Why NASA is Building a Solid State Battery

this is NASA they build Rockets telescopes  and batteries yeah that's right of all the   amazing NASA breakthroughs that have trickled  down into our everyday lives things like CAT   scans memory foam and the insulin pump none may  be as gamechanging as NASA's recent solid state   battery breakthrough NASA's Sabers battery might  actually have just pulled off the holy Grill of   Battery tech a high powerered solid state battery  that could Electrify 90% of commercial Aviation so   how does NASA's new battery change the game  and just how big a deal is it are solidate   batteries really the future of e-mobility let's  figure this out together I'm Ricky and this is   Two bit Da [Music] Vinci this video is sponsored by  ATMO it may surprise you that NASA the National   Aeronautics and Space Agency would put money  into battery research but when you think about   it it makes sense NASA makes things that fly  and the only way you can do that is by making   them as light and Powerful as possible so they  can carry as much energy on board as possible   and fly longer distances this is so typical in  engineering there's always a trade-off so NASA   does research on engines and energy sources  trying to make them as energy dense and power   dense as possible and for most of NASA's history  that meant researching rocket engines ice turbines   and rocket fuel but with everything going electric  now that means batteries as well okay so here's   what we know about NASA's battery so far about  4 years ago on October 1st 2019 NASA launched   the estate architecture batteries for enhanced  rechargeability and safety AKA project Sabers   I don't know who comes up with these names but uh  it's always a doozy the plan was to develop solid   state batteries for commercial Aviation and  Urban Air Mobility basically electric planes   air taxis and flying cars the primary goal was to  develop a battery that's safer more efficient more   energy dense and more resilient than conventional  lithium ion batteries the saber's battery uses a   solid state electrolyte instead of the typical  liquid or gel electrolytes we see in lithium on   batteries today which is why it's called a solid  state battery let's do a quick rundown on how   batteries in general work so you can understand  what we're talking about here most batteries like   your typical lithium ion cell in your phone  or laptop are made of three parts a cathode   an anode and an electrolyte sandwich between the  two the anode active material is where all the   energy is stored when you use a battery to power a  laptop for example the anode oxidizes and releases   the electrons that move to the laptop circuits  powering it you can think of the cathode as a   bucket that receives all those electrons once they  make it out of the laptop because they have to go   somewhere right now this is the only thing that  happened we'd have a buildup of positive charge   in the anode and negative charge in the cathode  because all the negative electrons filling up in   the bucket and the reaction would quickly stop  and that's where the separator and electrolyte   come in the separator keeps the anode and cathode  from short circuiting and it doesn't let electrons   through only the ions the electrolyte in normal  batteries is simp simply a salt dissolved in   organic solvent which is flammable and that's what  causes the fires we've seen on so many of these   YouTube videos in the past in a solid electrolyte  battery the electrolyte is well solid so you don't   need to have liquid or gel that allows the ions  to pass through it can actually pass through from   the electrolyte itself this means much higher  safety and potentially much better performance   but there's other challenges one of the great  pleasures of making these videos is all the   research we get to do on really cool topics for  instance we've done two videos on fires in Maui   and Canada and it's got me thinking about air  quality in a whole new way and I got to tell   you about our sponsor this week atmo and this  the atmo tube Pro this amazing little device   is a game changer for understanding the air  quality around you in real time the atmo tube   Pro detects a range of pollutants from volatile  organic compounds voccs like paint and gases to   particulate matter pm1 pm2.5 and pm1 pollutants  such as dust and pollen and to get a perspective   of just how small that is here's what they  look like compared to a grain of sand it is   so small and light you can clip it to your belt  or backpack and check air quality in real time   wherever you go it even measures temperature  humidity and barometric pressure I took with   me on a recent trip to the fully charged live show  in Vancouver and luckily air quality was good but   that data is powerful with the atmo 2 Pro you can  set personalized alerts for specific air quality   standards and get notifications if the quality  drops below those levels what could be more   important than protecting our families the food  we eat the water we drink and the air we breathe   get up to 30% off the atmo 2 Pro until September  23rd check it out today links in the description   huge thanks to atmo and you for supporting the  show the head of Sabers Dr Roco vigano and his   team had a Monumental task ahead of them they  needed to find the right electrolyte material   and an anode cathode combination that would  perform better than lithium ion batteries it's   a tall task