Australian University is partnering to commercialize aluminium ion batteries which can charge up to 70 times faster, had a more efficient and longer life and were more sustainable than lithium-ion.
Testing has shown rechargeable graphene aluminium ion batteries had a battery life of up to three times that of current leading lithium-ion batteries, and higher power density meant they charged up to 70 times faster.
Queensland University has teamed up with the Graphene Manufacturing Group, a Brisbane company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada, to manufacture aluminium ion battery prototypes for use in consumer goods like watches, phones, cars and laptops as well as for grid storage.
Aluminium-ion batteries have a relatively short shelf life. The combination of heat, rate of charge, and cycling can dramatically decrease energy capacity. One of the primary reasons for this short shelf life is the fracture of the traditional graphite anode, the Al ions being far larger than the Li ions used in conventional battery systems. When metal ion batteries are fully discharged, they can no longer be recharged. Ionic electrolytes, while improving safety and the long term stability of the devices by minimizing corrosion, are expensive to manufacture and purchase and may therefore be unsuited to the mass production of Al ion devices. In addition, current breakthroughs are only in limited laboratory settings, where a lot more work needs to be done on scaling up the production for use in commercial settings.
Dozens of major research institutions are working on Aluminum ion batteries.
SOURCES- Queensland, Wikipedia
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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7 kW/kg is serious power. Just the thing for my laser rifle!
Not only is aluminum plentiful in the earth's crust, but the supply chain is well developed. I believe there are a number of aluminum smelting facilities idled around the planet because of low costs.
There would be relatively little impact on the cost of aluminum by battery manufacture.
To this point, batteries have been associated with vehicles, and mobile devices because of high battery cost, simplicity of operation, and because these things can't easily be connected to the grid.
There is a much larger market that is not well addressed by the lithium ion batteries that are now so dominant. That is the grid itself, off grid locations, and perhaps ships. For these, the energy, and power density are much less important than cost per cycle*kWh. The biggest advantage of li-ion, energy density is wasted on static uses, simply because development is already paid, and mass production for vehicles has lowered the price. Maybe once lithium production is in full swing LiFePo4 will make sense, but not while it competes for scarce lithium.
IMHO the company that first develops a cheap per kWh, high cycle life, inexpensive materials battery will have a huge first mover advantage. Listening Elon?
Theoretical capacity of 1.2KwH/kg vs 8KwH/kg for aluminum or 11KwH/kg for lithium.
Theoretical capacity of a primary metal-air cell
Lithium = 11KwH/kg
Aluminium = 8KwH/kg
Though of course theoretical capacities have little to with real-world problems…
That’s 4680
See Tesla 8130 battery story above this one.
Yes, one time or very limited charges makes it pretty niche, nice for torpedoes and electron rockets but not general use.
True, making an serious breakthrough will just make you an billionaire once 🙂
Whatever happened to iron?
One of the problems of this batteries was always the small amount of cycles supported. So much that sometimes this technology is used only to make one use disposable batteries.
The article don't say anything about the supported cycles. I have bad vibes with that. It's an essential matter about this battery.
Aluminium is cheaper than Lithium and all. But will it be more energy dense than Lithium? I thought that Lithium was as good as it could get when storing charge?
I had a buck for every "battery breakthrough" in the last 10 years I'd be a billionaire.
From that link
The GMG-UQ battery heaves that forward to between 150 and 160Wh/kg and 7000W/kg.
Which is not exactly beating current Lithium tech. Though it may beat it for peak power and other criteria like price.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-range-breakthrough-as-new-aluminum-ion-battery-charges-60-times-faster-than-lithium-ion/?sh=d0d9ccd6d287
Aluminum batteries are kind of the holy grail of battery research, aluminum being so energetic and plentiful. They have the potential to allow sufficient range on electric cars that even on road trips you'd only be charging at night.