Categories: Energy / General Market Commentary
Topics: General Energy / General Market Commentary

The Future of Battery Technology

The Future of Battery Technology

 

This is the final part of "The Battery Series", a five-part infographic series that covers everything investors need to know on battery supply, demand, raw materials, and evolving technology.

There’s no doubt that the lithium-ion battery has been an important catalyst for the green revolution, but there is still much work to be done for a full switch to renewable energy.

The battery technology of the future could:

Make electric cars a no-brainer choice for any driver.
Make grid-scale energy storage solutions cheap and efficient.
Make a full switch to renewable energy more feasible.
Right now, scientists see many upcoming battery innovations that have the promise to do this. However, the road to commercialization is long, arduous, and filled with many unexpected obstacles.

THE NEAR-TERM: IMPROVING THE LI-ION

For the foreseeable future, the improvement of battery technology relies on modifications being made to already-existing lithium-ion technology. In fact, experts estimate that lithium-ions will continue to increase capacity by 6-7% annually for a number of years.

Here’s what’s driving those advances:

Efficient Manufacturing

Tesla has already made significant advances in battery design and production through its Gigafactory:

Better engineering and manufacturing processes.
Wider and longer cell design allows more materials packaged into each cell.
New battery cooling system allows to fit more cells into battery pack.
Better Cathodes

Most of the recent advances in lithium-ion energy density have come from manipulating the relative quantities of cobalt, aluminum, manganese, and nickel in the cathodes. By 2020, 75% of batteries are expected to contain cobalt in some capacity.

For scientists, its about finding the materials and crystal structures that can store the maximum amount of ions. The next generation of cathodes may be born from lithium-rich layered oxide materials (LLOs) or similar approaches, such as the nickel-rich variety.

To view infographic and links for parts 1-4 please click link  http://www.visualcapitalist.com/future-battery-technology/