Here's an interesting read...

[kwilcox]

Its about changing the manufacturing process instead of the chemistry.

http://qz.com/433131/the-story-of-th...uring-as-well/

[PNjunction]

Ah yes, the ol' redox-flow battery. Good stuff and I wish them well. BUT ....

Please note that I'm not jumping on you, this is just me responding to that article...

The lab is one thing - and the real world is another. For example, what good does it do if they meticulously manufacture a good product, only to be cut down by copy-cats with less stringent manufacturing? Since the average consumer, or even corporate buyer tends to look only at the bottom line for the lowest bidder, will that poor construction from the gray-market end up hurting the industry when purchasers blame the technology for accidents and abuse, and not the shoddy manufacturing of the product itself?

Do you have a sufficient patent-war-chest to fend off the inevitable patent-war, and bring the product to market in a reasonable amount of time before the next thing hits?

In the end, this endless cycle of improvements leads to the question of "why don't you improve the quality, cost of manufacturing, marketing and distribution processes of what you ALREADY have at your fingertips?"

Consumers are tired of the endless cycle of introduction, investment, and then moving on to the next thing before perfecting what already is. They aren't scared of moving too fast, but tend to see the WASTE that goes into not perfecting what they have already invested in!

Thing is, John Goodenough (referenced at the end to another good article) points out that we can be spending a lot of time making *incremental* improvements, when in fact we should be making a jump instead. Apparently he's working on it, but of course real world implementation if he does find it is another matter.

[sensij]

Ah yes, the ol' redox-flow battery. Good stuff and I wish them well. BUT ....

I think you skimmed a bit too quickly. Although the profiled company started out with the flow concept, they realized it was a dead end and have switched to a static structure.

The rest of your post... why does anyone innovate ever? Whether this company succeeds or a copycat does, the end result is likely to be better for the consumer.

[posplayr]

I think you skimmed a bit too quickly. Although the profiled company started out with the flow concept, they realized it was a dead end and have switched to a static structure.

The rest of your post... why does anyone innovate ever? Whether this company succeeds or a copycat does, the end result is likely to be better for the consumer.

Even more remarkable they claim to be able to instantiate the equivalent of "Moore's Law" in battery production. Something that would throw a lot of spreadsheet calculation on their ears around here.

[PNjunction]

lthough the profiled company started out with the flow concept, they realized it was a dead end and have switched to a static structure.

Gotcha - I went back and re-read it. Still I have no idea what the heck it is really, other than they can manufacture it, and hope to bring it to market. What exactly is their "static" battery? In understand lithium (what chemistry - linmc, lifepo4, some other combination ?? ), and that it does not need any sort of tanks. Is it just a redox-shuffle battery made of lithium without the ordinary tanks? I guess I'm missing it somehow or the article does not want to go into details that battery guys like me are looking for.

It seems that the DOE has funded part of it - unless I'm wrong again. Thing is *I* am the DOE, inasmuch as I pay TAXES to support their funding efforts. Wish I had a say in the matter for sure. I'd certainly say that the DOE funding efforts need more scientific oversight to make sure they are working for *ME*, being their employer in the grand scheme of things. The other question is how much technology have I funded with my taxes only to really end up funding corporate patent-portfolio-warchests instead of the product itself? Why not skip the middleman and just pay taxes to lawyers directly?

The rest of your post... why does anyone innovate ever? Whether this company succeeds or a copycat does, the end result is likely to be better for the consumer.

The real issue is that the first step to truly become innovative and promote progress, is to START with PATENT REFORM. The fact that NPE's (Non-Producing-Entities, aka "patent trolls") are allowed to exist, whose sole purpose is not to produce anything other than patent litigation for either themselves, or the highest bidder! Stifles innovation from two-guys-in-a-garage, to major corporations. You know they have "think tanks" that hire engineers and innovators who choose the path of not producing anything, but making a buck on litigation when someone who does want to bring something to the world is jumped on from under the bridge.

We are even at the state where mathematical principles are patented, and these scum patent trolls just lay in wait for your product to gain some traction, and then nail you for following a mathematical model!

The crucial part of this is that even with patent-reform, it takes GLOBAL ENFORCEMENT for it to mean anything.

So in the end, you could say I'm bullish on technology and distrust motives. I'm saddened by that actually.

[kwilcox]

Well, the gist of the article is that the process now used to manufacture LI batteries arose not so much from an analysis of the technology itself but from the availability of existing facilities. This has led to an expensive/slow process that was re-evaluated and massively streamlined by Chiang's team . There's nothing different about the chemistry; simply the way the batteries themselves get constructed. Chaing's "breakthrough" therefore, is drastically reduced construction time along with massive simplification of the production assembly line. Ultimately, as with any mass production process, that equals a dramatic cost reduction for LI tech.