then they had to design electrolyte  that would be easy and cheap to make at scale   one that wouldn't depend on rare materials and  reach the supply chain bottlenecks down the road   and one that would be safe to use both at ground  level and at cruising altitudes it was anything   but easy but they finally settled on the selenium  sulfur chemistry we'll discuss why in a moment the   team worked tirelessly for years tweaking the  composition combining with other materials and   in October 2022 they finally published the results  we compared the Sab battery to the best performing   lithium on batteries and this is what we found the  news saers battery has a specific energy density   of 500 WS per kogam which is almost twice that of  the typical lithium ion battery making it around   40% lighter for the same amount of energy 40% is  a huge Improvement it means you can get the same   amount of energy in roughly half the weight so  when we talk about energy density there's two ways   of doing it gravimetrical energy density meaning  weight and then volumetric meaning the amount of   volume it takes up here's a really quick sidebar  okay hydrogen is a amazing for energy density in   terms of weight right hydrogen is a gas when you  compress it it has a ton of energy by weight but   it's really bad volum metrically and that's  because the vessels that you need take up a   ton of space so volumetric density for hydrogen  bad gravimetric good so for Batteries is kind of   the same thing so how does the volumetric energy  density for the Sabers battery compare really   good reaching over 800 W hours per liter lithium  ion cells only reach about 500 W hours per liter   this means saber batteries are also roughly 40%  smaller than lithium on batteries in terms of   volume picture your phone's battery being half the  size and half the weight but performing just as   well or picture exactly the same battery pack in  your EV but giving you twice the range pretty cool   right but the benefits don't stop there you can  drive a nail right through it and it'll keep on   working since there's no liquid that would drain  out there's also no flammable organic solvent to   catch fire so say goodbye to batteries that swell  up and have ther thermal runaway reactions now   this is crucial for airplanes lithium on batter's  optimal temperature range is between 59f and 95°   F such a narrow range requires active thermal  management adding weight and complexity and   reducing efficiency saber's operating temperature  can go from 32° F around 0° C to 302° F 150° C   which means it works safely and well in pretty  much all flying conditions without a bulky an   energy intensive thermal management system  okay so let's put on our engineering hats for   just a moment and dissect NASA's battery to see  what makes it special compared to other solate   batteries and I promise it'll be really brief the  anode is simply made of metallic lithium now this   is in contrast to most lithium on batteries that  have graphite or silicon as the anode material a   pure lithium anode is about as good as it gets so  that's a really good start the cathode is a bit   more complex it's made of a combination of sulfur  selenium selenium sulfide compounds and a patented   porous graphine called holy graphine they chose  the lithium sulfur chemistry because it has a very   high theoretical specific energy of 2,680 w hours  per kilogram which is almost three times that of   lithium Cobalt oxide batteries is approximately  980 WS per kilogram in theory we should be able to   store around 5 to 10 times the amount of energy in  current lion batteries in a future Sabers battery   of the same weight remember more energy density  is better for Mobility like EVS electric planes   not as critical for your phone although if your  phone lasted 2 days instead of one I'd take that   but sulfur alone is a bad ionic conductor adding  selenium to the mix increases conductivity so we   can get more power but there's a trade-off because  it lowers the energy density so team and NASA   worked hard to optimize the ratio of the two to  balance energy density and power density energy   density is just how much energy it has so if you  have a 1 Kow hour battery you can run 1 kilowatt   for 1 hour that's the energy but that 1 kilowatt  is how much power density it has how high of an   output could you put out in terms of current so  you need to have both in terms of highs scale   applications like aircraft the holy graphine acts  as a scaffold that does two things it makes the   cathode electrically conductive because graphine  is a great conductor and it lets us compress the   cathode into a thin and stable layer without  adding a polymer binder which is typically   used in every other solid state cathode making it  heavier but the key component of the whole system   is a solid state electrolyte obviously Sabers  batteries use one of two lithium Rich solid   electrolytes lgps which is highly conductive  and allows high power batteries the problem is   that it has geranium which costs 10 times more  than silver because it's hard to extract this   makes this electrolyte expensive and possibly only  viable for space missions where price isn't that   important and two arite which is far cheaper but  it's also less conductive so you get less power   these electrolytes exchange lithium ions moving  through the crystal lattice from one electrode   to the other the best thing about this Solid  State Design is it