Metal-air battteries

[Arnold]

Cody Friesen, 31

Fluidic Energy
Making cheaper, higher-energy batteries to store renewable energy


Technology Review: Betting on a Metal-Air Battery Breakthrough

Technology Review: TR35

Within two years, Friesen hopes to be selling batteries that can hold twice as much energy as the lithium-ion batteries used in laptops and, increasingly, in electric cars. He calculates that his rechargeable metal-air batteries could ultimately hold 10 times as much energy as lithium-ion devices at a much lower cost.

Now that would make a car make go as far as with a tank of gasoline !

[bwilson4web]

Zinc-air batteries have the highest energy density of all, over the counter batteries. But they have such low power rates, they remain limited to very low power applications.

I have been thinking along the lines of zinc-air into an LC circuit to provide recharge power for an ordinary NiMH or LiON cell. But that is something for another forums and another day.

Bob Wilson

[clett]

Great article!

For comparison, the NiMH batteries in the Prius are 46 Wh/kg.

High power/cycle life LiFePO4 or LiTitanate are around 100 Wh/kg.

Standard Li-cobalt oxide (ie lithium ion used in laptops, Tesla EV etc) is around 200 Wh/kg.

Polyplus have been working on the lithium-air couple with a theoretical energy density of 11,600 Wh/kg, of which they reckon 3,000 Wh/kg is a realistic practical target.

[patsparks]

Where will they find the electrolyte?

Seriously, I hope they can make this technology work.