Whatever happened to glass batteries?
November 17, 2022 8:56 AM Subscribe
Some years ago now, John Goodenough and Maria Braga announced a new type of battery with seemingly miraculous properties. There was a lot of skepticism about it, Hydro Quebec licensed the technology for production, and then…nothing. I haven't been able to find any news about it. Has there been any?
There's nothing on the Hydro-Quebec website after the initial press release, and the technology doesn't seem to be given any prominence in the general descriptions of what they're doing. It's not mentioned in the quarterly report and I couldn't find references anywhere even on their research institute's pages. Not that they are very specific about anything.
Based on my R&D experience (albeit in a totally different industry) I'd say this rules out being remotely close to commercialization, and it's likely that their path through development and commercialization includes question marks they're not sure they can answer. Beyond that it's nigh impossible to tell how things are going in private research at this stage: it could be anywhere from an investment quietly written off in embarrassment, to a small team working on it just so they don't lose contractual rights, to the most exciting thing people in early research are doing. Don't expect more news for five years would be my rule of thumb.
I'd add that it is not at all unusual for a multi-billion dollar company to make a bad scientific investment based on the sort of hype this story got. You might think they'd have the internal expertise to turn it down if it wasn't promising, but that tends not to be how decision making works at scale. The corporate partnership team often chases things the internal people don't like (sometimes for defensible reasons, sometimes not.)
Finally, if you've been googling for this I assume you've seen even the basic research claims have come under fire even without taking commercialization factors into account?
posted by mark k at 10:16 AM on November 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
Based on my R&D experience (albeit in a totally different industry) I'd say this rules out being remotely close to commercialization, and it's likely that their path through development and commercialization includes question marks they're not sure they can answer. Beyond that it's nigh impossible to tell how things are going in private research at this stage: it could be anywhere from an investment quietly written off in embarrassment, to a small team working on it just so they don't lose contractual rights, to the most exciting thing people in early research are doing. Don't expect more news for five years would be my rule of thumb.
I'd add that it is not at all unusual for a multi-billion dollar company to make a bad scientific investment based on the sort of hype this story got. You might think they'd have the internal expertise to turn it down if it wasn't promising, but that tends not to be how decision making works at scale. The corporate partnership team often chases things the internal people don't like (sometimes for defensible reasons, sometimes not.)
Finally, if you've been googling for this I assume you've seen even the basic research claims have come under fire even without taking commercialization factors into account?
posted by mark k at 10:16 AM on November 17, 2022 [4 favorites]
I found this relatevely recent article on IEEE Spectrum. It mentions that it's a "Gen 3" battery, and that it could be glass or ceramic. HQ research center website has a whole page on solid electrolyte batteries and it does mention work on a Gen3 ceramic (+polymer) battery (see at bottom).
posted by bluefrog at 11:01 AM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by bluefrog at 11:01 AM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Here's a recent video about John B Goodenough from Just Have a Think (really the whole channel is excellent).
This is another one from Undecided with Matt Ferrell that (at the end) talks about a new company that employs a bunch of people who formerly worked with John Goodenough.
My experience as an outsider who occasionally peeks into this world is that the number of 'game changing' technologies that make it to market is essentially 0. Not actually zero, but it seems like a difficult enough field that you can't count on anything until it makes it to the consumer.
posted by Acari at 12:25 PM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is another one from Undecided with Matt Ferrell that (at the end) talks about a new company that employs a bunch of people who formerly worked with John Goodenough.
My experience as an outsider who occasionally peeks into this world is that the number of 'game changing' technologies that make it to market is essentially 0. Not actually zero, but it seems like a difficult enough field that you can't count on anything until it makes it to the consumer.
posted by Acari at 12:25 PM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
HQ research center website has a whole page on solid electrolyte batteries and it does mention work on a Gen3 ceramic (+polymer) battery (see at bottom).
I'd seen that. Note there's a whole range of groups working on and approaches to ceramic batteries; the Goodenough/Braga research being a very specific one. I assumed from the presentation that the HQ lab wasn't solely building off the license agreement with Goodenough in this research, but it's certainly possible I'm wrong about that.
posted by mark k at 1:48 PM on November 17, 2022
I'd seen that. Note there's a whole range of groups working on and approaches to ceramic batteries; the Goodenough/Braga research being a very specific one. I assumed from the presentation that the HQ lab wasn't solely building off the license agreement with Goodenough in this research, but it's certainly possible I'm wrong about that.
posted by mark k at 1:48 PM on November 17, 2022
Goodenough is the Nobel Prize-winning who developed the Lithium Ion battery
Winning a Nobel prize does not immunize you from later being wrong, of course.
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:42 AM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Winning a Nobel prize does not immunize you from later being wrong, of course.
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:42 AM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
The only recent thing I could find on this was Elon Musk dismissing it, saying, "STFU... everything works in PowerPoint" which, uh, how do I invest? If Reverse Midas says it's bad, I'm all in.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:46 AM on November 17, 2022 [1 favorite]