While Lithium Silicon Batteries may be on the market in 2 years. Lithium-Air Batteries (Which would be 5 to 10 times more powerful than Lithium Ion) Have Had its own Breakthrough

Energy Storage From Thin Air: You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

A new research breakthrough from the University of Illinois at Chicago finally delivers some good news for fans of lithium-air technology, which energy storage researchers have been talking up as the next best thing to follow today's gold standard, lithium-ion.

 From article, (Lithium air energy storage happens when lithium combines with oxygen in the air to form lithium peroxide, and back again. In other words, lithium peroxide is created when the battery discharges, and then broken back down into lithium and oxygen when the battery is charged.

Until now, though, the term “lithium-air” has been a bit of a misnomer. That’s because lithium-air batteries as configured currently don’t really use oxygen from the air, they use pure oxygen.

That creates problems when you’re trying to design a better battery for an electric vehicle. Unless you have a medical condition requiring oxygen, who wants to drive around with oxygen tanks in the back seat?

Here’s the explainer from the UIC, which worked with Argonne National Laboratory on the new battery research:

Unfortunately, experimental designs of such lithium-air batteries have been unable to operate in a true natural-air environment due to the oxidation of the lithium anode and production of undesirable byproducts on the cathode that result from lithium ions combining with carbon dioxide and water vapor in the air.

I know, right? As air enters the battery, the byproducts collect on the cathode, eventually rendering it useless.

For their new battery, the researchers came up with a new formula. The lithium anode is coated with a layer of lithium carbonate, which enables lithium ions to pass through without allowing other “unwanted compounds” to make contact.

The team also modified the spongy, carbon-based material for the cathode (that’s where air enters the battery, remember):

…Salehi-Khojin and his colleagues coated the lattice structure with a molybdenum disulfate catalyst and used a unique hybrid electrolyte made of ionic liquid and dimethyl sulfoxide, a common component of battery electrolytes, that helped facilitate lithium-oxygen reactions, minimize lithium reactions with other elements in the air and boost the efficiency of the battery.

Got all that? Basically, instead of tweaking the battery here, the team performed a “complete architectural overhaul.”

You can get all the details in the journal Nature, under the title, “Lithium-Oxygen Batteries with Long Cycle Life in a Realistic Air Atmosphere,” after the publication date of March 22.

There’s still a way to go before the new battery passes from the lab to your new EV with the billion-mile range (slight exaggeration there — anything over 300 miles will do). So far, the battery has maintained its performance over 700 charging cycles, which is much better than previous attempts but still not quite up to snuff for road-ready purposes.)

For More Info