scishow
Why Haven't We Built a Better Battery?
YouTube: | https://youtube.com/watch?v=w-DRv-9ZCT4 |
Previous: | 5 Ways Biology is Changing How we Design Buildings |
Next: | We Use Black Holes to Study Tectonic Plates |
Categories
Statistics
View count: | 226,247 |
Likes: | 11,891 |
Comments: | 1,206 |
Duration: | 05:25 |
Uploaded: | 2021-03-29 |
Last sync: | 2024-12-07 06:00 |
Citation
Citation formatting is not guaranteed to be accurate. | |
MLA Full: | "Why Haven't We Built a Better Battery?" YouTube, uploaded by SciShow, 29 March 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-DRv-9ZCT4. |
MLA Inline: | (SciShow, 2021) |
APA Full: | SciShow. (2021, March 29). Why Haven't We Built a Better Battery? [Video]. YouTube. https://youtube.com/watch?v=w-DRv-9ZCT4 |
APA Inline: | (SciShow, 2021) |
Chicago Full: |
SciShow, "Why Haven't We Built a Better Battery?", March 29, 2021, YouTube, 05:25, https://youtube.com/watch?v=w-DRv-9ZCT4. |
This video was created in partnership with Bill Gates, inspired by his new book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” Find out more here: http://gatesnot.es/3qLlFgq
Improving batteries is a tough problem, but it’s also an important one because in many ways the future of our planet also depends on the future of batteries. Luckily, scientists are on the case, figuring out ways to give this essential technology a power-up!
Hosted by: Michael Aranda
SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It's called SciShow Tangents. Check it out at http://www.scishowtangents.org
----------
Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow
----------
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever:
Silas Emrys, Charles Copley, Drew Hart, Jeffrey Mckishen, James Knight, Christoph Schwanke, Jacob, Matt Curls, Christopher R Boucher, Eric Jensen, Lehel Kovacs, Adam Brainard, Greg, GrowingViolet, Ash, Laura Sanborn, Sam Lutfi, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, charles george, Alex Hackman, Chris Peters, Kevin Bealer
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow
Tumblr: http://scishow.tumblr.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow
----------
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2021/12/29/germany-commits-to-65-renewable-power-by-2030
https://www.energy-storage.news/news/solar-farm-fitted-with-batteries-to-meet-grid-output-control-requirements-g
https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/07/27/141282/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/
https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/how-does-lithium-ion-battery-work
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/archive/understanding_lithium_ion
https://www.cei.washington.edu/education/science-of-solar/battery-technology
https://qz.com/1588236/how-we-get-to-the-next-big-battery-breakthrough/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15355-0
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-sodium-ion-battery-performs-as-well-as-some-commercial-lithium-ion-models
Images:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SoSie%2BSoSchiff_Ansicht.jpg
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/solar-panel-and-wind-turbine-farm-clean-energy-gm1158175328-316278191
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/energy-storage-gm1142103436-306261484
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/large-battery-storage-system-gm922351938-253193393
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/laptop-with-low-battery-sign-on-screen-vector-illustration-gm1297044382-390287953
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/technician-repairing-broken-smartphone-on-desk-gm1094496306-293755261
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lithium-Ionen-Accumulator.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Li_ion_laptop_battery.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nissan_Leaf_012.JPG
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/lithium-ion-rechargeable-battery-gm697302134-129173227
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/all-hand-emojis-gestures-vector-icons-set-biceps-fist-folded-hands-victory-hand-gm1204852539-346846313
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/chemical-periodic-table-of-elements-with-color-cells-vector-illustration-gm840464844-136968499
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15355-0
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/potato-light-on-gm512156433-46816914
Improving batteries is a tough problem, but it’s also an important one because in many ways the future of our planet also depends on the future of batteries. Luckily, scientists are on the case, figuring out ways to give this essential technology a power-up!
