Cambridge scientists have developed a working demonstrator of a lithium-oxygen battery that is more than 90% efficient, and can be recharged more than 2,000 times. Lithium-oxygen, or lithium-air, has been touted as the ultimate battery technology, because its theoretical energy density is ten times that of lithium-ion solutions. In “Cycling Li-O2 Batteries via LiOH Formation… Read more »
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Navigant: Global market for automotive Li-ion batteries will quadruple by 2024
The battery business is booming, and a new report from Navigant Research aims to flesh out the picture with some facts and figures. “Advanced Energy Storage for Automotive Applications” predicts that the global market for automotive Li-ion batteries will grow from $7.8 billion in 2015 to $30.6 billion in 2024, an almost fourfold increase. Total… Read more »
24M introduces semisolid lithium-ion cell claiming half the cost of current technology
Startup 24M has emerged from stealth mode to introduce its semisolid lithium-ion cell, which the company claims will deliver improved performance at half the cost of current Li-ion batteries. “The lithium-ion battery is a brilliant, enabling technology, but its economics are flawed. It’s prohibitively expensive; it’s cumbersome and inefficient to make; and today’s version is… Read more »
Bolloré’s electric Bluecar, with novel solid-state batteries, coming to London
Electric car-sharing service Autolib has become a hit in Paris and two other French cities since its 2011 launch, and now boasts a fleet of over 3,500 EVs. Corporate parent the Bolloré Group also has a fleet of electric Bluebuses operating on Parisian streets, and has been working on bringing electric car sharing to Indianapolis… Read more »
Toyota Research team reports critical advance in electrolytes for magnesium batteries
Still looking for a replacement for lithium? How about magnesium? It’s divalent, so it can displace double the charge per ion (i.e., Mg2+ rather than Li+). It’s much more abundant than lithium, and more stable. However, researchers investigating Mg-ion batteries have run into several limitations, including anode/electrolyte incompatibility. Now a team at the Toyota Research… Read more »
Chemists discover key reaction in sodium- oxygen batteries
Chemists at Canada’s University of Waterloo have described a key mediation pathway that explains why sodium-oxygen batteries are more energy-efficient compared with their lithium-oxygen counterparts. “Our new understanding brings together a lot of different, disconnected bits of a puzzle that have allowed us to assemble the full picture,” says Professor Linda Nazar. “These findings will… Read more »
Ionic liquid electrolytes may open the door for higher-voltage batteries
The curious case of ionic liquids: Boulder Ionics/CoorsTek Specialty Chemicals Iolyte electrolytes When you think of liquids under the brand name Coors, you think of the Silver Bullet, the Banquet Beer. You certainly don’t think of high technology, unless you’re really easily impressed by cold-activated cans. However, not everyone knows that there’s another huge conglomerate under… Read more »
Real-time images of lithium dendrite structures could lead to better batteries
Scientists at the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have captured the first real-time nanoscale images of lithium dendrite structures in lithium-ion batteries. The ORNL team is confident that its research, published in Nano Letters, will be of great benefit to scientists who are experimenting with different ways to tackle the dendrite problem. Dendrites form when… Read more »
Nickel-metal hydride: the battery tech of the future?
Conventional wisdom has it that lithium-ion batteries are the state of the art, and that nickel-metal hydride chemistry, which is used in most conventional hybrids (some of the newer Prius models now use Li-ion), is pretty much obsolete. However, scientists at BASF believe that NiMH technology still has much to offer. According to MIT Technology Review, the… Read more »
Kevlar-based nanocomposite foils dendrites for bulletproof batteries
Those doggone dendrites are a bane of battery builders. These pesky fern-like growths can form on the surfaces of anodes during cycling, reducing battery life or even causing a catastrophic short circuit – this is how the battery fires on the Boeing 787 are thought to have started. A team of researchers from the University… Read more »