Lithium-oxygen, or lithium-air, batteries have been touted as the “ultimate” battery due to their. New batteries may also be a fifth of the cost and a fifth of the weight of current lithium ion batteries.
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Scientists have officially developed a working lithium-oxygen battery with a high energy density that’s more than 90 percent efficient.
Although the researchers have demonstrated the batteries in a lab, they predict that a production-ready version is around a decade away. The battery relies on “fluffy” carbon electrodes made from graphene.
Typically, with the lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries we use in our laptops and smartphones, the negative electrode is made of graphite (a form of carbon), the positive electrode is made of a metal oxide, such as lithium cobalt oxide, and the electrolyte is a lithium salt dissolved in an organic solvent. Japanese electronics company Panasonic has been the largest manufacturer of lithium ion batteries for years and is the primary supplier to Tesla Motors, which uses thousands of Panasonic 18650 battery cells in each of its vehicle battery packs. For example, the metal electrode needs to be protected against forming lithium metal fibers (dendrites) that can cause the battery to explode if they grow too much.
Developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, lithium-air batteries have around ten times the energy density of the batteries used in today’s devices, and could revolutionise EVs of the future.
Although, problems surround the lithium-oxygen batteries like its lifespan and capacity, troublesome efficiency, chemical reaction, performance and safety issues. The battery can be recharged more than 2000 times, which may be revolutionary for batteries as a whole.
They precisely engineered the structure of the electrode, changing it to a highly porous form of graphene, adding lithium iodide and changing the chemical makeup of the electrolyte. There’s also the problem of air, which contains nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapor in addition to the pure oxygen that the experimental cell requires.
One of the scientists on the team, Tao Liu, said that there’s a lot of work left to do, but research suggests that there are ways to solve the existing problems.
Unfortunately, as expected with current battery experiments, the technology will not be immediately available in any industry and it could take up to 10 years for lithium-air batteries to equip devices. The experts went on to specify it will have an efficiency rate of approximately 93% and will last for more than 2,000 recharges. Because if the answers are “pretty easy” and “certainly not more than Li-Ion batteries”, then somebody might have just found the way forward for EVs.
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For electric cars, a fully-charged compact battery has been unable to attain that of an engine running with a full tank of gas because present lithium-ion batteries do not pack that kind of kick.
