Weekly NDM

Is aluminium the answer to all our battery prayers?

This article is about how research by stanford university has found that alumium batteries may be the next step for next-gen technology.

• New research by Stanford University into aluminium batteries promises to produce cells that are big enough for a smartphone and charge in just 60 seconds.
• The new high-performance aluminium-ion battery is the first using the metal – more commonly found in aircraft and car bodies – to demonstrate long life and fast charging.  
• Stanford’s new battery can be recharged around 7,500 times. Typical lithium-ion batteries used in everything from smartphones and laptops to electric cars last around 1,000 recharge cycles.
• But the new aluminium-ion batteries are far from being available for commercial use in electronics, producing just half the voltage of lithium-ion batteries.
• Current lithium-ion battery technology will reach its limit soon – there is only so much that can be achieved through tweaking the battery chemistry of a lithium-ion system – but a change in the way the electrode is made, using nanotechnology, could breath new life into lithium.
• Lithium-sulphur batteries promise up to five times the amount of energy per gram as current lithium-ion technology.
• New battery technology is coming and could be in electric vehicles before the end of the decade, but it could be several years before cells fit for use in portable electronics make our smartphones last more than a day.