Jack Parzick
11-2-15
Earth Science / D Block Mrs McClellan
University of Cambridge. "New design points a path to the 'ultimate' battery." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 October 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151029152629.htm>.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed a working laboratory of a lithium-oxygen battery that could eliminate some of the most annoying inefficiencies of the lithium-ion batteries that power our laptops and smartphones. Their findings appeared in the October 29, 2015 ScienceDaily article “New design points a path to the ‘ultimate’ battery.” While lithium-ion batteries are light, they need to be recharged frequently and their maximum power capacity deteriorates over time. The most promising alternative to the lithium-ion battery right now is the lithium-oxygen battery, which has an energy density ten times that of a lithium-ion battery. It is more than 90% efficient and can be recharged more than 2,000 times. A car powered by by a lithium-oxygen battery, which would be one-fifth the cost and one-fifth the weight of today’s electric car battery, could drive the 414.1 miles from Edinburgh to London on a single charge. However, there are many issue that need to be addressed before lithium-oxygen batteries are put in mainstream devices. Right now, for example, their metal electrodes can form fibers that may short-circuit the batteries and cause them to explode. Developers, however, are excited about the possibility of perfecting a battery that will solve some of the problems caused by lithium-ion batteries.
If the Lithium-oxygen battery was perfected it would have a great impact on our lives. The batteries in our smart devices and portable electronics would be smaller, lighter, and have a longer battery life per charge. With this extra power companies could make stronger and more efficient circuit boards, which would make portable devices better in every way. With lithium-oxygen batteries we would not have to charge our devices every day which would save us time and effort. Finally the batteries would be better for our environment by preventing wasted energy, and having to make more batteries. Lithium-ion batteries lose charge and it’s maximum power capacity decreases with time, which makes it waste electricity. Also the lithium-oxygen batteries will not have to be replaced as often which prevents many batteries from being thrown out.
The author or authors of this article did a very good job overall of support their claims with evidence, but had some minor flaws in their writing style. very good job of explaining the problems that the developers are having now with creating the battery, but not how they plan on fixing the problems. Also the author did not give a good comparison between lithium-ion batteries and lithium-air which makes the reader what makes the battery so important. Another example of one of the flaws is that the author did not explain the background information in a way that is easy for someone without a science background to understand, this could be because the website might be for people that are more highly educated. Finally I think that the author did a very good job introducing and explaining the topic at hand.
I read Jack Parzick's current event on the perfection of the lithium-oxygen battery. Jack wrote this review incredibly well and I was given more than enough information on how this would impact not only major companies, but also smaller devices that would be able to last longer because of this new battery. The review also included specific details that really gave me the full idea of what this new battery would be able to do, and why the scientific community is so excited about it. The one thing that I think Jack could do to perfect his article would be to fix up his last paragraph. By just reading those sentences over again, I think Jack would be able to pick up on some of the awkward phrasing that he forgot to fix in his editing process. I became interested in this article because of the review written by Jack Parzick, and can't wait until this battery is released to the public and begins to be placed in things we use every day.
ReplyDeleteJack wrote his review on the "New Design Points a Path to the 'Ultimate' Battery." Jack did a good job of comparing the two different types of batteries: lithium-oxygen battery and lithium-ion batteries. To do that, he also explained well how much more effective the lithium-oxygen batteries are and experts opinions on their preferable battery. Jack also did a great job of connecting the impact of the lithium-oxygen batteries to our life and how it will affect the life of our batteries in our phones. Jack could have done a better job of critiquing the article. It was very vague and confusing to a reader. Another thing is that Jack needs to review his writing to fix some grammatical errors, then it will be more professional and clearer to the reader. I thought it was super interesting that the lithium-oxygen battery is 90% more effective yet we use lithium-ion batteries instead currently.
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