Batteries: Past, Present, and Future

History of the Battery

The Idea

The idea for the battery came to be through a peculiar observation in the 1800s. Luigi Galvani, a professor in medicine, watched a frogs leg twitch when subjected to electric current (Hoyer.) This sparked several theories for electricity storage. These theories were then further taken up by an Italian man by the name of Alessandro Volta who created what is now referred to today as the first working battery prototype. He called it the “voltaic pile” and it was “formed by an alternate sequence of two different metals (zink and silver disks separated by a cloth soaked in a sodium chloride solution…” (Scrosati.)

Development

The further development of the battery then picks up in France in 1859. The French Scientist, Gaston Plantè made a profound improvement to battery technology with his “lead-acid rechargeable battery.” And a few years later, in 1901 Waldemar Jungner, a Swedish engineer, discovered the “rechargeable nickel-cadmium battery.” (Scrosati.) You may be wondering why the early development of the battery was spaced out over so many years. This is because there was not the same precedent for creating this technology. In the late 1900s through today, battery technology is developing at a rapid pace. This is because they are used in so many technologies; from mobile phones, vehicles, pacemakers, and everywhere in between.

Below is a diagram of the average energy density of these batteries at the time compared to their specific density.

Now 

The battery has changed a lot since when it was first created. According to History of Litium Batteries, These changes were mainly driven the military demanding, and the increase of consumer electronics (Scrosati.) With this pressure, batteries developed to have higher capacities and be more compact. Today energy is even stored in large-scale facilities and battery trends show exponential increases in battery technology. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Installed power capacity has nearly doubled ever two years since 2011, and by the end of 2017, 708MW was in operation.” (EIA)

Context of Battery Capacity

Battery technology is one of the key reasons behind the rapid technological advancements of the 21st century. Until recent years, progress was slowed by technical issues in capacity which caused size, charge time, and durability to falter. However, recent developments in lithium-ion technology have allowed for battery capacities to increase rapidly, driving progress in smartphones, computers, electric cars and other transportation.

At Miami University, we rely on our laptops and smartphones to increase the efficiency of our academic capabilities. Only a decade ago, limitations in battery technology were holding these portable electronics back, confining us to bulky home computers that were magnitudes more expensive. In just the last 5 years, smartphone battery capacity has grown from around 2500 mAh to 3500 mAh, a 40% increase.

Similar to smartphones, laptop battery capacity has gone through some dramatic increases, while not on the scale of other technologies. One example could be the Apple MacBook Pro which boasted a 4.5-5.5 hr battery life on its 2006 model compared to 10 hours on the current 13-inch model. Laptop battery capacity has faced challenges from consumer demand for thinner designs, increased performance and features, and degradation affecting quality over time. Like other fields associated with batteries, the scale of progress is highly dependent on finding new types of batteries as Li-ion tech is reaching a plateau.

Battery capacity technology has far reaching consequences beyond being able to stay on your laptop/phone for a few more hours. Increased usability and reliability of batteries will be key for replacing antiquated technologies that have been responsible for the destruction of our environment. A key area of distribution is in the Electrical Vehicle market which has seen prices drop to relatively competitive levels for the first time. With the Tesla Model 3 in 2018 and even more efficient vehicles to surface in the next couple of years, transportation is one industry that may see the largest transformation from battery capacity advancements. The best capacities today are in the 80-100 kWh zone with driving ranges up to 350 miles per charge. This is in stark contrast to even 5 years ago when cars had ranges less than 50 miles.

All of these modern applications of battery technology would have been impossible without the modern lithium ion battery. Before the Li-ion emerged in the early 90’s, the most prominent battery type was the lead-acid which has been around for almost 150 years now. Switching between the two has resulted in batteries with a much larger capacity, increased durability, a more efficient energy conversion, faster charging, and 10x more cycle life. Without the current Li-ion battery, many of the products that we consider essential to the digital age would not exist in their current form and our lives would be fundamentally different.

Future of the Battery

While batteries have already proven to be a viable technology for storing large amounts of energy for many applications, their development is far from over. For a world so reliant on their use in cars, electronics, and energy backup systems, today’s batteries often times under deliver. The batteries of today--even advanced lithium-ion models--often have somewhat low life spans due to users putting them through deep discharge cycles (i.e., waiting to charge your laptop battery until it is low on power) that are typical of daily use (He.) When they are finally disposed of, they can actually cause more environmental harm than the public might assume. Most batteries contain acids, along with chemicals like lead, zinc, and mercury that have the potential to seep through the ground of landfills and tarnish the drinking water supply (New Hampshire DES.)

Yi Cui with his prototype battery. Stanford.

