We live in a battery-centric world. We depend on them for the ubiquitous devices we use every day: cell phones, tablets, notebook computers and lately, smart watches. Increasingly, we use them to power electric cars as well.
Battery technology has come a long way over the decades. Our cars still start with lead acid batteries and we still use alkaline batteries in many gadgets. But our high-tech devices mostly run on lithium-ion batteries, which provide more energy for their size and can be recharged repeatedly.
Lithium-ion technology is good but it isn’t ideal. It still costs too much, it takes too long to recharge, and there are safety issues, as the airlines discovered in recent years. So it is no surprise that researchers around the world are constantly seeking new and better battery technologies.
Recently, researchers at Stanford University announced a new battery discovery with much fanfare. It is an aluminum-ion battery that can be built very cheaply, is extremely safe, can be recharged many thousands of times, and, best of all, can be recharged in just over one minute. Every one of these things represents a big advantage over lithium-ion batteries.
So where is the rub? So far, the new battery can only produce about half the voltage of a lithium-ion battery and has maybe a quarter the power density. These characteristics will not get the job done. But the developers are confident that both the voltage and the power density can eventually be improved with new cathode materials and other enhancements. If that happens, the aluminum battery could be a very big deal.
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Ultra-fast charging aluminum battery offers safe alternative to conventional batteries
Photo, posted March 12, 2008, courtesy of Rob Nunn via Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.