almost twice the
energy density of Tesla's latest 4680 lithium-ion battery. So just what is going on here? Are we all
just being strung along with yet another 'never never' technology, a bit like the notorious
nuclear fusion, or are we actually on the cusp of a major leap forward in automotive history?
Well, let's see if we can make some sense of it all.
Hello and welcome to Just Have a Think.
It's not hard to see why so many developers are racing to perfect a
solid-state battery that could replace current lithium-ion technology. In theory solid-state
batteries are a far better solution to the problem of storing as much energy as
possible for as long as possible with total safety, but also instant deliverability.
The solid electrolyte takes up far less space than the liquid version found in existing
lithium-ion batteries. That makes the whole thing much more compact with a much higher
energy density, potentially as much as three times that of a standard lithium-ion battery.
Research suggests that they may be capable of recharging up to six times faster than current
technologies and achieve far more charging cycles during their useful working lifetime - something
that electric vehicle makers are particularly interested in for obvious reasons.
And because they don't have a volatile and highly flammable liquid electrolyte they no longer need
the cumbersome battery management systems that add weight and cost to existing lithium-ion batteries.
But for various reasons it's proven to be devilishly difficult to achieve all
those fantastic properties all at the same time in the same battery on a mass-produced
scale in the real world, so nailing the solid-state battery conundrum remains
an enticing technical challenge for the science bods to sink their teeth into.
If they do manage to iron out all the wrinkles though and get these things into the mainstream
of automotive production and quite possibly all sorts of other energy hungry applications
then it'll really be a major step forward for those industries. A recent report by
market analysts Straits Research projected that the market for existing solid-state batteries,
which are currently used in a few niche applications outside of the automotive industry,
is set to rise to just over two billion dollars a year by 2030, but if solid-state batteries could
be commercialized for EVS in the next couple of years then that projection shoots up to more
than 13 billion dollars by the end of a decade. And there are some pretty big names in the mix,
including industry behemoths like Bosch and Toyota as well as specialists whose
names may be very familiar to you like Quantumscape, Prologium and Solid Power.
So I suppose the obvious question has to be what makes NASA think they can muscle in on an already
very competitive space? Well it turns out NASA has actually been working on these solid-state
battery challenge for several years as part of what it calls its Convergent Aeronautics Solutions
project for sustainable aviation. And in keeping with our modern predilection for snappy acronyms,
NASA's battery project has been given the title of SABERS, which stands for solid-state architecture
batteries for enhanced rechargeability and safety. The initial focus of the project
was to provide electric power for vertical take off and landing vehicles, or eVtols,
which some believe may well turn out to be the urban air mobility solutions of the near future.
Developing an energy storage system that can meet the rigorous safety and performance criteria of
the aerospace industry is a huge challenge. NASA's own preliminary systems level analysis
kicked up five key priorities that will have to be optimized for any successful implementation of
airborne battery systems. The best EV batteries available today could probably meet the power
and scalability requirements but they don't quite cut it when it comes to energy safety or packaging
design. According to their own publicity, which we'll just have to take at face value for the
purposes of this video, NASA reckon their SABERS concept meets all five key performance criteria
with a solid-state architecture that uses a high energy density and high power density sulphur
selenium cathode in conjunction with a lithium metal anode. That combination apparently optimizes
the energy to power density ratio which NASA says can then be tailored to each specific application.
The cathode uses a patented NASA technology called holey graphene technology - that's holey with an
'e' as opposed to some kind of divine manna from heaven! NASA's holey graphene provides a
highly conductive ultra lightweight electrode scaffold. The two electrodes sit either side
of a solid-state electrolyte which is a safe non-flammable alternative to the
highly flammable liquid organic electrolytes currently used in lithium-ion batteries.
Self-combustion of lithium-ion batteries is rare but it can happen. If it's the phone in your
pocket or even the battery pack in your electric vehicle it may be quite a shock but you've still
got a decent chance of reaching safety while you watch your beloved investment burn to a crisp.
You don't have that option in a plane though do you? Unless you've taken the precaution
of wearing a parachute for the entire flight. So if we really want to see electric aircraft
shuttling it across town or even on short haul flights between states or neighbouring countries
then solid-state batteries are currently the only realistic option on the table.
But weight reduction is also a major consideration for very obvious gravitational reasons.
