I have a simple rule these days, when I see excitement about a 'new' battery technology I give it a week and watch for big clive, thunderfoot or another of the online engineering focused debunkers - physics is a harsh mistress.
I could see those used in specific applications such as aircrafts where energy density is more important. Also emergency backup power would be a great place for those batteries. This could be the "jerry can" solution for electric cars as well. I see many uses but definitely not as primary energy source for transport.
I like her idea of having it be a range extender. If Lithium is the primary, then you can do your daily commute on rechargeable batteries, but you have the aluminum battery for the rare long road trip... And you don't need to wait for a charge or worry all the charging stations are taken if they can be sold as a commodity product you install yourself. If they have the price per mile or gas, that'd be even better.
@@Thomas_Acharya Fuel stations could offer these cells for sale as range extenders. Plug the car into a quick charger station, walk inside for a snack, buy the range extender battery (or batteries), walk back out to car, open special slot in car, slot it into place, drive away. I like it!
Excellent idea for passenger aircraft that already have to refuel each time it lands! Just remove the used packs, and replace with the number of packs required for the next journey. Balancing the weight energy ratio the same way Aviation fuel weight is calculated now. This would certainly remove the hazards in the current system (like aircraft ending up in a ball of flames when things go wrong).
Aluminum batteries are not rechargeable. The material dissolves in the electrolyte so you need to dry it out and then heat it to over 1000C plus apply current to get the Aluminum back.
Eric Cartman Yep. That's a problem lead batteries also had. The capacity went to hell in a short time, because the lead partially drops down to the ground. Refueling also lead to problems with growing fractal lead trees that can short circuit or puncture the cell. Aluminium is just worse, because it always sinks to the bottom of the cell in a form that is unsoluable.
Yes, aviation all the way...I don't think ANY current electric car owner (myself included) wants to A) give up the freedom of refueling at home, or B) get put back into a similar model of being dependent upon a service station... This battery technology IS cool, but in planes, boats and other applications.
In the long-haul trucking and cross-country bus space, this could also change the game, and for at least one of the same reasons: energy density by weight. But don't forget a rechargeable storage solution, like an ultracapacitor, for regenerative braking. You want that regen brake for one paramount reason: safety.
@@kelvinleigh understood, but DC Fast charging has come a long way, and it's only getting better as time goes on. With improved battery technology, and newer quick charging standards it won't be long before we see 10 minute or even 5 minute recharge times. Until then there are answers to apartment/town home dilemma. Have you seen this episode of Fully Charged? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Frkw6aurVUY.html
Oh No!! .. another Aluminum Air battery investment scam!!! .... a retired engineer in his garage solves, what millions of dollars over several decades could not... amazing! Note that the same major challenges still exist in this dudes battery .. it ain't rechargeable, and it ain't cheap to replace.
Difficulty is the relatively low power density, meaning you need a lot of batteries to have enough power to get off the ground, or an alternative power source for the climbing part of the journey.
MrGonzonator, reasonable point, butthat can be addressed by putting the batteries more in parallel than in series. Now, granted, that reduces the voltage compared to series, but it’s all realized by DC-to-DC (boost/buck) anyway.
@@mr88cet Series versus parallel makes no difference to power density. DC-to-DC converter also trades current for voltage, while keeping power the same.
@@dekutree64 isn't it hilarious when people think that wiring a battery in a different configuration automatically generates more power out of thin air xD
Scott Z you can use your solar to charge alumina into aluminum the ultimate energy storage. Stable does not lose energy. They now have a solution for continuous oxidation reduction of aluminum by having gallium indium in the solution.
In less than 5 years time the oil companies will become non existent renewables are advancing at such a rate remember Tesla proved energy is all around us and its free!! Just have to tap int the back EMF by pulsing a coil!!!
I swear someone claims to have a "breakthrough" of some kind every few months. Also if you look it up, SAIC, who owns MG, is meant to own what's left of Austin but apparently somebody in Birmingham bought the rights to the name for £5.
it's true - I follow anything 'carbon dioxide' through my news aggregator and there is monthly a new process for turning atmospheric carbon dioxide into some liquid, usually ethanol as I recall - so much so that I would worry about who is going to turn all this stuff off if it goes into production? below 200 ppm the trees start to die... not to mention if they are correct and carbon dioxide is the main climate driver they claim, we could speed up the return of the next ice age (and the accompanying 90% reduction in biodiversity and starving of three quarters of the human population that survives the fight for the Equator)
@@brettb9194 In order to get the CO2 ppm below 200 you would have to extract more CO2 from the atmosphere than it has been burnt over the past 100 years. Good luck trying that.