Hosted by: Michael Aranda
SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It's called SciShow Tangents. Check it out at http://www.scishowtangents.org
----------
Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow
----------
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever:
Silas Emrys, Charles Copley, Drew Hart, Jeffrey Mckishen, James Knight, Christoph Schwanke, Jacob, Matt Curls, Christopher R Boucher, Eric Jensen, Lehel Kovacs, Adam Brainard, Greg, GrowingViolet, Ash, Laura Sanborn, Sam Lutfi, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, charles george, Alex Hackman, Chris Peters, Kevin Bealer
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow
Tumblr: http://scishow.tumblr.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow
----------
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2021/12/29/germany-commits-to-65-renewable-power-by-2030
https://www.energy-storage.news/news/solar-farm-fitted-with-batteries-to-meet-grid-output-control-requirements-g
https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/07/27/141282/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/
https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/how-does-lithium-ion-battery-work
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/archive/understanding_lithium_ion
https://www.cei.washington.edu/education/science-of-solar/battery-technology
https://qz.com/1588236/how-we-get-to-the-next-big-battery-breakthrough/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15355-0
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-sodium-ion-battery-performs-as-well-as-some-commercial-lithium-ion-models
Images:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SoSie%2BSoSchiff_Ansicht.jpg
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/solar-panel-and-wind-turbine-farm-clean-energy-gm1158175328-316278191
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/energy-storage-gm1142103436-306261484
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/large-battery-storage-system-gm922351938-253193393
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/laptop-with-low-battery-sign-on-screen-vector-illustration-gm1297044382-390287953
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/technician-repairing-broken-smartphone-on-desk-gm1094496306-293755261
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lithium-Ionen-Accumulator.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Li_ion_laptop_battery.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nissan_Leaf_012.JPG
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/lithium-ion-rechargeable-battery-gm697302134-129173227
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/all-hand-emojis-gestures-vector-icons-set-biceps-fist-folded-hands-victory-hand-gm1204852539-346846313
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/chemical-periodic-table-of-elements-with-color-cells-vector-illustration-gm840464844-136968499
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15355-0
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/potato-light-on-gm512156433-46816914
This video was created in partnership with Bill Gates, inspired by his new book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” You can find out more about how we can all work together to avoid a climate disaster in the link below. [♩INTRO].
Renewable energy is the future. The cost just keeps going down, and for lots of countries, the goal is to transition to as much renewable energy as possible. But for some of the more popular options, like solar and wind power, there’s a problem: the supply is inconsistent.
Maybe it’s cloudy for a few days, or there’s not much wind for a while. But people still need electricity. The solution might seem obvious — just build batteries and save extra power for when you need it. But it’s not that simple, because battery technology hasn’t come far enough.
You can try building enormous arrays of them, but at a certain point, it’s just too expensive. And it turns out, there are some very good reasons why making improvements is hard. But scientists are on it.
Also, quick aside: It might seem like new laptops and phones have better battery life every year, but that’s mostly from improvements to the rest of the device. They allow manufacturers to cram in bigger batteries and better processors that draw less power. Some of the best battery tech we have is what’s known as lithium-ion. It’s what’s in your phone, your laptop — maybe even your electric car.
These batteries have three main parts: . Two sides that store electric charge, and an electrolyte separator between them. One side is the cathode, usually made of a chemical compound called a lithium metal oxide.
The compound is a combination of lithium, oxygen, and some metals — like cobalt. The other side is the anode, and it’s most often made of sheets of crystalline carbon, a.k.a. graphite. The same stuff that’s in pencils.
And finally, separating these two sides is the electrolyte. This is a material that’s designed to allow positively-charged lithium ions to pass through, but not negatively-charged electrons. When you charge a battery, lithium ions from the cathode are released and travel through the separator, where they’re stored in the graphite anode.
Then, when you use the battery to power something, the opposite happens: The lithium ions are released by the anode and pass through to the cathode. Ultimately, this creates an imbalance where there’s more negative charge in the anode and more positive charge in the cathode. To balance things out, the electrons in the anode travel to rejoin their lithium friends in the cathode.
But since they can’t pass through the separator, they take the only route available — through the device you’re powering. In general, the more ions you can fit in a battery, the more energy it will be able to store. And part of why lithium-ion batteries are so popular is that lithium ions are very small, even for ions.
So you can store more of them without increasing the battery’s size and weight. In other words, they have a high energy density. And researchers have been working to increase it even more, so that we can use batteries for bigger projects — like power storage, and also bigger electric vehicles. But that’s not simple. For instance, one way to increase the energy density of a battery would be to have an anode that can store more lithium ions when the battery is charged. And there are materials like that! Like, silicon can hold more lithium ions than graphite.
But because of the way it’s structured, those extra ions also make it expand. The expansion cracks through a protective layer around the anode, and the battery loses a bit of its silicon — and its capacity — the next time you charge it. So the battery doesn’t last as long.
Another main way researchers are trying to increase energy density is by improving the cathode. But that’s equally tricky. Two main things you need from a good cathode are a high energy density, and also a high conductivity. In other words, you need a bunch of ions, but they also need to move fast to generate that current.
Unfortunately, many cathode materials with high energy density and high conductivity tend to be less stable and less safe. They also tend to be less sustainable, because they often use metals that are less abundant on Earth. So like with anodes, a lot of research has focused on energy density. One way to improve the cathodes here might be to use a metal oxide with more nickel in it, and less of the harder-to-find cobalt. Because of the way nickel ions are structured, they can lose more electrons than some of the other metals used in cathodes, giving the battery a higher energy density.
Problem is… this super-charged nickel isn’t exactly stable. So it tends to react with other parts of the battery, messing with its structure and again, destroying the battery’s capacity over time. Now, researchers are working on ways to prevent this — and on ways to improve anodes. So there is hope for the future!
Progress has just been slow, and we’re not quite at the point where it’s practical to build huge battery arrays to support all our solar and wind power. We’re getting closer, though. And to supplement this research, other scientists are also looking into other types of batteries that rely on different kinds of chemistry and physics.