Holey graphene goes a long way towards achieving that goal but NASA have also added a second very
significant design Improvement which they call a bipolar stack. Instead of housing each individual
battery cell inside its own steel casing as liquid electrolyte lithium-ion batteries do,
all the cells in NASA's battery can be stacked vertically inside one casing. That not only keeps
the weight down but it also reduces the number of interface connections for each cell. And it
minimizes the cooling requirements. The result is an overall battery that's about 40 percent
lighter than existing lithium-ion technology with an energy density of 500 watt hours per kilogram.
To put that into context, Tesla's 4680 batteries have an energy density of less than 300 watts per
kilogram and the latest lithium-iron phosphate batteries from the Chinese Battery Giant CATL
are rated at 160 Watt hours per kilogram. The NASA SABERS team has put this new battery through some
rigorous testing to demonstrate its ability to operate in temperatures between 0 and 150 degrees
Celsius which is a fairly significant Improvement on current technology. During the past year the
SABERS team say they've successfully increased their battery's discharge rate too, initially by
a factor of 10 and then by another factor of five. That's yet another important consideration for
any prospective aviation battery, or EV battery for that matter. And because it's a solid state
battery it has an inherently long lifetime with relatively little capacity degradation.
What we're missing from the NASA SABERS PR bumf is any indication of charge time and perhaps most
importantly any idea of cost. Nevertheless NASA's principal investigator for the SABERS project
Rocco Viggiano said "SABERS continues to exceed its goals. We're starting to approach this new
frontier of battery research that could do so much more than Lithium-ion batteries can. The
possibilities are pretty incredible." So they're clearly cock-a-hoop about their new technology.
But as usual it's not yet been produced at commercial scale and probably won't be for
several years. So what about the rest of the bunch? Well it's certainly a busy field of
play that's for sure. Toyota are leading the way with more than 1300 design patents followed by
Panasonic who registered a further 445. In 2021 they teamed up to give us a fleeting glimpse
of what appears to be a solid-state battery prototype EV with full production slated for 2025.
Honda's hooked up with LG and invested 4.4 billion dollars in a US-based battery plant which will
come online in 2024 to potentially provide power for their EVs by the latter half of the decade.
Nissan recently announced their own prototype solid-state battery production
facility with the goal of bringing a vehicle into full production by 2028.
Quantumscape has bagged more than 300 million dollars from Volkswagen to develop what they
regard as a market-beating solid-state technology that contains a solid ceramic electrolyte and no
anode at all, which they say overcomes many of the problems experienced by competing solid-state
battery designs. They've also now struck a deal with the German and U.S owned Energy company
Fluence to develop solid-state batteries for stationary storage applications. BMW and Ford are
backing the Colorado-based Start-up Solid Power, who specialize in sulphide based solid-state
batteries. Solid Power has now finished installing a pilot production line at their Louisville
factory that will supply batteries by the end of 2022 for the automakers to begin testing.
Mercedes-Benz has chosen the Taiwanese solid-state battery start-up Prologium to develop prototype
batteries for its EV range. Prologium plans to launch its first three gigawatt hour production
plant in early 2023 and Mercedes hope to get the new batteries into their vehicles by 2025.
It's impossible to delve deeply into the pros and cons of each of these technologies
in a single video, but there is one common denominator that unites them and that's the
cost of all solid-state batteries, which is currently way higher than existing lithium-ion
technology. Most significantly replacing a cheap graphite anode with lithium metal
will not only be expensive but also quite challenging from a resources point of view.
Silicon may well prove to be an alternative though, and there are other possibilities
currently in development in various labs around the world. Meanwhile the market leader in all
things EV, Tesla Motors seems to have pinned their future production plans firmly on their
4680 lithium-ion battery, and the world's largest EV battery maker, CATL in China, reckons it'll be
at least 2030 before we see solid state batteries in any mass-produced electric road vehicles.
So right now the future looks about as clear as mud! I think it's probably safe to say we'll see
solid-state batteries come into commercial reality long before the other never never technology of
nuclear fusion, but that's not setting the bar awfully high is it? Right now though the hype
is probably a little premature, so I'll be taking any 'revolutionary', 'game changing',
'breakthrough' technology announcement with a heavy pinch of salt for a little while yet!
But what's your view on where we're at with solid-state batteries? Do you think the market
analysts have got their 2030 growth projections about right or do you think it's more likely we
won't see these things even start to come onto the mass market until next decade? As always, leave
your thoughts in the comments section below and I'll be interested to see what the consensus is.
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