allows for something called   bipolar stacking bipolar stacking means that we  can stack cells back to back with both electrodes   sandwiching the same current collector foil  this is important because it lets us connect the   battery cells in series Without external wiring  and without individual housings for each cell   it's a little bit nerdy but bear with us we can  do this with lithium on battery cells too but it   requires high quality coating technology accurate  balancing and advanced thermal management this is   why you see ev battery packs made in separate  individually house cells that then have to be   connected through external conductors welded onto  the positive and negative electrodes this has so   many benefits it reduces the weight and volume of  the battery pack it increases the system voltage   it also makes it easier to layer these cells in  different geometries and possibly adapt to the   shape or Contour of an aircraft for example it's  easy to see why Dr vigano and his team at Nasa are   so excited about their breakthrough the Sabers  program has implications beyond the field of   Aviation they could also benefit the electric  vehicle industry offering a safer and more   efficient alternative to lithium ion batteries air  taxi services and commercial airlines could also   benefit from these batteries due to their higher  energy density and quick charging capabilities   we can also use them on space missions to power  Rovers and space suits and space stations and   everything else but after looking at the numbers  the one question on my mind is can the saber   battery realistically power a commercial jetliner  and really help Electrify Long Hall air travel and   the answer will surprise you we set out to find  the specs of the most popular commercial aircraft   in the world the Boeing 737 in production since  1968 with a total of 10,877 units sold to see   what it would look like to replace its engines  in fuel with electric motors and Sabers batteries   this will be found in the latest model the 737  Max 7 so together the 737s two engines and fuel   which we have to replace weighs 57,7 60 lb and it  produces a peak power output of 30 megaw let's see   how that would work out for our Sabers batteries  we consider the amount of fuel its energy density   about 12,000 WS per kilogram and the efficiency  of the leap engines and the efficiency of the   best electric motors and power transmission  units we could find to calculate the amount   of energy we'd need to store in batteries for an  equivalent performance at saber's 500 W hours per   kilogram rating we'd need a mass of 188,000 kg and  that's not counting the motors the best possible   alternative for a high power electric motor is  mit's Prototype 1 megawatt electric motor which   weighs only 57.4 kg for a specific power power of  17 KW per kog remember we need at least 30 megaw   of engine power for takeoff which means 30 MIT  engines weighing roughly 1,722 kg so the weight   of the system would be roughly 190,000 kg that's  seven times the weight we are replacing and over   twice the maximum takeoff weight so realistically  the Sabers battery won't help us replace the   popular 737 with an equivalent electric version  at least not with the same 4,000 Mi of range so no   we're not going to be doing transpacific flights  with the saers battery but this doesn't mean it   won't make a significant impact on the airline  industry we don't really need 4,000 nautical   mile range most of the time in fact 90% of all  passenger flights are less than 1500 nautical   miles the largest proportion of flights are around  500 nautical miles long so we could get away with   reducing the range to 17th or approximately 550  nautical miles this won't reduce the mass of the   batteries to exactly 17th but it puts it well  below the maximum takeoff weight 500 nautical   miles will get you from New York to the eastern  border of Ohio Western Michigan North Carolina   and to the tip of Maine or it could also get you  from San Francisco to most of Oregon Nevada and   parts of Arizona so as it stands combined with a  suitable motor like the MIT 1 megawatt prototype   the sabr battery could offer enough performance  to Electrify a very large portion of commercial   flights at least the shorter legs of them in the  mean time it'll be great to see these batteries   and EVS sooner than later just imagine a  battery that's lighter cheaper holds more   energy and that will never catch fire even if you  crash but just we're getting excited about this   breakthrough Battery tech we started finding some  major drawbacks as well the solidate battery's   biggest enemy is power density these batteries  generally suffer from low charg and discharge   rates limiting the amount of power we can extract  or put back in and now this is a major problem for   aircraft that need an immense amount of power for  takeoff and in the case of vtols for hovering it's   like having a massive tank of water connected to a  tiny hose when you need to put out a fire you have   all the capacity in the world you just can't get  it out fast enough researchers claim that the new   battery has an overall 50-fold increase in power  density compared to their earlier prototypes but   just how much power is that NASA doesn't say or  at least we couldn't find that particular piece   of data and it kind of raises a red flag right  but we wouldn't be too bit of viny if we didn't   at least try to come up with an educated guess  