Reading the article, the investigation isn’t a case of independent labs getting hold of the battery and definitively disproving Donut’s claims. It’s battery experts and researchers looking at the data Donut has released and saying, “these claims are extraordinary and the evidence doesn’t yet convince us. Here’s what we think the battery actually is.” That’s a very reasonable scientific position, especially when you’re talking about 400 Wh/kg, 5-minute charging, and 100,000 cycles all at once.
But without independently tested samples, there are still a lot of unknowns and inferences involved. That’s not to say the skeptics are wrong, but it’s still arguably a case of skeptics being skeptical… reasonably so, but based on analysis of the available evidence rather than direct examination of the battery itself.
Researchers say the most convincing evidence came from measuring how the cell expanded during charging.
When a battery charges, ions move into the anode, causing it to expand. Graphite anodes have a unique expansion pattern because of changes in graphite’s layered structure. The Donut Lab cell showed this exact pattern.
This finding matters because sodium ions are too big to fit into graphite the way lithium ions do. According to investigators, the graphite expansion pattern clearly shows that lithium is the active ion in the battery.
Reading the article, the investigation isn’t a case of independent labs getting hold of the battery and definitively disproving Donut’s claims. It’s battery experts and researchers looking at the data Donut has released and saying, “these claims are extraordinary and the evidence doesn’t yet convince us. Here’s what we think the battery actually is.” That’s a very reasonable scientific position, especially when you’re talking about 400 Wh/kg, 5-minute charging, and 100,000 cycles all at once.
But without independently tested samples, there are still a lot of unknowns and inferences involved. That’s not to say the skeptics are wrong, but it’s still arguably a case of skeptics being skeptical… reasonably so, but based on analysis of the available evidence rather than direct examination of the battery itself.
This seems to be a smoking gun: