A few days ago, DavidA posted an article from Bloomberg about hybrids that might not need to use rare earths. Buried way down deep in it was a statement that Toyota is working on a magnesium-sulfur battery: "The carmaker revealed this week it’s also working on a magnesium-sulfur battery capable of holding twice the energy of lithium-ion cells. Under ideal conditions, such a battery can store 4,000 watt hours/liter of electricity, Jeffrey Makarewicz, a Toyota battery engineer, said in an interview Jan. 10." From Bloomberg Anyone know what's up with that?
Some work is being done on this ScienceDirect - Acta Physico-Chimica Sinica : Conductive Sulfur-Containing Material/Polyaniline Composite for Cathode Material of Rechargeable Magnesium Batteries
Would be nice but battery tech in a paper and in a car there could be many, many years between the two. There are a lot of alternative approaches to batteries being studied at the moment.
So, does anyone on PC know anything more about the state of development of Mg-S batteries at Toyota, or elsewhere in the car industry? Are they just a concept, or being designed for use in production cars? Moderators? Engineers? Other folks with Toyota contacts?
From the original article toyota said maybe 10 years out, if they materialize. It should be noted toyota is bringing lithium technology to market much slower than expected so take that 10 years with a giant case of skepticism. This is a possible future tech with no solid plans to be used. Most analysis of battery technology show adoption of new lithium technologies and advanced lead acid for auto stop start. MgS is out with a whole range of other technologies and is not a clear winner. Ultra caps are the most promising future tech to be used with other batteries.
Thundersky are doing a Li-S (Lithium Sulpher) battery with twice the energy density of the LFP range (LiFePO4) at 260 kWh/m^3... See thundersky_DOT_com/pdf/20101218154753.pdf Don't know what it costs tho... MW
Here is a correct link. Life cycle looks very good. http://www.thunder-sky.com/pdf/20101218154753.pdf
