The launch ceremony of the submarine Toryu, November 6.Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force
Forbes: Japanese Navy May Have Gained Tactical Edge With New Submarine
In a ceremony on November 6, Japan launched its latest submarine, the Toryu. It is its second to be equipped with lithium-ion batteries. Japan is the first country to field this game-changing technology in submarines.
So what is the big deal? We are familiar with lithium-ion batteries in our smartphones, laptops and other consumer goods. They have a higher power-density than traditional batteries, and they can be made smaller and in novel shapes which better fit the space given to them. Yet the submarine community has been slow to adopt this technology.
This is for good reason. As we know from Samsung's woes with the Galaxy Note 7, lithium-ion batteries are prone to catching fire. Battery fires aboard submarines can quickly turn lethal. Recently 14 elite Russian submariners lost their lives due to a fire in the battery compartment of their submarine. Those were traditional, safer, lead-acid batteries. Japan must have found a way to make lithium-ion batteries safe enough to send to sea.
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WNU Editor:Never underestimate what the Japanese are capable of.
4 comments:
Yes the Lithium battery thanks to Rare Earth Elements.
Safe(r) Li-on batteries? That would be huge.
Bob,
Lithium battery has nothing to do with Rare Earth Element. That's exactly the opposite!
Except scandium and yttrium which are not really rare earth, but on the same substrate, lantanides have nothing to do with Lithium. The atomic number of Lithium is 3 the first Lantanide is ....57.
Jac
Thanks for your response. I was under the misunderstanding that Lithium came from Rare Earth Elements which I do understand are not actually so rare but are rarely found in sufficient concentration to facilitate processing.
This extraction from another article perhaps explains how I arrived at my misunderstanding.
"It has become critical for the energy storage, greater battery manufacturing, and investor communities to understand this very point: rare earth means something and not just that there’s an overabundance or underabundance of something, but rather is a classification of elements. Simply put, the minerals used to make lithium-ion batteries so promising may be mislabeled “rare earth” due to their difficulty to access however, few if any of them are actually rare."
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