Additionally, as engineers are looking for batteries to see higher usage of batteries in cars and as reserves in power plants, batteries need to be made more durable and with higher capacities than current models and, more importantly, be more sustainable if the question of green and clean energy is concerned.

Thus, the future of battery technology has three facets: durability, capacity, and sustainability, with the latter facet arguably being the most crucial. Maintaining cheaper production costs should also be considered. Many different research projects have already emerged to tackle this challenge and are quite successful thus far. Many different materials are being considered for the next primary battery component, among them waste, sodium, and even water.

Just this year, a team at Stanford University developed a prototype for a manganese-hydrogen based battery that would run on water modified with salt. The prototype is tiny and only produces a small amount of energy (20 milliwatt hours), but the team, led by Professor Yi Cui, is, “confident they can scale up this table-top technology to an industrial-grade system that could charge and recharge up to 10,000 times, creating a grid-scale battery with a useful lifespan well in excess of a decade.” (Abate.) Such a system would be infinitely more sustainable than current lithium-ion systems and would provide little waste when disposed of. That’s without mentioning the fact that these batteries will be able to run much longer before being disposed of.

Another approach in crafting the perfect battery is to switch to a material that is as well-known as Lithium, but more common and readily available. Sodium fills this need. While the idea of sodium-ion batteries has been in the works for a long time, it has recently come closer to fruition thanks to researchers at Purdue University. They have developed a sodium powder that will keep electrons in check so that they can hold a charge, also minimizing the element’s risk of combusting (Wiles). With this powder, batteries can be made for holding energy at power plants. While these batteries will have significantly more mass than their lithium-ion counterparts, they will be much more inexpensive.

Example of a Sodium-Ion battery. Phys.org

For over a century, the battery has proven itself a useful medium for storing various amounts of electricity, whether on the go or on site at a home or power plant. Endless types of batteries have been unveiled over the years, each one an improvement over the last. Even within the past few decades, batteries have seen new use in cars and cellular devices, leaving modern consumers to be more dependent on them. New methods of charging batteries are also being created at an increasing rate. Technologies like uBeam allows for charging of devices through the air. Companies like StoreDot have created systems that will charge mobile batteries in the span of 30 seconds (Landridge & Edwards, 2018). However, it’s definitely time for scientists to come up with foolproof new battery technology that is more durable and sustainable in order to support the future needs of a growing world.

Works Cited

Abate, T. (2018, May 01). New water-based battery offers large-scale energy storage. Retrieved December 07, 2018, from https://news.stanford.edu/2018/04/30/new-water-based-battery-offers-large-scale-energy-storage/

Hoyer, K. G. (2008, January 14). The history of alternative fuels in transportation: The case of electric and hybrid cars. Retrieved December 07, 2018, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178707000768

Iclodean, C. (2017). Comparison of Different Battery Types for Electric Vehicles. Materials Science and Engineering. Retrieved December 6, 2018, from http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/252/1/012058/pdf

Landridge, M., & Edwards, L. (2018, October 02). Future batteries, coming soon: Charge in seconds, last months and power over the air. Retrieved December 07, 2018, from https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air

Mikolajczak, C., Kahn, M., White, K., & Long, R. T. (2011). Lithium-Ion Technology Applications. Lithium-Ion Batteries Hazard and Use Assessment SpringerBriefs in Fire, 25-30. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-3486-3_2

N. (n.d.). Batteries. Retrieved December 07, 2018, from https://www.des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/p2au/pps/ppuwmp/batteries.htm

Rioja, A. (2018, January 14). 17 Best Smartphones with Largest Battery Capacity [2018 List]. Retrieved December 6, 2018, from https://www.fluxchargers.com/blogs/flux-blog/best-smartphones-largest-battery-capacity-life

Scrosati, B. (2011, May 4). History of lithium batteries. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10008-011-1386-8.pdf

Tektronix, Inc. (n.d.). Lithium-Ion Battery Maintenance Guidelines - newark.com. Retrieved December 7, 2018, from https://www.newark.com/pdfs/techarticles/tektronix/LIBMG.pdf

Ulvestad, A. (2018). A Brief Review of Current Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Potential Solid State Battery Technologies. ArXiv Material Science. Retrieved December 6, 2018, from https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.04317.

US Energy Infornation Administration. (2018, May). U.S. Battery Storage Market Trends. Retrieved from https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/electricity/batterystorage/pdf/battery_storage.pdf

Wiles, K. (2018, September 19). Super cheap earth element to advance new battery tech to the industry. Retrieved December 07, 2018, from https://phys.org/news/2018-09-super-cheap-earth-element-advance.htm

Zurschmeide, J. (2018, April 23). New Lithium Metal Batteries Could Triple the Range of EVs. Retrieved December 6, 2018, from https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/lithium-metal-battery-research-could-triple-ev-ranges/