Wow I went and read that article and a couple of other related articles, My take there are sure a lot of rabbit holes that one can go down. There are a lot of what ifs with this topic, I think I'll just leave it alone right here for now. Cheers
it would be cost-per-unit if you can pop a 1500 km battery in for $100 still cheaper than liquid hydrocarbons. somehow I doubt that price range is what we're talking about
@idkYeyeDo Exactly. That's essentially what your doing when refining the aluminum back to non oxidized state. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to refine aluminum and this energy is stored in the aluminum until released by re-oxidizing. Too bad more people can't see it this way.
@@fss1704 You obviously don't understand what I was saying or how it works. You aren't "using" that energy, you're storing it in the aluminum to be used later. And I never claimed that aluminum air batteries were "eco friendly", you just made all that up.
I saw some big announcement 4 months ago and followed it up. An Indian company and that Israeli one. I thought GREAT until I wanted to find out how quickly they recharge and noticed that all the promos carefully avoided the whole "re-charge" issue. They're all single-use ($$$$$), you end up with Aluminium Oxide useless powder at the end of the charge. 😂😂
Karl P there aluminum air battery yes. I am referring to some of the comments regarding primary batteries being discarded verse recycling alumina oxide Into aluminum via electrolysis as apposed to mining bauxite oar? the Hall-Héroult electrolytic process! Not the process of separating it from bauxite. So yes it can be recharged into solid metal aluminum without the more costly & caustic process of its original state
@@JoeyDoThings How is it not the point? It's correct. Do you remember when the only batteries you could buy were non-rechargeable (not including lead acid)?
Just the fact that this story comes to us via "The Daily Mail makes me suspect an effort with the "energy purveyor segment" (oil) to divert attention from the fact that Lithium ion, once it doubles in energy density will put all others out to pasture.
Paul Gracey do you have any source that shows lithium ion batter density going up over the years? What did it start with and what’s it at now? I know different elements in the battery’s cause different densities but haven’t heard anything substantial, with exception to dendrite reductions from solid state electrolytes.
Big problem with that theory. You can already get more energy dense lithium ion chemestries like lipos. But as they get more energy dense they become less stable. Plus if you look at the specific energy density of lithium which is the lightest metal on the atomic table you simply can’t double it. The real challenge now is to optimise energy density by as much as we can and reduce production costs.
My modified lawnmower runs for about four hours on one tank of fuel. The tank is 0.2 of A U.S. gallon and the lawnmower is A Briggs and Stratton 300 series 125cc. With the price of $3.00 for A gallon of gas, it's around 15 cents, for an hour of mowing.
From a 73 year old, throw in one of those "run down automotive history lane" chats any time you want! Kinda bad times for the auto making and buying folks and even repairing people (me) as parts were difficult to get and many times broken on arrival. Ahhh BMC (British Leyland, whatever). Thank heavens for EV times!!!! Thanks for sharing...
This from the Googles: Like many metals, aluminium does not come out of the ground as a shiny metal, but as a special kind of rock, an ore. Aluminium ore is called bauxite. ... The production of aluminium is very expensive and extremely damaging to the environment. According to Alcoa, the world's largest producer of aluminium, the best smelters use about 13 kilowatt hours (46.8 megajoules) of electrical energy to produce one kilogram of aluminium; the worldwide average is closer to 15 kWh/kg (54 MJ/kg). Worldwide production of aluminium in 2010 was 41.4 million tonnes.
I would see it that way as well. With a benign electrolyte this kind of battery could be used in transport. But only as range extender, would it be economical just to drop the tow truck or rent on occasion for longer trips?
@@weldonyoung1013 I think the contrary. Batteries that last 10X longer, universal so any car brand can use them, cheap, and with the support of big oil.... This has actual legs.
@@freddyrosenberg9288 , either way, currently we can't use the Al battery technology to get to the future. As the future unfolds, either is possible, but as the Transport Evolved video stated something similar was to be started in Isreal & failed. Not unlike economics having dealt this kind of blow to technology before. It is just that I done see the benefit of having to go to an industrial complex to change a dead battery.
