A new paper published in Science describes the chemistry behind a novel lithium-air battery, an innovative design which could potentially provide way more energy density than traditional li-ion battery technology. It could serve as a real breakthrough for the battery market and a possible revolution for transportation and heavy-duty vehicles such as airplanes, trains and even submarines.
The new battery can sustain more than 1,000 recharge cycles with just a small five percent drop in energy efficiency and zero impact on coulombic efficiency. This means that all the initial battery material was still active, with no irreversible side reactions during the charge/recharge cycles.
The design conceived by researchers at the Illinois Institute of Technology uses a solid electrolyte based on a ceramic-polyethylene oxide composite, which is safer and more efficient compared to liquid electrolytes. Ceramic and polymer materials used as solid electrolytes have their own downsides when used separately but when combined, they can provide both the high ionic conductivity of ceramic and the high stability of the polymer.
The composite electrolyte was able to work at room temperature, a first for lithium-air batteries. According to Mohammad Asadi, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Illinois Tech, the solid-state electrolyte "contributes around 75 percent of the total energy density." There is still room for further improvement and by minimizing the thickness without compromising performance, the new design could achieve a "very, very high" energy density.
The lithium-air battery could potentially store one kilowatt-hour per kilogram or higher, which is four times greater than current lithium-ion technology. A lithium-air battery based on lithium oxide (Li2O) formation, the Science article says, can theoretically deliver an energy density that is "comparable to that of gasoline."
(DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abq1347)
I think it was takyon who said, a few years ago now: ".... announcements of new batteries with promises of increased power and capacity are made almost daily. Let me know when they arrive in the marketplace ....". Perhaps this one will be different. [JR]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pe1rxq on Sunday February 12, @10:47AM (5 children)
Different compared to what? Promises have been made for years, and guess what.... promises have been kept.
Just compare the batteries in any recent phone with those from a decade ago. The density has increased at an incredible rate.
Yes, this is cutting edge and will take a while. And some will indeed never make it. But the development of battery technonology is not any where the eternal promise of nuclear fussion.
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday February 12, @12:21PM (2 children)
Of course, things improve over time. But improving existing battery technology is not the same a developing new battery technology.
So, it only took 60 years to get to where we are today with your phone battery? If we have to wait another 60 years for the latest announcements to become useful most of us will be dead.
And this is not an unusual case:
Why U.S. Battery Startups Fail, and How to Fix It [ieee.org]
A major focus in battery research – and a cornerstone for Stanford researchers – is improving current batteries based on a better understanding of why they fail [stanford.edu]. Whether it be the degradation of rechargeable batteries or identifying how electrodes age, some of the most prominent obstacles in this field could lead to noteworthy advances in performance.
The main problem is that current lithium-sulphur (Li-S) batteries cannot be recharged enough times before they fail [europa.eu]to make them commercially viable. It is all in the internal chemistry: charging a Li-S battery causes a build-up of chemical deposits that degrade the cell and shorten its lifespan.
I hope the latest announcements lead to successful products - but recent history tells us that this is not the most likely outcome. Even TFA states "The researcher says the new technological breakthrough has opened "a big window of possibility" to actually bring lithium-air batteries to the market." So we will have to wait until it arrives in the marketplace to know if this one is a success or not.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Sunday February 12, @09:35PM (1 child)
There is definitely a booming market in battery research for researchers.
The difficulty is in finding the projects intended to advance commercial battery tech, vs designed to advance research funding. (or rather, those two will be tangled, and well conceived studies will find blind alleys, so trying to fix funding is fraught)
I'd like to see someone try to make a cost/performance viable residential flow battery, even if it's for new construction. (i.e. if you have to build a larger garage to house one) At scale those are workable. (vs using thousands of small cells) Homes evolved to incorporate water heaters and central air, that could happen again for flow batteries and car chargers assuming a 'fits in a home' scale battery doesn't have a show stopping limitation that doesn't show up in a grid scale installation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13, @03:55AM
> ... a booming market in battery research for researchers.
Maybe? This video by Don Sadoway (MIT, long history of battery research) isn't very positive about battery research & development funding:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYuVoSqj1OE [youtube.com]
I don't normally recommend videos, often painful to watch. This one is different, he's an excellent lecturer and gets straight to the point.
(Score: 1) by crafoo on Sunday February 12, @05:31PM (1 child)
It's a conflagration of ruined dopamine receptors, stupidity, and ignorance. If it's not a groundbreaking breakthrough no one cares or reads it, so everything is a groundbreaking breakthrough, just a few years off. Science reporting may be the only reporting that is more intentionally dishonest than political reporting.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Sunday February 12, @07:22PM
Says the guy on the internet who drives a car and uses ac power generated by turbines.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Sunday February 12, @01:50PM
Conspicuously missing is what a battery like this would cost. I suspect there is a reason they left that part out.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12, @02:48PM (4 children)
... get heavier as they discharge.
I assume that 1 kg is when fully charged. How much does it weigh when nearly flat?
Every kg of Li becomes about four and a half kilograms of LiO2
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12, @03:56PM
Interesting about the weight increase. Off-hand that sounds like it would also involve a lot of size change which generally turns into crack formation over many cycles. But maybe the materials have a high fatigue life...
Any idea of the volume, Meter^3/kW-Hour? If getting air to the Li atoms requires a lot of volume, these might be difficult to conveniently fit into a car?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12, @04:57PM (1 child)
This stores 1kWh/kg. Wiki says theoretical limit is 12kWh/kg. So guessing that 1/12 of the kg is involved?
A Tesla's battery is 60kWh. So 60kg. 1/12 is 5kg so say 5kg of the lithium turns into 22.5kg of the oxide So 60kg ->77.5kg?
What I'm curious about is how pure does the air have to be, and if it has to be quite pure how do they filter and purify the required amounts air.
Assuming 15kW for cruising, how much air needs to be filtered? About 4kg of oxygen per hour? 3 cubic meters of oxygen. About 15 cubic meters of air? This seems doable I guess.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday February 13, @04:06AM
I am curious if the cell only takes the oxygen from the air during discharge, does it also release pure oxygen during charging?
Owning an oxypropane/oxyacetylene gas brazing/welding rig, I would consider recovering a stream of "free" pure oxygen welding gas a strong plus.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12, @10:34PM
Whoop. Chemical fail there. Misread Li2O as LiO2.
Should be one Kg of metal becomes around two point two Kg of oxide.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12, @05:36PM
Am I the only one wondering that Li2O is (di-)lithium oxide (apparently with a silent "di-") and a natural crystal, i.e. dilithium oxide crystals? (They seem to forget the oxide part in Star Trek, though.) So maybe this is the foundation for the warp drive? 🤓