Future air-fueled battery could store 10 times more power

A new type of air-fueled battery being studied could provide up to 10 times the energy storage of designs currently available, and someday be used to power electric cars, mobile phones, and laptops, say researchers.

"Our results so far are very encouraging and have far exceeded our expectations," said professor Peter Bruce, of the University of St Andrews' chemistry department, in a news release Monday.

Diagram of the STAIR (St. Andrews Air) cell. Oxygen drawn from the air reacts within the porous carbon to release the electrical charge in this lithium air battery.

(Credit: EPSRC)

The new idea the researchers are examining is to replace the lithium cobalt oxide electrode in today's rechargeable lithium batteries with a porous carbon electrode. This allows lithium ions and electrons in the cell to react instead with oxygen in the ambient air, according to a press release from the U.K.'s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which finances the research conducted at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The project has received about 1.6 million British pounds ($2.4 million) from the EPSRC.

According to the researchers, the new design could potentially improve the performance of portable electronic devices and provide a big boost to the renewable-energy industry. The researchers see a scenario in which the batteries will enable a constant electrical output from sources such as wind or solar. Also the STAIR (St. Andrews Air) cell could help power electric cars.

The STAIR cell is expected to be cheaper than rechargeable batteries of today, the researchers said. The new component is made of porous carbon, which is much less expensive than the lithium cobalt oxide it would be replacing.

"The key is to use oxygen in the air as a reagent, rather than carry the necessary chemicals around inside the battery," Bruce said.

The four-year research project began two years ago and is scheduled to end in June 2011. Bruce expects it will be at least five years before the STAIR cell is commercially available.

[James Anderson Merritt]

So is the idea that, during "discharge," the oxygen-lithium compound is produced, but during "recharge," the "consumed" oxygen is liberated? Wouldn't that be explosive?

[tech_crazy]

Not sure why my earlier reply from an hour ago never appeared.Re-posting.

No, for 2 reasons
1) The produced oxygen can dissipate via the same porous carbon electrode - it is 2-way permeable unlike the 1-way semi/selectively permeable membranes in fuel cells
2) The rate would be small enough not to build up pressure in the cell.

[mraardvark]

Depends on how much O2 is released and if there is anything nearby to burn. A car battery would be the only thing big enough to raise the O2 levels in room to something dangerous and that's if it charges really fast. Even then it takes a lot of 02 gas to create a dangerous situation. nothing a vent fan in you garage couldn't fix.

interestingly this battery should get lighter as it charges, and gain weight as it discharges.

[Seashell-Bob]

WOW this will finally put the electric vehicle in the practical column. Just think of the power generating facilities that will have to be built to provide the power. I'll bet Obama will stop it dead in it's tracks.

[barbose]

Yeah, cuz Obama and the Dems hate alternate fuels and the Bushies hate the oilmen. Doofus.

[mc364]

manganese..alot of people don't even know what that is

[RammerRW]

It sounds like an Asian country. Or someone obsessed with manga. ;P

(Yes, i do know what it really is, btw)

[hador_nyc]

i got your reference to caddyshack... very funny Carl... or should i say Bill?

[Atlas_]

Nice idea. too bad I will never be able to buy one, like all nice ideas this will be
1. too expensive
2. only available in Japan
3. works too well and killed in Dev by some corporate fool.
4. a threat to the car companies, so they will buy the idea and put it on a shelf, never to be heard of again.

[Electro_Fox]

I really hate to say this... Mister Atlas is so motherf#@king right... Do the fu*%ing math, wow...

[gsigas]

@Atlas_ I agree. I bet it is probably #1 (or perhaps it is impossible to mass produce). A 10 times storage improvement is such a game changer that I think there must be some major catch that makes this research useless in practical terms because the potential benefits are too large otherwise (a 2 hour solar power battery backup becomes a 20 hour backup, a 40 mile per charge electric car suddenly becomes a 400 mile per charge car). If it was real, this technology would be in such high demand that it would not be 5 years to market, it would be more like 18 months to market (it would easily attract millions or tens of millions of investment dollars). You could almost guarantee the full production of these batteries would sell out immediately. This means that there almost certainly has to be a major catch/issue that isn't mentioned.

[oversig]

I agree 100% WTG!
Where always hearing of great & amazing new ideas.
Always just a few years away!
And then NOTHING MORE ABOUT IT EVER AGAIN!!
Realy tick's me the He** off!

[boyblueguard]

what we always dream for our Alternative energy solution for our future still look like live behind our small brain. we just sit and see, lucky people who can feel a new technology then promote it to all people in the world. "any kind of technology". we, surely cant feel directly what technology be made, what is the first purpose to make it, we substitute that, from general purpose to individual purpose, because we still have a big orientation that if we make a new technology "any kind of technology" we never realized that we are not make for human kind but for what we always want to get our individual goal "glory".

because of that technology become new market for human to build something but hiding inside something. sell is one type of activity to release an abnormal movie for our own life. if we find a new technology, of course technology to make human kind better, what will we do first? sell it for free or sell it with expensive price? technology is made from brain to react what we called imagination pressure. not intelligent pressure. so the pressure have made from our brain almost react for individual purpose in what truly purpose is.

[iceman2929]

Hahaha plz tell me you are russian! because this sounds perfect when read with a russian accent!

[ikramerica--2008]

This seems like another battery along the lines of the Zinc-Air technology that never took over the market as promised. It is also promising, I invested in it with a little money in one of the companies trying to market it, and it failed. Well, it didn't exactly fail, but the company went BK and then sold the assets to Energizer, IIRC. After the shareholders got screwed. Zinc-Air is still considered a "promising technology" despite the decade of going nowhere.

[Seaspray0]

Atleast you tried. That's more than I can say for others.

[zyxxy]

There are zinc/air batteries in use. Hearing aid batteries are often zinc/air, with a little piece of sealing tape that needs to be pulled off to activate that battery. There are also large cartridge style zinc/air cells that are suitable for vehicle applications. Their reload cycle was never made convenient for 'consumer' use, but has been made manageable for certain fleet applications.

So when you say 'promising technology', that term only applies to certain application domains. For hearing aides, they are widely accepted and deployed. For vehicle applications, it is much more isolated. It is a great technology as far as volumetric power density. For high current/high power apps there are concerns with the toxicity and caustic nature of the electrolyte.

[walto034]

As a staunch conservative, who believes entirely in the free market, this is something I could get 100% behind. My primary gripes with alternative energies, previously, is that they are too expensive and too inefficient. This battery technology could be a real game-changer that would actually survive in a free market without government propping it up with subsidies, see ethanol industry as a reference.

If the batteries pan out as advertised, it has the potential to change the infrastructure of the country while still giving the environmentalists the low emissions they want. Win-win-win.

[mjtimber]

Hmm...what about the anode? I recall a similar situation with silicon nanowires at Stanford, but that was focused on the anode. Now, if only we can get these two together and keep it cost completitive...

[mjtimber]

Wait, competitive. That's what I get for being up at 3am.

[mjtimber]

As for the comments regarding Zinc-Air, the problem with hearing aid batteries is that they aren't rechargeable. In fact, Alkaline batteries (Duracell, Energizer, etc.) are essentially Zinc-Air batteries. It's the recharging part they were trying to improve.