Four times as much energy in the battery for a plug-in car

Researchers and technicians affiliated with the American research institute Argonne have succeeded in developing a new battery that has four times the energy density of lithium ion batteries.

Driving 1600 kilometers with a full battery

According to the researchers, this new battery can quadruple the range of an electric car to more than 1600 km. This new type of battery is so energy-dense that it could even be used for airplanes and trucks, for example, for long-distance transport. This new type of battery beats all known batteries.

Oxygen from the air

The secret of the new battery is that it is a so-called solid electrolyte battery, which reacts with oxygen from the air. This saves a lot of weight, because the oxygen no longer needs to be in the battery. The electrolyte is the thin layer between the anode (which consists of pure lithium) on one side, and the cathode where the lithium reacts with the air, on the other side.

Mostly pure lithium

The battery takes advantage of the fact that lithium ions are very small. In the ionized form, i.e. with one less electron, a lithium atom is less than 0.155 nanometers in size. This allows it to ‘leak’ easily through the solid electrolyte. Almost the entire battery consists of the cathode and the anode, which means that the energy density can become very high. In the words of the researchers: a much higher density of electrons that can participate in the reaction than in existing batteries.

Deep loading and short circuit much more difficult

Hard solids, such as this ceramic electrolyte, also wear much less quickly than batteries with a liquid. The dreaded lithium dendrites, which are branched ‘trees’ of (electrically conductive, metal after all) solid lithium that eventually cause a short circuit in, for example, deep-charged batteries of electric bicycles, cannot form, because there is no room for them in the solid electrolyte .

Lithium still very scarce and flammable

Unfortunately, this battery does not solve two other annoying problems with lithium: it is extremely flammable and it is also very scarce. We have to make do with 90 billion kilos, which is only around ten kilos per earthling, half a bucket full, in the well-known lithium mines. Already tight, so (a battery of a plug-in car holds 8 kg of lithium, with this new model 4x as much). Fortunately, there is more in the ocean: 2.6 x 10^11 tons, which is 30 tons per person on Earth. That’s a big living room, packed with lithium. However, this lithium takes much more energy to extract, around 100 kilowatt hours per kilo.

All lithium in the universe was formed just after the Big Bang, and lithium doesn’t survive very long in stars. There is no such drawback with the sodium ion battery. Table salt, which consists of almost half sodium, is dirt cheap. Sodium ion batteries are also less dangerous. However, the range is still limited.