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Lithium Ion Breakthrough - Skepticism. Google has big O coming - March 25, 2017John Goodenough (understated name for probably best battery physicist of our time!) has openly responded to a hefty degree of pessimism many fellow scientist tried to pour onto his recent announcement of a major technology breakthrough in battery design. The skeptics point to the fact that the proposed new solid state lithium battery purports to use the same materials on both sides of electrode. Some compare his breakthrough to dubious claims by rogue inventors perfecting "cold fusion"... Ahh, but John is no slouch! Our 94 year old scientist who invented the ubiquitous lithium ion technology we all use today had a simple and elegant rebuttal. "Yes - normally you need different materials on both sides of the separator to create power from that electrochemical reaction." That is normally... "In this case, scientists wonder how it is possible to strip lithium from the anode and plate it on a cathode current collector to obtain a battery voltage since the voltage is the difference in the chemical potentials (Fermi energies) between the two metallic electrodes," Goodenough stated in an email to ComputerWorld. "The answer is that if the lithium plated on the cathode current collector is thin enough for its reaction with the current collector to have its Fermi energy lowered to that of the current collector, the Fermi energy of the lithium anode is higher than that of the thin lithium plated on the cathode current collector."
Stay tuned. My Money is on John! He believes this new technology could offer up to 3 times the energy storage capability compared to our best current lithium ion designs while making the battery itself much more stable and safer. Keep going John...
Also, Google has hinted that it's newest operating system (currently known as O) will help improve battery life. It seems it will accomplish longer run-times chiefly through managing background application energy consumption more efficiently. These improvements make a lot of sense to us. Sometimes the lowest hanging fruit on the "longer run time tree" are simply reducing energy demand,,, Think screen brightness for instance
