How long with a T105 battery last if its never used?

[Mike90250]

........
So now the question becomes, if I set up a NiFe bank from "BeUtilityFree" and exercise it a couple times a year, how long would it last? I suppose I can plan on storing enough KOH to replenish the batteries a few times..

You will have to call them about that projected usage pattern. Their self-discharge rate is pretty high, and they will be quite low after just a couple months.

[Murby]

NiFe needs better than 95% KoH - the higher purity, the longer the electrolyte lasts. Water vapor transmission through a bucket wall (and maybe Co2) may degrade it too much in 5-10 years. But if it's still in flakes, thats a good sign

Thanks for that information! That's good to know.. So I'm thinking that storing the KOH in a sealed PVC Pipe with glued pipe ends and then putting that into a mylar bag and vacuum seal it.. The PVC stops the KOH from reacting with anything, the Mylar stops O2 from infiltrating through the pvc.

I wrote Rolls an email today and asked them about dry storing batteries and the response I got indicated it is problematic on several levels but could be done for a few years if I didn't mine some degradation...
Very happy with the speed at which they responded, not so happy with the response.. I was hoping for a better answer.

Looks like NiFe is the leader in this quest...

So now the question becomes, if I set up a NiFe bank from "BeUtilityFree" and exercise it a couple times a year, how long would it last? I suppose I can plan on storing enough KOH to replenish the batteries a few times..

[Mike90250]

NiFe needs better than 95% KoH - the higher purity, the longer the electrolyte lasts. Water vapor transmission through a bucket wall (and maybe Co2) may degrade it too much in 5-10 years. But if it's still in flakes, thats a good sign

[max2k]

you're very hmm resourceful - I won't be surprised that the next thing you might have is portable nuclear reactor which would make us all look like fools Be careful around Li- ion - before becoming paperweight they tend to start fire. They're also lousy paperweights due to relatively light weight, FLA beats them down easily. LFP type seems much safer in general.

[Murby]

Some really interesting stuff here...

NiFe - batteries last long time, the electrolyte slowly gets poisoned by atmospheric Co2 and has to be replaced every 5-10 years. Electrolyte is KoH, which does not store easily, and has to be mixed with distilled water. Also batteries are about 60-70% efficient, so larger PV array is needed.

I have several 5 gallon buckets (about 200 lbs) of 92% KOH Flake.. Is that what is used in NiFe batteries or is the KOH in a higher purity form? We use it to make Potassium Methoxide for biodiesel production.. I haven't made biodiesel in a long time (8 to 9 years?) but the KOH flake in the Home-Depot buckets is still in good condition... You can tell because when it goes bad it clumps.. Yes, it has to be kept in an air tight container, but a standard hardware store bucket with an o-ring in the lid works fine. You can also use a 4 inch pvc pipe with caps...

Lead Acid - if you have a commercial Dry Box with nitrogen purge, it will keep. Just gotta keep the O2 away from the lead plates or they oxidize. Or purge and seal in oxygen proof mylar bags to keep O2 out of them. Not as easy as it sounds, A couple pinholes and you end up with a battery full of dust in 6 years

Sounds like a job for a few Oxygen Absorbers.. Its basically just iron dust in a little bag that oxidizes and sucks up all the oxygen out of a mylar bag.... I have hundreds of them for long term food storage. 1/2 my supply of food stores is in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers to scrub the oxygen out.

Powerwall & Sonnen - no history & warranty is pointless if you need it, they won't be around. My early comment was homemade LFP bank balanced and idle at 60% SoC. seems to be the simple solution,, but will Li base battery last that long? Not a large base of product chemistry & years to stand behind yet.
I discount laptop and phone batteries as being usable - they have 500 or so cycles and live 3 years or so.,

Ya, but a 10 year warranty says a lot about their quality expectations. Also, I get laptop batteries by the dozens.. Each battery pack has 6 to 8 batteries in them... I break them open to pull out the lithium-ion 18650 cells to use in various things.. (mostly flashlights, or adapting them for smoke alarms, ). What I almost always find is that there is one or two bad cells and the other 4 to 6 cells are in near perfect condition. The bad cells were dragging down the good cells. This is one of the things I worry about with the Powerwall.. although, I think Tesla has their own, slightly larger, version of the 18650 cell.

The thing I like most about the NiFe is the reliability factor... its the same as a lead acid battery yes?.. There's just nothing that goes wrong with them.. Lithium Ion is a higher energy density, better charge and discharge, etc etc... but if anything goes wrong, the whole darn thing just becomes a paperweight...

[Mike90250]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, this isn't even close to a true statement. NiFe batteries have a life expectancy measured in decades... The Tesla Powerwall as well as Sonnen both have 10 year warranties.... and as for Lead Acid, if you store one of them dry, it should last forever shouldn't it?

NiFe - batteries last long time, the electrolyte slowly gets poisoned by atmospheric Co2 and has to be replaced every 5-10 years. Electrolyte is KoH, which does not store easily, and has to be mixed with distilled water. Also batteries are about 60-70% efficient, so larger PV array is needed.

