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Stanford Develops Fast-Charging, Stable Aluminum Battery
An anonymous reader writes: Stanford researchers have announced the creation of an aluminum-ion battery that they say will charge quicker, last longer, and be generally safer than common lithium-ion batteries. "Aluminum has long been an attractive material for batteries, mainly because of its low cost, low flammability and high-charge storage capacity. For decades, researchers have tried unsuccessfully to develop a commercially viable aluminum-ion battery. A key challenge has been finding materials capable of producing sufficient voltage after repeated cycles of charging and discharging. ... For the experimental battery, the Stanford team placed the aluminum anode and graphite cathode, along with an ionic liquid electrolyte, inside a flexible, polymer-coated pouch." The researchers' main challenges now are getting the battery to produce a higher voltage and store energy at a higher densities.
"The researchers' main challenges now are getting the battery to produce a higher voltage and store energy at a higher densities."
So basically, they're only challenges left are making it into a decent battery?
Practically any material can cause terrific explosions when powdered and airborne. Sawdust explosions have reduced more than one lumber mill to ash, but that doesn't mean we stop building houses from wood.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
Don't be stupid. We're fucking up our planet because of our addiction to fossil fuels. If this actually pans out, then it'll make electric vehicles very economical, and will completely obsolete gasoline-powered cars, which is easily the biggest source of our carbon pollution. We'll need more electric generation capacity of course, but that can be done with lots of different sources, including carbon-free ones such as solar, wind, tidal, and nuclear.
With the obvious problems with our environment at this time, it's my opinion that replacing gas cars with EVs ASAP is a screaming emergency.
You can light steel wool with a common cigarette lighter. We should definitely stop making firetrucks out of steel.
"Battery "breakthroughs" need to state power *and* energy density (not the same thing), plus how long they last. They usually fail on energy."
The 70s called and want you back. In every developed nation, we've reached zero population growth, except for immigration. Every time people get to a high enough state of wealth, they stop having lots of kids (except for a few wackos like the Duggars). All the other nations are developing pretty rapidly at this point; China has a huge and growing middle class, and labor rates have grown so much that they're going to be looking at outsourcing stuff to cheaper countries before long. Eventually, we're going to have to figure out how to get along in our societies without ever-increasing populations.
This is one of the things we europeans do right -- we build our houses out of stone.
That's awesome for regions that don't have appreciable seismic activity.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.