This is pretty sparse on details even for the over-saturated category of battery breakthroughs.
I’m sure they’ve got something interesting that is worth investing more development into, but announcements like this have been coming out from various companies and universities for years now.
Most of them seem to quietly fade away, although admittedly, the path to commercialization is often slow. The first lithium ion battery was tested in the lab in 1979, but it didn’t become a commercial product until 1991.
It’s not exactly a graphene battery though: it has a graphene composite battery.
Pure graphene compound cells have a looooong way to go.
Another note:
Having read and understood how graphene composite cells are manufactured (pure graphene compound cells have yet to come in mass production as mentioned before), they are actually cheaper per Wh to make.
But not to manufacture, as while it does not cost much to make in a lab per unit, the machines used to automate them cost a buttload more than the usual.
It will also soon be possible to extract current from the body. Then they will be able to operate in Leds above your eyebrows, and you will never again need a flashlight.
Graphene is such a buzzword. I haven’t been able to find what exactly is this pure graphene battery? Is there a particular design of graphene battery that everyone is so excited about?
As you’ve said, I think all the so-called graphene batteries in production are just Li ion batteries with a slightly modified graphite anode that they market as graphene. Afterall a bunch of single graphene layers stacked together is just graphite.
Pure graphene cells are the ones you always hear about having massive charge rates, massively higher gravimetric energy densities, and are made of simple compounds.
Graphene composite cells are different in this regard: by using layered graphene sheets behind multiple ultra thin separators(which are really hard to make, a reason for being expensive), which allows for a higher surface area/mass ratio, and therefore, lower internal resistance.
On the other side, by having the same amount of surface area as regular graphite anodes, we get less volume dedicated to graphite, and we can put more energy dense compounds compared to what we usually put in.
I’ve heard the claims, but what is the design of the graphene battery? Like what carries the charge inside the battery and what are the two electrodes?