Thumbs up for covering both sides. It's easy to have a bias against non-chargeble batteries, since it can be another source of waste we really don't need. But on the good side we already have facilities to recycle alkaline batteries. Maybe those can be retrofit to take aluminium batteries. But as of today I'm sceptical since Al batteries is not a new thing, and big manufacturers hardly touch that tech. It's nothing new, just that we're desperate for a battery. Thanks!
The "holy grail" is not range, but RECHARGE TIME. Specifically, a 5 min. recharge to FULL CAPACITY. Many future, would-be EV owners could easily accept if an electric car only got 200 or 300 miles of range, just as long as they could pull into any charging stations to "fill up" and be on their way again, like ICEV's are today - 5 mins, in and out, recharged for another 300 miles. Until EV's have the same features and conveniences as today's ICEV's, there won't be any mass adoption of electric cars - not as they are now.
I like the idea of extending the range or someone forgot to charge or didn't look to see if they have enough charge then runs out can call a friend or someone to come with a back up to exchange the extended battery so one can get back on road again. I think aluminum refill if can be done would be liquid state to replace lost aluminum in the aluminum battery
Super capacitors. When they are perfected ICE will be obsolete. Overnight. Until then we're just perfecting the drivetrains and keeping the environmentalists happy. Can't come soon enough for me.
@@rogerstarkey5390 if the super capacitors have very little drain when not in use, then they'd basically be batteries... I think that's what perfection means to John.
ICE is already obsolete. But supercapacitors don't solve any significant issue EVs now face. The two biggies are range and price. That's exactly the two areas where Li-ion batteries are far better then supercapacitors.
@@andrasbiro3007 range and price. Exactly. Untill those issues are solved, and they will be, ICE will not be obsolete. Energy storage is the issue, current batteries are too expensive, complex, and degrade over time. EV's have found a niche, enthusiasts love them. But the average guy out there just wants a vehicle that does the same thing they've got, and is not interested in being a trendsetter. I've still got my money on energy dense capacitors though. Just my opinions. Take care.
@@Thomas_Acharya Not at all. Supercapacitors reach zero volts when they are fully discharged while batteries stay at a reasonably high voltage when fully discharged. That means extracting and using all the energy stored in a supercapacitor is impractical. Think about an EV needing 20KW of power to run the motor. As the supercapacitor bank discharges and its voltage approaches zero, the current has to approach infinity in order to maintain the same power output. An infinite current needs an infinitely thick and heavy wire to carry it. Also the motor driver electronics cannot work at voltages that are too low.
@@johnmcnaught7453 1. The Model S has a 370 mile range and soon it will be 400. That's plenty enough. Even the much cheaper Model 3 isn't far behind. 2. Teslas are easily competitive economically. They aren't cheap, but in their market segments they are the best in almost every way. Don't forget about the savings on fuel and maintenance either. 3. There's practically no degradation, except for older Leafs. An older Tesla battery last half million miles, the current ones could last a million. And just recently they managed to double it again, now Tesla officially claims 1 million mile or 30 years lifetime. 4. EVs aren't niche anymore. Just look at the Model 3 sales. Also www.pinterest.com/rikkileejacobs/tesla-celebs/
Manufacturing aluminum metal from bauxite ore is an incredibly energy intensive process. Basically you fill a room with ore then blast electricity through it until the metal separates out and sinks to the bottom. I am unfamiliar with the aluminum air battery but I can't imagine it is less carbon intensive than recharging a lithium battery thousands of times and then recycling and reusing its minerals. There are no easy answers to our climate dilemma. Eventually we must lower our expectations of how much energy each of us is entitled to use.
Bill Kerr the advantage comes in recycling all the scrap Ali into power, much like using milk bottle plastic in fires and furnaces. Once the product exists looking to extend its lifecycle or recovering the energy from the product should be some of our goals ....
@@chrisbraid2907Recycling aluminum requires far less energy than extracting metal from ore. That is why there is such a vigorous trade in scrap aluminum. Taking that scrap out of the supply chain would increase our carbon output. Ultimately we would be refining Aluminum to burn as fuel. This technology is no way to replace fossil fuels.
@@Miata822 But then you would unburn it which is what refining does. Sure it's energy intensive but that's the point. You're putting a lot of energy in a small space which you can then extract at will with no nasty by-products.
1. Ths biggest flaw with current and immediate future battery is charging time. This system could make charging instant. 2. Whether we like it or not, fuel duty is a huge and much needed revenue source for governments to fix roads, run the police operate a healthcare system (unless you are a duped North American who choose to spend it on a military 20 times as large as its nearest 'competitor' If we dont find a way to effectively tax vehicle fuel, we will move onto a pay per mile system and then we really will be screwed and TOTALLY spied upon!
