Over and over again, my mind wanders back to the topic of batteries- battery capacity, materials, chemistry, markets, prices, and so on. If I am going to worry about them this much, I really ought to understand the science behind them.
I have studied plenty of math and physics at the college level, but not much chemistry. There are at least two kinds of batteries that I think I’d like to attempt to build in my kitchen, so obviously I am looking for the kind of information that will help me do that. But mere assembly instructions won’t cut it- I want to build them from the raw materials up. Whether or not I can pull that off, I’d like to be able to trace the science all the way down to a fundamental level.
Are there any good textbooks that would help me do this? (If you’re worried that I am going to start a lithium fire, relax, lithium batteries are not what I have in mind. But of course I want to understand the electrochemistry of those, too.)
Ok, I checked those out. Those are some good leads, but to answer my question I’d need someone versed in electrochemistry to recommend one. Do you know the field? Do you know if one of those texts is better for my purposes than the others? I’m not afraid of the math or the technicality of it, but I do need something that starts from the beginning and fleshes out the foundations of the subject well. And, provides enough information that I could build a little prototype (maybe I’ll have to work on my lab skills separately).
If you worry about batteries, then maybe you’re the person that’s going to bring them into the 21st century. I’m constantly amazed by the progress we aren’t making in battery design/chemistry.
That lack of progress isn’t due to insufficient effort but rather the basic limitations of chemical storage of energy; without restoring to combustion (or detonation) reactions, the rate of energy conversion and the available energy density is just unimpressive, not to mention the sensitivity to ambient temperatures. An order of magnitude improvement in energy storage in chemical batteries is just not a realistic expectation, which therefore places a limit on the usage of electricity for primary power in mobile applications such as automobiles.
John Newman’s Electrochemical Systems is really the standard text for the fundamentals of electrochemistry. (Bard is perhaps more widely known, but not as good for applied electrochemistry.) However, practical batteries are much more than just chemistry. There is also heat transfer, fluid flow, chemical kinetics, power management systems, et cetera that all play into effective energy storage system design. Whole careers have been made in very narrow areas of the design of particular types of batteries, and understanding all of the nuances in battery design is a herculean task.
Perhaps not. Some things I have read suggest a 4x improvement may be within reach, which should be sufficient. But don’t take my word for it- I have a lot of studying to do first.
“4X improvment” of what? Energy density? Effective capacity? Discharge cycle life? Cost per kJ? There are a number of different metrics to assess battery capabilities, all of which have to be improved before the electrochemical battery will be genuinely suited to replace internal combustion engines in the majority of appliocations. And there are some basic physical limitations of what can be done with the consituants and chemical kinetics of electrochemical batteries which are not going to be overcome regardless of the amount of research or money put into them. This is why supercapacitors were all the rage in the late 'Nineties and early 'Noughts–they seemed to promise performance that was easily an order of magnitude better than chemical batteries by at least an order of magnitude in every respect and ended up being comparable or better to combustion reactions. Unfortunately, effective and safe supercapacitors have proven to be even further out of reach. Modern electric vehicles such as the Tesla use the same lithium-ion batteries that you find in laptop computers, with the same limitations and at a cost point that will not make them truly competitive at a commodity price range.
The solid state is pretty cool, and like I said, 4x. But as you imply, you gotta shop around. Other approaches have lower density but maybe a better cycle-life or what-have-you.
Agreed. But that doesn’t put the kibosh on my interest in batteries. Want to know what I plan to do first? Gather some raw materials, some wire, a torch or something and some of these. Build a battery from scratch and make the light bulb shine with it. Bonus points if I charge the battery with the solar panel out of one of these. I will call it the H-1, whose only criteria is that it works. Yes, I have more ideas to follow, but I think I had best start with the H-1. I’m hoping Newman’s book gives me the know-how.
Well, there is still a lot of room for growth for Tesla’s batteries. But that is beyond me for now.
Electochemical Systems provides fundamentals and general applications in electrochemistry. It is not a how-to book on making electrochemical batteries. It doesn’t go into the engineering details of constructing a failsafe battery system or how to safely handle the caustic and sometime flammible and poisonous materials used in batteries. If you really don’t know much about the practical aspects of basic chemistry laboratory work, you really need to develop that skill first prior to experimenting in your kitchen workshop. Many of these chemicals, when combined together in a form useful for batteries, are just a step below explosives in hazard and toxicity.
I don’t think the kinds of batteries I want to play with would be explosive. There may be a commercial application, but I doubt it’ll make me famous. Still, I don’t want to be too specific, and in any case I won’t be starting construction on the H-1 anytime soon.
But look. IMHO you are one of the smartest people on here, and worth heeding. I have some basic chemistry lab skills, but not much. My primary goal is to understand what battery materials are doing, and why, on a fundamental science level, and the Newman book sounds right for that. If you would like to recommend an electrochemical engineering manual or a lab skills for wildcat chemists manual, feel free. I swear I am not going to commit a crime with the knowledge, and am not oriented toward exploring explosives. I am friends with some engineers who may be able to advise. Yes, future experiments may be more dangerous, but those are years away if this even lasts that long.
chemistry can have many dangers; fire, explosion, toxicity.
doing chemistry in your home, in a room used for other activities, in a room where food is prepared is a serious hazard. industrial chemistry can be dangerous.
kitchen chemistry done for kids education with current safer experiments might be an exception.
early chemists worked at home and some maybe in their kitchen. what is wondrous is not just what they discovered but that they and their families lived.
Some didn’t. The history of developing fuels and oxidizers for rocket and jet propulsion systems is rife with accidents, some nearly catastrophic. Under the right conditions, seemingly innoculous substances can form hazardous and reactive compounds. And accidents happen even to professional chemists in well-equipped laboratories. Here are a couple of examples of what can happen. The cited text has minimal information about lab hazards or proper procedures, but honestly, I’ve never seen a very comprehensive chemistry lab safety manual; all I’ve seen are produced by and for individual academic and industrial labs, and tend to be both specific about the processes and equipment in the lab and not mention things “everybody knows” such as putting glass marbles or sand in the bottom of a beaker to nucleate reactions and prevent localized overheating.
The point is, before mucking about with reactive chemicals (which all chemicals used in high energy batteries are by their very nature) make sure you have thoroughly familiarized yourself with both the hazards posed by the chemicals themselves (via MSDS sheets, GHS classification, NFPA 704 labels) and the specific hazardsof the reactions you are conducting. Just looking at chemical equations isn’t going to tell you much about the hazards; lab chemistry is a mostly empirical art in which experience comes from (hopefully other peoples’) mistakes.
BTW, I’ve been involved on the user side with the development, manufacture, and application of all kinds of batteries, including wet cell, polymer matrix, NiMH, thin film cells, molten salt, and supercapacitor storage/accumulators. In the labs and manufacturing facilities where such batteries are constructed and tested, they are treated with caution as flammible or reactive items and the cell case design is constructed in order to contain excessive reations or vent explosive hazards. (Thermal batteries are, of course, treated like ordnance.) This just isn’t something to take lightly or casually.
Noted. I ordered the Newman book and expect it will be some time before I perform any experiments. I seem to be making friends with a biologist who may be able to walk me though some lab skills. Hopefully I can ask a few more questions here at some point without testing anyone’s patience. Thanks for the advice!
Have fun! As mentioned, please be careful. It helps to keep things small. That way, even at phenomenal energy and power densities, there’s just less boom that can happen.
Newman is easier to read, but everyone knows Bard, so that can be worth nabbing if you can find a cheap copy. It also has practice problems.