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Will's Review of Chins "Solid State?" Battery (Ganfeng LiEnergy Cell)

hankcurt said:
You might be thinking of the way lithium metal reacts with water violently to form lithium hydroxide and releases hydrogen gas in the process, which will usually self ignite from the heat of reaction.

With a lithium ion battery fire, most of the heat is coming from the flammable electrolyte reacting with the oxygen released from the electrode material. There isn't so much elemental lithium available to react with the water that adding water will make the situation worse, and as @Vigo said, the important thing is to bring down the temperature and prevent fire spread to other nearby materials.

There was an extensive test done in 2013 on EV batteries to see how effective water was at extinguishing an electric car fire. For people who like reading and pictures of burning batteries, there is nearly 200 pages of smoldering goodness to enjoy. It appears that they made a car mock-up with a Chevy Volt battery in it and then used burners to heat it until it caught on fire. They measured internal heat, car chassis electrical current and fire hose electrical current. All of the hose nozzle current readings were under 2 ma. Anyway, they came to the conclusion that water could be safely used to contain the lithium battery fire, with a high risk of self re-ignition once it appeared the fire was out.
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Thank you for the detailed answer, much appreciated.
 
While researching if there was something new about dendrites, I ran across this, and it makes me ask a question about Will's test - because this publication talks about dendrites in the so-called solid-state battery:

www.designnews.com

Three Ways That Lithium Dendrites Grow

New research shows that lithium metal crystals grow in three different ways in lithium batteries, depending upon the current level at which charging takes place.
www.designnews.com www.designnews.com

And what I'm reading into it is that perhaps these solid-state batteries aren't designed to handle the ultimate dendrite from a drill going through it from the outside. :) Yes, that forces an event.

BUT, under normal non-penetrating use where the growth of dendritic material can short or penetrate the separator, is either not there or vastly attenuated from previous types making these saf(er). Not as much as we LFP afficianados are used to, but maybe consider the solid-state an improvement over previous types under non-penetrating conditions.

And while it may not be related to the Chin's new battery, the *research* cells indicated that abuse with high-current could override these no-dendrite safety improvements. It is unknown if purposely abusing a Chin's solid-state with very high currents would do the same or if the bms would prevent that from happening.

According to the Amazon description, the new electrolyte of this "Semi-Solid State" is "very safe and environmentally friendly". And "effectively suppress the formations of substances that cause battery failure". To me, that suggest the suppression of dendrites. And perhaps not have any major harmful effects if Will breathed in a snootful of all that junk when the drill-dendrite got driven through it. :) I am not a doctor though.

Here I am only considering the cells themselves, and not the performance of the all-in-one unit overall.
 
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I fooled myself and let my marketing guard down!

Thought about it for a bit.

Chin's description on Amazon uses two definitions: "Solid State" and "Semi Solid Lithium Technology" (as of the time of this writing) is contradictory. Either it is, or is not, solid-state. Using electrolyte answers that question.

One must be careful when using buzzwords around us battery nerds!

Until further details are known, what we have here is a cell with an improved electrolyte that inhibits the growth of dendrites like a *real* solid-state cell would do. Um, Ok.

But Will proved that unlike a solid-state cell, this version, the "semi-solid-lithium technology" will go up in flames if punctured just like previous tech.

AND - the claim of being environmentally friendly - is compared to WHAT? One of your existing products? To one of your LFP cell's own electrolyte? Or to that of a lead-acid battery? To do that would mean revealing all the chemical components of your electrolyte.

Whew, thought I lost my marketing mojo. :)
 
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Substrate said:
Chin's description on Amazon uses two definitions: "Solid State" and "Semi Solid Lithium Technology" (as of the time of this writing) is contradictory. Either it is, or is not, solid-state. Using electrolyte answers that question.
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Contradictory marketing terms? Stop the presses! :)

Solid State just means a solid electrolyte, but it more commonly refers to a solid electrolyte paired with a lithium metal anode (as described in your article). Solid state lithium batteries are not new - 10 years ago there were already EVs in France that used them. The longest range version of the Mercedes e-Citaro bus uses a later version of those same batteries. But Bollore's batteries need to be heated to 80 deg C to work well, and even then they don't put out as much power as conventional cells because lithium ions don't flow as freely through their solid electrolyte. Bollore also used old-style LiFePO4 cathodes with low energy density, offsetting a lot of the gains you get with a lithium metal anode.