1500 miles on a single charge? That would work very, very well for me. Think about it, if you have traveled 1450 miles with this battery, it would be insane to then plan a 150 mile trip. This close to the limit, the sensible thing to do is pop into the shop for a replacement. The only possible negative, would be the cost.
The best case example they used was 7p per mile compared with lithium rechargable batteries that are only 1p per mile when charged at home off peak. The cell also costs £5000 for 1500 miles of range according to the article, so I'm not sure how those maths work out, unless you're getting a massive rebate on returning a used cell.
Some people say aluminum and some people say aluminium but no one should say longevity with a hard G. Please stop! It's driving me crazy. I lived in the UK and my wife is English and you are the only person I have ever heard say it that way. It's weird
Way back in1960 I was a mechanic in a BMC main dealership and one day a man and a woman came in and asked to see the owner, They asked him to try the Austin Mini they had outside, He drove the car up the road and back and said its a mini, to which they said yes but its running on water, obviously we all wanted to know how. there was a spare tank at the rear for water, a oblong tank on top of the rocker box which had two electrodes fastened into it, they explained that when electricity was pasted through water Hydrogen gas was produced this passed to another box where the carburettor would have been, inside the box was a vibrating finger that turned the gas and water into a mist and past it into the inlet manifold then into the engine where it ignited and the car drove as normal as a Mini, the only difference was it would not start on water and had to switched back to the petrol just to start it. these people came from Sheffield University and had been paid by a large fuel company to complete it then it was patented and shelved, everything else on the car was normal it just had no emissions only droplets of water from the exhaust and no need for special batteries or anything else, just fill up with a small amount of petrol in one tank and fill the other with water, there was obviously more to that box of tricks on the rocker box but if they could do it then, it can be done again now no need for electric cars, just petrol cars that run on water, new name PWCars, now lets hear the critics, but I witnessed it working.
flow batteries are not suitable for cars... a cool tech but big and bulk, not for transport. Don't be dumb there's enough legit tech you dont need to throw in other stuff that doesn't make sense it just makes you and electric cars look dumb. dont be dumb.
I am having a picture in my mind: Under the front hood there is an array of - say, 8 cylindrical batteries with large handles, each weighing a couple of kilograms. They are depleted in series, meaning that when you go get a few new batteries you'll only swap out those that are as fully depleted as is possible by normal use. They are colored brightly, maybe orange or something, covered in warning signs not to touch the bottom end, but of course are engineered in a way that you still can without dying. Now you enter a battery shop, which looks similar to a gas station, and swap out the empty ones for new ones - then you leave, the car still decharging the same battery. Once empty it will continue with the cycle, and eventually reach the newly plugged in ones and continue on the cycle as it has for many, many cycles. As the batteries weigh a few kilograms, there is need for employees to help people who cannot lift those batteries out by themselves and give advice and such - of course there is a grocery shop attached to that battery station. The used batteries will be recycled, which, depending on the electrolyte may be as simple as shredding, washing and melting, to make new battery cells which are made by the millions per day. Because, this kind of new battery technology can be used in many other places too: As emergency batteries of a normal house maybe, or to power electric wheelchairs, planes, race cars, even heavy machinery (though, for those there might be a bigger version). So, in summary, this technology has the potential to change our lifestyles totally, fundamentally reshaping the world we live in. The problem of making clean power to fill those batteries with remains, of course, but let's solve one issue at a time, shall we? :-)
I was thinking very similar to this but just 2 batteries. Each lasting 750 miles and you would then have another 750 miles to change the other one. My understanding is that the batteries are very easy to recycle. On the face of it it would appear to me to be the way forward. Probably won't be as the major car companies are pumping to much money into normal batteries. I wonder if Dyson ever looked into this before they closed their project down. A company like them is the only way I can see it becoming main stream.
How much energy does it take to "recharge" this battery i.e. Collect, Transport, Recycle, Rebuild, Transport, Install? And how much does each "refill" cost? I would guess this whole idea falls flat at that point. 1500 miles in a Tesla is only going to cost about $100-£150 even on an expensive supercharger, and I doubt they can produce an aluminium battery anywhere near that price.
