by The car market is moving towards mass electrification, largely due to government targets and the impositions that manufacturers are currently subject to.
Reducing the carbon footprint is an issue that is increasingly on the table, which forces the measures taken to become progressively stricter and the deadlines for their implementation shorter.
One of the problems with today’s electric cars is their range. Of course, a driver who has always been used to filling a tank of fuel in a few minutes and traveling between 600 and 800 km with it is surprised to be faced with an electric vehicle that, to travel half the distance, needs ten times as much charging time to you get it. Now, that scenario may change.
A new type of battery will increase the range of electric cars
Researchers from the Illinois Institute of Technology (ITT) and the United States Department of Energy (DOE), more specifically Argonne National Laboratory, have developed a lithium-air battery with the potential to significantly increase the range of electric cars between reloads.
Given this possibility, the anxiety of drivers of this type of vehicle, caused by their limited range, is measured.
This new type of battery is distinguished by having a solid electrolyte made of a ceramic polymer material, which allows chemical reactions resulting in lithium oxide. According to Rachid Amine, a research chemist: “The chemical reaction for peroxide or lithium peroxide involves only one or two stored electrons per oxygen molecule, while for lithium oxide it involves four electrons.”
The new lithium-air battery is the world’s first to achieve a four-electron reaction at room temperature.
In addition, the only oxygen necessary for its operation is that present in the atmosphere, which eliminates the need to store this gas in specific tanks for this purpose.
The results of lithium-AR batteries are promising
After a series of tests carried out by the team of researchers, it was possible to verify that the battery manages to have a longer life than previous versions.
A test cell managed to maintain its performance even after 1000 charge and discharge cycles, while the energy stability remained almost untouched.
With these results, the possibility of future mass production of this new lithium-air battery is approaching, which will then revolutionize the autonomy of electric vehicles, due to its high energy density compared to that of current lithium-ion batteries.
One of the researchers concluded that: “With further development, we expect our new lithium-air battery design to also achieve a record energy density of 1200 watt hours per kilogram. That’s almost four times better than lithium-ion batteries.”
The batteries of the future – Lithium-AR