The goal is:
- lithium metal anode
- solid state electrolyte (to prevent dendrites)
- high density cathode (take your pick)
- low temperature operation

Quantumscape gets a lot of attention. They have the lithium metal anode, high density cathode and low(ish) temperature operation. They use a "semi-solid state" electrolyte. The anode sees no liquid, but they use a liquid/gel electrolyte on the cathode side, which they call a "catholyte", to help get the ions moving.

What does Chins use? I don't know, but it's not that.
 
Yep - *overall*, the improved electrolyte with an attenuation or retardation of dendrite growth is a good thing!

Especially when abused and recharged. It may also serve to extend service life as well. We'll need another 10 more years to see, since sausage-factory cycling under lab conditions does not represent real world usage.

And of course this is all for naught if the manufacturing process isn't tight and you have poor offsets, or the cells are allowed to delaminate and come back together with skewed offsets by not using proper compression in the consumer item (like laptop case itself) cell surrounds. (Quality-made cylindricals naturally solve this problem at the outset, but it was not unheard of for some cell makers to have bad offsets too, and might have been one of the issues that made a very early EV using LFP's to have an event and got bad press. The LFP was fine, it was a manufacturing mistake the cause - but back then reporters lumped all lithium chemistries as one and the same and so got the blame.)

But, if you take one camping with you, (like every lithium battery maker shows), break out the guitar, and suddenly your battery is attacked by a flock of woodpeckers - it's game over with these. Or if Will sneaks out from a bush and puts a drill through it. You still have to call the fire department. :)
 
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Substrate said:
Yep - *overall*, the improved electrolyte with an attenuation or retardation of dendrite growth is a good thing!

Especially when abused and recharged. It may also serve to extend service life as well. We'll need another 10 more years to see, since sausage-factory cycling under lab conditions does not represent real world usage.

And of course this is all for naught if the manufacturing process isn't tight and you have poor offsets, or the cells are allowed to delaminate and come back together with skewed offsets by not using proper compression in the consumer item (like laptop case itself) cell surrounds. (Quality-made cylindricals naturally solve this problem at the outset, but it was not unheard of for some cell makers to have bad offsets too, and might have been one of the issues that made a very early EV using LFP's to have an event and got bad press. The LFP was fine, it was a manufacturing mistake the cause - but back then reporters lumped all lithium chemistries as one and the same and so got the blame.)

But, if you take one camping with you, (like every lithium battery maker shows), break out the guitar, and suddenly your battery is attacked by a flock of woodpeckers - it's game over with these. Or if Will sneaks out from a bush and puts a drill through it. You still have to call the fire department. :)
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I'm always hiding in the bushes with my drill looking for batteries left alone. You guys better watch out ?
 
What would be really funny is to find Will's doppelganger in Australia, and have Andy from off-grid-garage make a serious video, with the doppelganger sneaking around in the background drilling batteries, pulling breakers, disconnecting stuff like the ac plug to Andy's computer running the battery analyzer ..

Hilarious! :) Or do the reverse - find Andy's doppelganger in the U.S. and have him doing shenanigans in the background to Will's videos! All good fun.

We've got the makings of a battery sitcom right here!
 
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why would li ion battery have puncture tests done from factory? Doesnt all li ion end in catastrophic failure when punctured?
 
Scph9002 said:
why would li ion battery have puncture tests done from factory?
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They do, I remember seeing a video made of a destructive test made by a Chines company with similar results. On the other hand, not all manufacturers are willing to show those things as people might misinterpret the results.

Scph9002 said:
Doesnt all li ion end in catastrophic failure when punctured?
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That depends on your interpretation of the term "catastrophic"... Catastrophic in the sense they no longer work as advertised, yes. Catastrophic in the sense they explode, most don't.
 
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