Lead Acid - if you have a commercial Dry Box with nitrogen purge, it will keep. Just gotta keep the O2 away from the lead plates or they oxidize. Or purge and seal in oxygen proof mylar bags to keep O2 out of them. Not as easy as it sounds, A couple pinholes and you end up with a battery full of dust in 6 years

Powerwall & Sonnen - no history & warranty is pointless if you need it, they won't be around. My early comment was homemade LFP bank balanced and idle at 60% SoC. seems to be the simple solution,, but will Li base battery last that long? Not a large base of product chemistry & years to stand behind yet.
I discount laptop and phone batteries as being usable - they have 500 or so cycles and live 3 years or so.,

[J.P.M.]

You should give yourself more credit if you caught it.

Why ? I heard about that in 9th grade general science. I saw the post and didn't think it worth a comment. Old news.

[max2k]

You should give yourself more credit if you caught it.

well we were deep in survivalist discussion so I wasn't 100% sure anymore after keeping laptops for 3 years and EMF protecting metal barrels .

[SunEagle]

...
I won't need distilled water... I will be filling my lead acid batteries with Dihydrogen Monoxide.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

I have the patent information for the machinery and the secrete formula for a top secret process to make this stuff...and I have purchased the complex equipment for that purpose.

Made my post before I read your latest responses so I have removed my comments. I guess I am just wet from the DHMO I spilled when I read that post.

The funny part is that I use to live in your neck of the woods and from what I remember you will not be really isolated from the mobs that will overrun any place you have built to hole up in.

Listen if you really want to build a solar/battery system then go for it. But thinking that it will save you through a SHTF situation you are not facing reality.

Unless your hobbies have helped you develop a way to leave the planet until the S settles back down.

[Murby]

when kidding you better use smaller font so the slow ones like myself would have easier time to catch up

if it was serious then you need to read up on chem 101 as Dihydrogen Monoxide is the same stuff as H2O AKA water.

The link got me curious- who came up with that stuff and why? They even have MSDS 'safety sheet' which correctly shows boiling point at 100 C and melting at 0 C and its molecular mass of 18 . Aside from the fact that Celsius scale was actually derived from those points therefore it is kind of backwards it's all good .

You should give yourself more credit if you caught it.

[Murby]

You are clueless. No battery is coming out of storage and last 5 years. There are very few batteries that last 5 years when new.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, this isn't even close to a true statement. NiFe batteries have a life expectancy measured in decades... The Tesla Powerwall as well as Sonnen both have 10 year warranties.... and as for Lead Acid, if you store one of them dry, it should last forever shouldn't it?

So in what way is your statement true?

I rest my case.

Have a drink of some Dihydrogen Monoxide and relax...

[Murby]

when kidding you better use smaller font so the slow ones like myself would have easier time to catch up

if it was serious then you need to read up on chem 101 as Dihydrogen Monoxide is the same stuff as H2O AKA water.

The link got me curious- who came up with that stuff and why? They even have MSDS 'safety sheet' which correctly shows boiling point at 100 C and melting at 0 C and its molecular mass of 18 . Aside from the fact that Celsius scale was actually derived from those points therefore it is kind of backwards it's all good .

Dihydrogen Monoxide is one of the funniest science jokes I've ever run across.. I'm an engineer myself and my hobbies are astrophysics and quantum physics.. I talk to professional physicists on forums like this one when I have questions...some of these guys are just too funny... and I just get a giggle every time I pull that one out of my bag and dumb people fall for it without thinking...

When is see statements like "Where are you going to get distilled water?"... I just can't resist... its just too darn funny..

[J.P.M.]

when kidding you better use smaller font so the slow ones like myself would have easier time to catch up

if it was serious then you need to read up on chem 101 as Dihydrogen Monoxide is the same stuff as H2O AKA water.

The link got me curious- who came up with that stuff and why? They even have MSDS 'safety sheet' which correctly shows boiling point at 100 C and melting at 0 C and its molecular mass of 18 . Aside from the fact that Celsius scale was actually derived from those points therefore it is kind of backwards it's all good .

Max: Scientific humor has been around a long time. A well developed branch of science. See: "The Journal of Irreproducible Results". Or: "A random Walk in Science". That second title is far and away the most valuable book I own, especially when I start taking myself too seriously and need a bitch slap.

[max2k]

...
I won't need distilled water... I will be filling my lead acid batteries with Dihydrogen Monoxide.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

I have the patent information for the machinery and the secrete formula for a top secret process to make this stuff...and I have purchased the complex equipment for that purpose.
...

when kidding you better use smaller font so the slow ones like myself would have easier time to catch up

if it was serious then you need to read up on chem 101 as Dihydrogen Monoxide is the same stuff as H2O AKA water.

The link got me curious- who came up with that stuff and why? They even have MSDS 'safety sheet' which correctly shows boiling point at 100 C and melting at 0 C and its molecular mass of 18 . Aside from the fact that Celsius scale was actually derived from those points therefore it is kind of backwards it's all good .

[Sunking]

Sure you don't want to reconsider that statement? You don't think a battery can last 5 years??? Almost any battery will last 5 years..

You are clueless. No battery is coming out of storage and last 5 years. There are very few batteries that last 5 years when new.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html[/url]
I have the patent information for the machinery and the secrete formula for a top secret process to make this stuff...and I have purchased the complex equipment for that purpose.

I rest my case.