Welcome to the Intercalation Station series on making a basic battery energy density calculator! In each instalment, we'll build up our intuition on what design parameters affect the performance and cost of a battery.
The goal is to provide a tool to perform "back of the envelope" calculations to quickly understand questions like:
Why is LFP considered a lower energy material?
Why does Quantumscape's solid electrolyte have to be 20 um thick?
How much packaging efficiency is gained in Tesla's new 4680 cell?
Why are researchers encouraged to report the volume of electrolyte used?
As an overview, we'll go from small to large, with why different chemistries store different amounts of lithium, how active material thicknesses play a role, and how different casing formats also change energy densities. Later on, we can also try to tack on material-level costs to add another dimension to the tool.
https://intercalationstation.substack.com/
