Talk:Molten-salt battery

Calories or Kilocalories?
I quote, "The higher the potassium perchorate level, the higher the heat output (nominally 200, 259, and 297 calories/gram, respectively)." Is this actually calories or kilocalories? Oil is approx. 8-9 kilocalories/gram for comparison. So the perchlorate (I assume perchorate -missing L- was a typo) is either much higher or lower. The solution is to give the answer in Joules and not mix English and metric units (calories and grams). 169.237.215.179 (talk) 23:49, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Molten Salt battey/ Thermal Battery- Weapons/Missile Engineering
I came to this page via a line on the page for the Paveway LGB. Do most military missiles use a thermal battery liek this? Might be worth mentioning on page. Wfoj2 (talk) 15:59, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Cost effectiveness in electric cars?
How about usefulness in electric cars? Would the requirement to keep charging be a problem? Could it be kept thermally insulated when not in use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.165.11.43 (talk) 14:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It's usefulness in electric cars is excellent
It's usefulness in electric cars is excellent for electric cars in use, and less so for cars that are infrequently used. Zebra does not discharge, ever! Though it does cool down if it isn't used or heated. This distinction is not important if the car is never used, as the charger keep the battery hot. If the combined losses in the battery in use is about 20% a day (during charging, acceleration and regenerative braking), no heating or cooling of the battery is necessary. This would be quite normal in use. If the combined losses is higher fans keep the internal temperature below 350C. This would be quite normal if the driver is fond of speed. LiFePO4 prefer cold temperatures and is cooled even when stationary, and more so when used. Other Lithium based chemistry needs even more cooling. Losses is dependent on ambient temperature and increases with temperature and use.

Fossil ICE have losses at about 60% for diesel and 70% gas, in ideal conditions. Real life losses is often more than 90% (due to no regenerative braking and other factors). Hydrogen fuel cell have losses about 75% in ideal conditions, excluding charger/electronics/engine (losses both in hydrogen generation and in the fuel cell). Hydrogen ICE have horrendous efficiency (losses both in hydrogen generation and in the ICE)

Plug to wheel efficiency:
 * Zebra 80% or so.
 * LiFePO4 80% or so.
 * Hydrogen fuel cell 25% or worse.
 * Hydrogen ICE horrendous.

Pump to wheel efficiency:
 * Gas 10 to 30%.
 * Diesel 15 to 40%.

PolarNight (talk) 00:52, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Heat Loss Rate Statement
"loses heat at a rate of 135 W" 135 W is not a rate. 194.202.236.116 (talk) 14:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * W is a rate. It's J/s.146.153.144.35 (talk) 18:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The wikipedia article states: "Beta Research Ltd's ZEBRA pack (see image), for example, loses heat at the rate of 135W.[2] ". This statement's reference (http://web.archive.org/web/20010420221921/www.betard.co.uk/product.htm) actually says: "Thermal losses at 270 C internal = W <135". This means that the batteries generate a heat dissipation of less than 135 Watt while operating with a 270C internal temperature. This is an efficiency statement and not a cool-down 'rate'! I am a thermal engineer and I approve this message.

Discharge Rate
Zebra does not discharge, ever. The <135 W specified in (http://web.archive.org/web/20010420221921/www.betard.co.uk/product.htm) refer to thermal dissipation. This is one of the reasons the individual cells does not go out of step, and therefore the battery does not need balancing. The 18% discharge/ day is utterly incorrect.

PolarNight (talk) 00:52, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Nonsense. Unless you've come up with some way of perfectly sealing the cell from all forms of electrical loss, including air ions, corrosion, etc, it will eventually discharge. Might take several years, as in the case of alkaline or dry-cell batteries, but it will happen.
 * Plus it's losing energy all the while with that 135w heat dissipation; is not some of it's stored energy used to keep it warm, even just by accidental chemical processes? That would be a smart thing to do, maybe even build into the design; a battery that's lost half it's charge after 3 days is far more useful than one that would have had 99%, but has solidified and become useless. However if it lost 18% per day just from that I'd be wary of how much it stored in total. I figure 18kWh, which... well, ok. That's 65 miles at 65mph, in a small vehicle such as the Think.
 * But it's an odd way of describing it. Something which loses 18% per day also will never actually discharge, as the discharge rate will fall exponentially as it runs out of stored energy. By the 6th day, when you'd expect it to be empty (if it were a set amount equal to 18% of the initial charge), you'd still have 30% left. 9% by the 12th. 2.7% by the 18th. Maybe not enough to get you home from the airport after two weeks away, (and having driven there in the first place), but enough to creep out of the multistorey parking lot and to a nearby recharge station to leave it for half an hour whilst you grab an unplanned coffee and doughnut. Presuming some kind of deep witchcraft is in effect where it needs relatively less power to keep it warm as the charge depletes!
 * I must say however I'm impressed at how it only needs that amount of power or less, continuous, to keep something of that size so hot with what is probably minimal insulation. A home oven or freezer is relatively closer to ambient air temperature with a similar volume and presumably better insulation (less limited by size and weight) but needs at least as much on average. 193.63.174.10 (talk) 12:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

