Australian Scientists Figure Out How Zinc-Air Batteries Can Replace Lithium-Ion Batteries (gizmodo.com.au)

Researchers at the University of Sydney has figured out how to solve one of the biggest problems standing in the way for zinc-air batteries to replace lithium-ion batteries. The reason zinc batteries are so sought after is because they're powered by zinc metal -- the 24th most abundant element in Earth's crust. Not only are they cheaper to produce than lithium-ion batteries, they can theoretically store five times more energy, are much safer and environmentally friendly. The problem with zinc batteries stems around them being difficult to charge because of the lack of electrocatalysts needed to reduce and generate oxygen during the discharging and charging of a battery. labnet shares a report from Gizmodo: "Up until now, rechargeable zinc-air batteries have been made with expensive precious metal catalysts, such as platinum and iridium oxide. In contrast, our method produces a family of new high-performance and low-cost catalysts." These new catalysts are produced through the simultaneous control of the composition, size and crystallinity of metal oxides of earth-abundant elements like iron, cobalt and nickel. They can then be applied to build rechargeable zinc-air batteries. Researcher Dr Li Wei, also from the University's Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies, said trials of zinc-air batteries developed with the new catalysts had demonstrated "excellent rechargeability" -- including less than a 10 percent battery efficacy drop over 60 discharging/charging cycles of 120 hours. The research was published in the journal Advanced Materials.

Comments

Re:Excellent rechargability?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yeah, but I assume that with 5 times the capacity you'll have to charge 5 times less often.

Though in reality, phones will likely end up with a battery 5 times smaller. But the phone will be 1mm thinner..

24th most abundant element?

[viperidaenz]

It's right next to Lithium, which is the 25th.

The abundance of the active material in a battery has almost nothing to do with the cost of production.

It's all the other shit that goes into it, along with the production process.

Re:Affordability

[Gussington]

Prevention

Re: Excellent rechargability?

[Rei]

Not really. A while back, the big story on Slashdot, the story was silicon anodes. Guess what? Tesla uses them in at least some, if not all, of their battery packs.

The announcement generates hype. The commercialization does not. Most announcements ultimately don't pan out, but those that do change the world - but those changes quickly become our "new normal" and we forget about what a big deal they were. Look at old cell phones and the size of the batteries it took versus the more humble power demands they were facing. And be thankful that the pace of technology advances marches on.