based on as's data we know that the sa's battery   can charge at a rate of at least 1 C this means  that it would be fully charged from 0 to 100% in   1 hour this puts a saver's specific power density  at 500 watts per kilogram for comparison a Tesla   4680 cell which weighs 355 G and holds about 97  wat hours of energy can be charged and discharged   in about 15 minutes a rate of 4 C this means that  it has a specific power density of approximately   1100 W hours per kilogram over twice that of  the saber's battery so Sabers has roughly half   the power density of one of the best lithium  on batteries in the market which is nothing   to scoff at considering that most older solidate  batteries had much less than a tenth of that power   another major drawback of the sulfur selenium  battery chemistry is something called polysulfide   shuttling which reduces cycle life significantly  this happens when the sulfur in the cathode moves   or shuttles through the electrolyte and to the  anode a salt electrolyte is supposed to avoid   this completely but I found at least one published  paper where the authors prove that it can still   happen even with solid electrolytes now this can  limit the cycle life of the saber's battery to   only a couple hundred cycles that means charge  and discharge only a couple hundred times low   cycle life means the battery dies sooner and you  have to replace it more frequently adding more   maintenance and downtime costs now these extra  costs are a huge problem especially in the airline   industry that already operates with super tight  margins of as little as 1 to 2% if NASA doesn't   get this fixed I doubt any aircraft manufacturer  would take this seriously and build electric Jets   anytime soon and if they do I doubt any Airline  would buy it there is a silver lining though   because NASA isn't the only one developing solid  state batteries Toyota the world's biggest car   manufacturer by volume unveiled the development  of a nextg solid state battery that will hit   the commercial scale and Market by 2025 Toyota  claims the battery can add 745 Mi of range to   their future EVs and charge fully in 10 minutes  at a rate of 6C which is kind of nuts however   they didn't give any specific details about it so  we'll have to wait and see they plan to integrate   into their lineup of hybrids and plug-in hybrids  by 2025 and into their all electric vehicles by   as early as 2026 now that's just 3 years away and  we'll see because they've dragged their feet until   now always with this promise of a future EV with  solid state batteries but time will tell several   other companies like Nissan are also working on  solidate batteries but the most promising in my   opinion is lighten which is setting itself up to  mass produce a lithium sulfur Sol State Battery   very similar to NASA's Sabers concept this battery  is the brainchild of linton's Chief Battery   Technology officer Selena molac who is famous for  developing batteries for Tesla while the company   launched the model S model X model 3 power wall  and power pack products she then joined Uber as   director of battery engineering and then went on  to Panasonic energy which produces batteries for   Tesla and she later joined quantumscape another  solid estate battery player except for Tesla   where she worked for six years she's been jumping  from company to company every year and a half give   or take now she works at lion lighton claims at  maturity their battery will have an energy density   of 600 W hours per kilogram and 800 wat hours  per liter and costs less than $60 a kilowatt hour   that's almost a third of today's average lithium  ion battery prices at the Pack level which cost   $151 per kilowatt hour we'll have to wait and  see if they live up to their claims or if Selena   leaves before that happen she's already been there  for a year and a half so who knows anyways this   is one of those things that everybody is trying  to develop and there's a reason there's so much   promise behind the lithium ion battery especially  when you remove the electrolyte and go solid   state now Aviation still is a bit of a stretch  admittedly but imagine a car that goes twice as   far right with the same pack and everything  else now if we can get the economics and the   prices down the safety reliability longevity all  together this is one of those home run things this   is one of those watershed moments and it's why  everybody's working on it I'm so relieved and   so happy to know that NASA is one of them so what  did you think how excited are you about Sol State   batteries and how important is NASA in this game  as we mentioned the the video there are a ton   of things in our lives that NASA is responsible  for all right so we thought that was cool check   out this video next and until next week I'm  Rick t d Vinci thank you so much for watching

Channel: Two Bit da Vinci

Views: 1,087,023

Keywords: two bit da vinci, solid state battery, nasa solid state battery, nasa sabers battery, nasa solid-state battery, nasa sulfur selenium battery, nasa space battery, NASA's New Solid State Battery Can REVOLUTIONIZE Travel, sulfur selenium battery, sulfur selenium battery nasa, sulfur selenium, NASA Just Made a Solid State Battery - Perfect Battery?, NASA Just Made a Solid State Battery - Gamechanger?, nasa solid state, Why NASA is Building a Solid State Battery

Id: tOcoGNZaUAM

Length: 20min 11sec (1211 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 21 2023