I was talking to a battery expert about Lithium Sulfer and he didn't seem hopeful, here is what he said: (he's Russian)
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SION is a new name of Moltech company that have been promoting
the Li/Sulfur-organic technology for over 10 year now. Until now
they were not able to solve several serious problems with this
idea, which are:
- solubility of Li poly-sulfides in organic electrolytes, so it diffuses to
opposite electrode and causes high self-discharge.
- need to use metalic Li in assembly, which make technology inherently more
expensive then traditional Li-ion using only passive materials in assembly
- bed cycleability of metallic Li electrode
- need for slow charging (also associated with use of Li-metall)
- regulatory problems with using Li-metall. Basically you are not allowed to have
Li-metall on airoplane, and I doubt it is going to change. Tadiran battery
(having leading researchers in Li-metall anodes, Aurbach and Levi) succseded
in making a working Li/LiMn2O4 battery, but then were forced to limit the
production to serving amateour avia-modelers, I suspect because of still
bad cycleability and regulatory problems.
SION are continuing working on it, magicaly finding more funding after so
many years, and I am curious to see what will come out of it, but
considering above inherent problems, I would not bet my money on it.
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Do you think they will have a lithium based hybrid battery soon? I think lithium is supposed to be much more efficient than NiMH, but I don't know about how many deep cycles it can do.
---------------------------------------------------
SION is a new name of Moltech company that have been promoting
the Li/Sulfur-organic technology for over 10 year now. Until now
they were not able to solve several serious problems with this
idea, which are:
- solubility of Li poly-sulfides in organic electrolytes, so it diffuses to
opposite electrode and causes high self-discharge.
- need to use metalic Li in assembly, which make technology inherently more
expensive then traditional Li-ion using only passive materials in assembly
- bed cycleability of metallic Li electrode
- need for slow charging (also associated with use of Li-metall)
- regulatory problems with using Li-metall. Basically you are not allowed to have
Li-metall on airoplane, and I doubt it is going to change. Tadiran battery
(having leading researchers in Li-metall anodes, Aurbach and Levi) succseded
in making a working Li/LiMn2O4 battery, but then were forced to limit the
production to serving amateour avia-modelers, I suspect because of still
bad cycleability and regulatory problems.
SION are continuing working on it, magicaly finding more funding after so
many years, and I am curious to see what will come out of it, but
considering above inherent problems, I would not bet my money on it.
------
Do you think they will have a lithium based hybrid battery soon? I think lithium is supposed to be much more efficient than NiMH, but I don't know about how many deep cycles it can do.