A revolutionary lithium battery that will hold enough charge for an 800km journey thanks to the air that we breathe is in development.
IBM is one of the major companies that is researching the new technology and believes that it will lead to commercial batteries that will store 10 times as much energy as today's lithium-ion batteries.
The giant company is linking up with other researchers to develop a controversial technology that uses energy-dense lithium metal to react with oxygen in the air. The pay-off, says the company, will be a lightweight, powerful and rechargeable battery which will power cars and other forms of transportation.
Lithium metal-air batteries (Li-air) can store a tremendous amount of energy - more than 5000 watt hours per km - which is more than 10 times as much as today's high-performance lithium-ion batteries, and more than any other energy storage device.
Instead of containing a second reactant inside the cell, these batteries react with oxygen in the air that is pulled in as needed, making them lightweight and compact.
IBM's Chandrasekhar Narayan, who manages the science and technology departments at the company's research centre in San Jose, California, says this technology has the potential to transform our transportation system.
“With all the foreseeable developments, lithium-ion batteries are only going to get about two times better than they are today. To really make an impact on transportation you need higher efficiency than that,” he says.
His five-year goal is to have a lightweight 800km battery for a family car in use.
BUT THERE ARE CHALLENGES
One of the main challenges in the new metal-air technology is that air contains moisture as well as oxygen, and when lithium metal comes into contact with moisture an explosive reaction takes place - so research is concentrating on protective measures, such as creating safe membranes that will let in air but exclude water. Narayan says that IBM has the expertise needed to tackle these problems.
Work on the Li-air battery continues as the ESB eCars and the EU-funded Green eMotion project jointly announced last week that Dublin will be the venue for an Electric Vehicle (EV) Summit at the Convention Centre in Dublin on July 11.
The best brains from the EU, USA and China will attend, along with specialists from IBM, Nissan, Renault, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Siemens and the International Energy Agency.
The results of the eMotion transport research programme - the largest EU-funded research project in Europe, with a budget of €42m - will be discussed. -Sunday Independent