- [Narrator] The world is rapidly going electric.
In 2020, almost 260 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity
was added globally.
Beating the previous record by nearly half.
Around the world, wind turbines, solar panels,
hydro power plants are increasingly the dominant
energy source for large parts of the year.
Meanwhile, out on the road,
electric car sales have skyrocketed.
Global sales rose 43% in 2020
with even faster growth predicted in the future.
With companies like Tesla business is booming
as customers opt for quieter cars
with faster acceleration.
There's just one thing holding back the electric revolution,
battery technology.
As Elon Musk himself explains
while his Tesla model three drive unit
can last up to 1 million miles, the batteries struggle
to make even half of that.
With the rising demand for electric cars,
we'll need cheaper, more durable
and efficient battery technologies
to create a truly electric future,
but all that could be about to change.
In this video, I'll explore the newest battery technologies
that look set to change the future,
discovering what makes them spark.
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Number five, solid state batteries,
solid state battery technology promises to change
energy storage forever.
To understand the new advancement,
first we need to understand
how lithium ion batteries work currently.
Inside a battery, lithium ions
travel between positive and negative ends,
also known as the anode and cathode
crossing an electrolyte barrier.
Sounds complicated? It is.
What's important is that these lithium ions
must travel through a liquid electrolyte.
Think of them like passengers passing through security
at an airport.
The direction of travel is one way.
This flow of electrically charged particles
is what we call electricity.
Solid state batteries as the name implies
work differently.
The key difference is that the electrolyte is solid
and there is no barrier, this has a few critical benefits.
First, solids are denser than liquids
that translates to solid state batteries
delivering 2.5 times more energy density
than present lithium ion tech.
Higher energy densities mean lighter batteries,
storing the same amount of energy.
Even more impressive, solid state batteries
have a recharging time, four to six times faster
than current technologies and with fewer liquid parts
they're safer too.
is it too good to be true?
Not at all.
Solid state lithium batteries are coming,
it's simply a matter of when.
Number four, graphene batteries,
graphene was first created in 2004
by a team at the university of Manchester
over 100 years after it was initially hypothesized.
Since then, this wonder material has been heralded
as a solution to everything from touchscreens
to nano robots.
However, graphene batteries remain the holy grail
of this infant technology.
But how do they work?
And what even is graphene?
Graphene is a hexagonal structure of carbon,
just one atomic layer thick.
Picture a bees' honeycomb,
but with carbon atoms at the corners,
this unusual structure gives it many unusual properties.
Namely, graphene can work as a super capacitor,
which stores current like a conventional battery,
but dispenses the charge rapidly.
Typically batteries are either a high capacity
but slow to charge or low capacity
but fast to charge, graphene batteries are both.
Imagine a smartphone with a battery life that lasts days
and charges within an hour.
You also won't need to replace the battery
every couple of years.
Graphene battery technology is just around the corner.
Back in 2017,
Samsung announced a potential graphene breakthrough
and Tesla and Chinese carmaker GAC
plan to introduce graphene battery technology into vehicles
in the next few months and years.
Number three, carbon nanotube batteries, like graphene,
carbon nanotubes are near legendary in scientific circles.
Potential applications range from space elevators
to micro electronics.
What's less appreciated is their potential energy
storage capabilities.
A team at the advanced material
and bioengineering research center in Dublin
recently presented
a transformative lithium carbon nanotube battery.
The addition of carbon nanotubes
allows the new composite material
a much higher performance and energy density
than traditional battery technology.
With an energy density twice that of current cells,
the researchers promise electric cars with double the range
for the same size.
As lead investigator, Paul King notes,
by packing more energy into a smaller space,
this new battery technology will have a profound impact
on 5G and the entire networked world.
Whether the latest promise of nanotubes will revolutionize
the world of batteries remains to be seen.
Number two, liquid flow batteries,
liquid flow batteries were announced by Harvard scientists
who claim to have developed a battery that stored its energy
in organic molecules.
What makes flow batteries so noteworthy
is their unique design
rather than encasing the electrolyte mix
inside a single battery cell.
Flow batteries, separate their electrolytes into two tanks,
charged particles then flow out of the tanks
and through the cell, this gives liquid flow batteries
a remarkable advantage, they're refillable.
No longer will drivers need to worry about range anxiety.
Instead, electric vehicles would increasingly resemble
their fossil fuel chugging cousins.
With existing pipe infrastructure already in place,
we could readily move electrolyte fluids
to service stations, retrofitted to pump battery liquid
in place of gasoline.
Yale chemistry professor Hailiang Wang
called the technology a possible game changer,
but don't expect to start refilling your electric vehicle
anytime soon.
Indeed, the exact benefit of flow batteries
may spell their undoing.
One of the most appealing qualities of electric vehicles
is the ability to charge them at home,
with flow batteries that's simply not possible.
It also leaves countries lord by energy independence
hooked on another rare substance.
Vanadium is the electrolyte of choice for flow batteries.
The problem, however,
is that the material is found primarily in Russia
with political tensions between Russia and the west growing,
nations may not wanna find themselves reliant
on the Northern giant again,
even despite the benefits of flow batteries.
Number one, next gen lithium ion batteries.
If it's not broken, why fix it?
That's the logic behind recent advancements
in lithium ion batteries using new negative materials
like silicone or lithium titanium oxides.
These next gen batteries should store more power
while lowering reliance on increasingly rare materials.
Lithium ion batteries still offer the highest level
of energy density and fast charge.
And though they're likely to be replaced
in the coming decades,
expect the most advanced lithium ion batteries
to be deployed before solid state batteries hit the shelves,
with advances including low self discharge, long lifetimes,
and the potential for thousands of charging
and discharging cycles,
lithium ion batteries are still perfectly suited
for most modern applications, at least for the time being.
But what do you think?
Which battery technology is set to change the future
or is there an even more powerful technology
we didn't mention?
Let us know in the comments below,
if you enjoyed this video,
make sure to watch out for the next video
on seven emerging technologies that will change our world.
Thanks for watching.
We'll see you next time.
(cheerful music)