Tiny excerpt: “Made from a stack of solid layers, the Sakti3 prototype battery has an anode and cathode at the ends and a solid-state electrolytic layer in between, creating something akin to a battery sandwich. Rather than requiring exotic production equipment, the battery’s layers are deposited individually onto a substrate using techniques similar to those employed in low-cost, thin-film processing, such as the method used to put the foil onto potato-chip bags. Rather than being made from battery parts that are assembled with an electrolytic paste in between, the Sakti3 design is built one layer at a time to create the electrodes and the electrolyte in between.
This new method could usher in an era in which the batteries are made right on the phone, tablet or notebook’s circuit board, improving packaging, efficiency and reliability, Sastry said. ”A solid-state battery can make the packaging of electronics much easier,” she added.”
File it in the “3 to 5 years away” category with all the stuff that never happened because the PR was a huge extrapolation of some experimental setup. The concept is getting old.
Proof of the concept harder, and making it work in high-speed production can be a killer. It was either Kodak or Polariod (I can’t remember) who developed a layered film battery that worked great in the lab. When rolls of the battery film went onto the production machines they ignited, destroying the whole roll in a flash. They finally solved the issue but because of the delays and the investment in the new factory and machines they almost went broke first. And it didn’t matter in the end.
I’m all for the dreamers who try, but personally I’m a skeptic because at best only 5% of the new ideas come to fruition in the market.