ZEBRA name
There appears to be some discrepancy on the origin of the ZEBRA name. This page claims its origin is Zeolite Battery Research Africa, while the Electric Automotive Association of Europe claims the acronym means "Zero Emission Battery Research Activities." Also see Braithwaite and Auxer, Ch 40 of Handbook of Batteries, 3rd ed. Is there a primary source to reference here?

Recharge the zebra battery
How can the zebra battery be recharged.. can they directly be heated.using any source like CSP for example — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.138.120.38 (talk) 08:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Ongoing research - Magnesium–antimony cells?
In a December 2012 BBC interview, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20420557) Donald Sadoway described the basic version of his battery which used magnesium for the top layer and antimony for the bottom layer as "generation zero". He said "We now have chemistries that we're calling fourth generation, fifth generation." Maybe the heading for this section "Magnesium–antimony cells" is no longer correct? Not sure what it should be called instead.SylviaStanley (talk) 12:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Is the SONIC section an advertisement?
Under the heading Na-NiCl2 the section of SONIC reads like an advertisment blurb. Shouldn't it be edited to be more neutral in tone? Linkato1 (talk) 02:59, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Have trimmed content. PeterEastern (talk) 23:27, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

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Cleanup and reorganisation
I have given the article a bit of a rework to:
 * Shorten and focus the lead
 * Separate discussion of the technologies from the applications
 * Move discussion of the emerging Magnesium–antimony/Lead-antimony batteries into the main section on rechargeable batteries
 * Remove the rather uninformative image (related to the Zebra battery) and the related info box
 * Move detailed discussion of Magnesium–antimony/Lead-antimony batteries from lead to relevant section

PeterEastern (talk) 21:22, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

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Split rechargeable, vs. single-use
There is almost nothing in common (in terms of applications) between the two types. We should split the article.

Note that thermal battery is currently used for a thermal, not electrical, application. As it's not clear which of these would be primary, we probably need to disambiguate both. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:49, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Molten sodium
Why is this article mainly taken up with discussion of molten sodium batteries? Why do detailed descriptions of molten sodium batteries precede discussion of molten salt (NaCl) batteries in the body? MrDemeanour (talk) 09:18, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I want to remove from the section "Rechargeable configurations" material describing battery designs that do not appear to involve molten salts. I am appealling for help with this, from someone who has some knowledge in the field. Basically, I don't want to remove material that is pertinent to molten-salt designs, but I want to remove anything that a lay reader would be unable to relate to the subject of the article.
 * To that end, I would prefer to improve the existing material rather than just remove it, if possible, and that is why I need help.
 * Please get in touch if you would like to help. Failing that, I will go ahead and simply remove material in this section that doesn't obviously relate to a molten-salt design; hopefully that will result not in the wholesale reversion of my deletion, but in new content that doesn't read as a highly-technical description of things that are not obviously molten-salt batteries.
 * On re-reading, I see that some of these designs do (possibly) involve molten salt as an electrolyte; just that the salt in question isn't table salt. It's not clear that all these electrolytes are molten; and there should be some clue for the lay reader that salts other than NaCl may be molten for use as a battery electrolyte. I have some familiarity with chemistry, but not so close as to be able reliably to tell from any given chemical formula whether it names a salt.

Thanks! MrDemeanour (talk) 12:08, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Possible novel variant?
A variant suggested by "heat pack" technology is to use a cell where one component is a sodium acetate derivative in a sealed pouch. Careful chemistry would be needed here but as these routinely get to over 100 Celsius internal temperature it would be enough in a small pack to generate a thermal burst capable of liquifying selected low melting point alloys like PbBi. This would also be somewhat rechargeable as to regenerate would require heating the entire cell in its depleted state to over 100 Celsius and slowly cool then recharge at the same time in a multi-step process. Laser or sonic initiation has been suggested as a novel method. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.81.156.140 (talk) 16:28, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 00:48, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Calcium/antimony - liquid metal battery
Hello, i have noticed that the section "Liquid-metal batteries" has not been updated in several years.

For what i have seen, Ambri https://ambri.com/ has developed a calcium amtimony liquid metal battery and has reached the point to be used in real aplications, as a data center in Nevada. https://www.energy-storage.news/news/ambris-liquid-metal-battery-to-be-used-at-desert-data-centre-in-nevada

Can someone update this part? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.181.85.55 (talk) 16:15, 6 April 2021 (UTC)