Aluminum-ion battery offers several advantages to lithium-ion and akaline
It seems that we're always learning about promising new battery technologies, most of which make big claims but are years from becoming a mainstream product, if it even gets that far. So, we're a little jaded. We're also admittedly excited about a new aluminum-ion battery prototype developed by researchers at Stanford. Among the battery's many benefits, it's capable of fully recharging a smartphone in only a minute.
This isn't the first time a laboratory has created an aluminum battery, though in other cases, they usually died after just 100 charge-discharge cycles. The Stanford-created battery was able to withstand over 7,500 cycles without any loss of capacity, whereas most lithium-ion batteries last 1,000 cycles. According to the researchers who created it, this is the first time an ultra-fast aluminum-ion battery was constructed with stability over thousands of cycles.
Aluminum-ion cells are cheaper lithium-ion. They're also not as flammable and have a high storage capacity, all of which are reasons that researchers have spent decades trying to develop affordable aluminum-ion batteries that meet the needs of consumers.
One of the challenges has been finding materials that can produce enough voltage after multiple charge and discharge cycles.
"People have tried different kinds of materials for the cathode," said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. "We accidentally discovered that a simple solution is to use graphite, which is basically carbon. In our study, we identified a few types of graphite material that give us very good performance."
Aluminum-ion batteries are also flexible, and they don't explode or catch or fire when punctured. So with all that aluminum-ion has going for it, what's the hold up? Voltage.
The prototype produces around half the voltage of a standard lithium-ion battery. However, the researchers who built it say that it's simply a matter of improving the cathode material.
"Otherwise, our battery has everything else you'd dream that a battery should have: inexpensive electrodes, good safety, high-speed charging, flexibility and long cycle life. I see this as a new battery in its early days. It's quite exciting," Dai added.
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