![]() Researchers have long known that a solid-state design has advantages over batteries that use a liquid or gel, including lithium-ion batteries. Even though the electrolyte is solid, it is porous on a microscopic level, allowing electrons to pass through it. Solid-state batteries are capable of holding much more energy per unit of mass than today’s lithium-ion batteries, which means an EV could go for much longer before needing to be recharged, he said. That was when Sony released the first commercial lithium-ion battery. They would be the biggest step forward in battery technology since 1991, he said. “I would say, first of all, that solid-state batteries are very likely to be the next big thing at the commercial level,” he said. I reached out to George Crabtree, director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, which is based at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, to help explain why these batteries are special. Let’s step back for some solid-state battery 101. The research is notable because this is a solid-state battery, and because it shows the promise of sodium-sulfur batteries as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries for long-duration energy storage. Second, University of Houston researchers published a paper showing how they have developed a glasslike material that is highly effective as an electrolyte-the part of a battery that electrons pass through during cycles of charging and discharging-for use in a sodium-sulfur battery for energy storage. This signals that the technology is now moving from the lab to the factory. We just don’t know when that is going to be.īut in the last 10 days, two announcements offer reasons to think the answer is “sooner rather than later.”įirst, Solid Power, a Colorado-based company developing solid-state EV batteries for partners including Ford and BMW, said it has completed installation of a “pilot production line” that is capable of making about 300 battery cells per week. At some point, the development of solid-state batteries-in which electrons flow through a solid material instead of a liquid or gel-is going to lead to electric vehicles that can go much farther on a charge and battery-storage systems that can hold more energy while taking up less space.
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