Because in the end, improving batteries is a tough problem. But it’s also an important one — because in many ways, the future of our planet also depends on the future of batteries. Really, though, many of the solutions to climate change are complicated.
It’s a big problem with a lot of pieces — but it’s not a hopeless one. If you want to learn more about how we could actually get to a world with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, you might like Bill Gates’s new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” It talks about batteries, but also about how we feed ourselves, how we heat and cool our buildings, how we get around, and more — and how we could do those things more responsibly, from an individual to a government level. You can find out more about how we can all work together to avoid a climate disaster in the link below. [♩OUTRO].
Renewable energy is the future. The cost just keeps going down, and for lots of countries, the goal is to transition to as much renewable energy as possible. But for some of the more popular options, like solar and wind power, there’s a problem: the supply is inconsistent.
Maybe it’s cloudy for a few days, or there’s not much wind for a while. But people still need electricity. The solution might seem obvious — just build batteries and save extra power for when you need it. But it’s not that simple, because battery technology hasn’t come far enough.
You can try building enormous arrays of them, but at a certain point, it’s just too expensive. And it turns out, there are some very good reasons why making improvements is hard. But scientists are on it.
Also, quick aside: It might seem like new laptops and phones have better battery life every year, but that’s mostly from improvements to the rest of the device. They allow manufacturers to cram in bigger batteries and better processors that draw less power. Some of the best battery tech we have is what’s known as lithium-ion. It’s what’s in your phone, your laptop — maybe even your electric car.
These batteries have three main parts: . Two sides that store electric charge, and an electrolyte separator between them. One side is the cathode, usually made of a chemical compound called a lithium metal oxide.
The compound is a combination of lithium, oxygen, and some metals — like cobalt. The other side is the anode, and it’s most often made of sheets of crystalline carbon, a.k.a. graphite. The same stuff that’s in pencils.
And finally, separating these two sides is the electrolyte. This is a material that’s designed to allow positively-charged lithium ions to pass through, but not negatively-charged electrons. When you charge a battery, lithium ions from the cathode are released and travel through the separator, where they’re stored in the graphite anode.
Then, when you use the battery to power something, the opposite happens: The lithium ions are released by the anode and pass through to the cathode. Ultimately, this creates an imbalance where there’s more negative charge in the anode and more positive charge in the cathode. To balance things out, the electrons in the anode travel to rejoin their lithium friends in the cathode.
But since they can’t pass through the separator, they take the only route available — through the device you’re powering. In general, the more ions you can fit in a battery, the more energy it will be able to store. And part of why lithium-ion batteries are so popular is that lithium ions are very small, even for ions.
So you can store more of them without increasing the battery’s size and weight. In other words, they have a high energy density. And researchers have been working to increase it even more, so that we can use batteries for bigger projects — like power storage, and also bigger electric vehicles. But that’s not simple. For instance, one way to increase the energy density of a battery would be to have an anode that can store more lithium ions when the battery is charged. And there are materials like that! Like, silicon can hold more lithium ions than graphite.
But because of the way it’s structured, those extra ions also make it expand. The expansion cracks through a protective layer around the anode, and the battery loses a bit of its silicon — and its capacity — the next time you charge it. So the battery doesn’t last as long.
Another main way researchers are trying to increase energy density is by improving the cathode. But that’s equally tricky. Two main things you need from a good cathode are a high energy density, and also a high conductivity. In other words, you need a bunch of ions, but they also need to move fast to generate that current.
Unfortunately, many cathode materials with high energy density and high conductivity tend to be less stable and less safe. They also tend to be less sustainable, because they often use metals that are less abundant on Earth. So like with anodes, a lot of research has focused on energy density. One way to improve the cathodes here might be to use a metal oxide with more nickel in it, and less of the harder-to-find cobalt. Because of the way nickel ions are structured, they can lose more electrons than some of the other metals used in cathodes, giving the battery a higher energy density.
Problem is… this super-charged nickel isn’t exactly stable. So it tends to react with other parts of the battery, messing with its structure and again, destroying the battery’s capacity over time. Now, researchers are working on ways to prevent this — and on ways to improve anodes. So there is hope for the future!
Progress has just been slow, and we’re not quite at the point where it’s practical to build huge battery arrays to support all our solar and wind power. We’re getting closer, though. And to supplement this research, other scientists are also looking into other types of batteries that rely on different kinds of chemistry and physics.
Because in the end, improving batteries is a tough problem. But it’s also an important one — because in many ways, the future of our planet also depends on the future of batteries. Really, though, many of the solutions to climate change are complicated.
It’s a big problem with a lot of pieces — but it’s not a hopeless one. If you want to learn more about how we could actually get to a world with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, you might like Bill Gates’s new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” It talks about batteries, but also about how we feed ourselves, how we heat and cool our buildings, how we get around, and more — and how we could do those things more responsibly, from an individual to a government level. You can find out more about how we can all work together to avoid a climate disaster in the link below. [♩OUTRO].