The fact is, of course that we have NO IDEA of the actual costs involved do we?! Until a workable battery and system of deployment is developed, it's all just meaningless speculation.... By that time, something else might have come along...
absolute no for me. there was a time when oil seemed unlimited, there was a time when the world felt far too big for us to alter the climate and so on. Alu may be super common now...but humans tho. we MUST change our entire existence to 100% renewable everything or we will simply perish eventually.
Why? Tesla looked at it in 2010 and decided it wasn't worthwhile. I agree. Why would you want to visit a swap station and pay 1000 pounds for a new extender every time you used it? It makes no sense. You'd never use it! So what's the point? Just stop at a supercharger for 20 minutes and save yourself 1000 quid.
@@gasdive I'm sure it'll be much cheaper than that if it's to be a viable solution. One of the advantages is that it's cheap to manufacture, so it would make sense to charge more than the petrol equivalent per mile, but even at 20p per mile, you're looking at £300.
regardless of the materials used i don't see how a battery that needs to be remanufactered every time its charged is going to be better for the environment. Its almost like talking about making a car that uses giant Duracell disposable battery's silly really.
The aluminum oxide can be reprocessed into aluminum. If that process is powered by relatively clean energy and people recycle the battery like they do lead acid ones, then you have a net gain.
@@shrimptopian3392 the new system that this video is talking about has zero toxins in the "battery" to inventor even drank some of the solution to prove it. this new system can use low grade Aluminium that is easily and widely recyclable. its essentially powering a car with old coke cans
I own a 2015 Leaf, I can charge at home and at work. I would never go back to a car that I have to stop somewhere to "fill up" and I don't need a car that can go 1500km on a single charge. I like the idea of using a secondary "battery" as a range extender but maybe capacitors would be better for that ? Anything that can be recharged at home or at work and doesn't need to be transported around to a battery swap station.
Someone please explain to me... ::The batteries can only be swapped out and need new a aluminium..::: so once used they are discarded? Are they recharged for later use by special tools? Is it refurbishment? How much is the cost versus using lithium.... Nikki... Another video perhaps?
Couldn’t we just pull into a service station but instead of filling the tank with petroleum (gasoline). Fill it with aluminium marbles from a spigot and top up the aluminium that way?
David Hunter as a battery the aluminum must be in a form that is engineered into electrodes to allow surface area to be exposed to the forced ambient air. Your not far off if you want to disassociate hydrogen from water exposed to aluminum pellets in an aqueous solutions of gallium indium. Hydrogen on demand can run a fuel cell or ICE.
it isn't worth pursuing commercially, and on a mass scale. Tesla was right, and they are now coming out with a million mile cycle life. So, i think they will put all other competitors out to pasture!
The "million mile battery" still has the same metrics in weight and power. It just loses less capacity over the long haul. It still has to recharged as usual.
70 % of the cost of an airline ticket is fuel. A third the cost of building jets is the engine. Sounds like a great solution for high short range electric fan airliners
The leader of electric cars will have: 1. Fastest charging battery 2. Longest range 3. Longest lifetime - and currently it seems that Tesla has the best shot to get to this.
Nikki, thanks for stripping the hype out of this battery. Still, it does show what is possible. It this battery does become rechargeable and still cheap, energy dense and safe it's goodbye dino juice.
Oh great! The revolutionary battery is now owned by the company that brought the world the Austin Allegro. What could possibly go wrong!? (For younger viewers that have no knowledge of this car, don't feel bad. They all melted into piles of rust during a light drizzle sometime back in the early 1980's)
My first car was an Allegro bought by my parents. Presumably they thought it would be harder to drive like a lunatic. According to quotes on Wikipedia, the one thing they got right (after the early models) was the rust proofiing. Certainly mine had no rust issues, and it was already old by that point - they stopped making them 7 years before I could even start to learn to drive. I also credit the Allegro with protecting myself and girlfriend when a drunk driver overshot a junction and T-boned me, sending me spinning nearly 180 degrees, going up over a curb onto the pavement, and slamming into a concrete post sideways. No injury apart from a sore back. That happened in 90/91 ish, so they can't have been as bad rust-wise as you are implying. The thing was a tank compared to the Mk 1 Ford Fiesta Supersport I got next. Though the Supersport was waaaay more fun to drive :-)
When NiCd and NiMH cells became available people switched to these in a snap when powering their toys, especially toy electric cars simply because of the cost. Using Primary cells for a full size car is ridiculous. I hate to think of the carbon foot print of producing and distributing these monsters. Plus Aluminium requires a tonne of electricity to purify it.It would be nice to have high temperature superconductors then you could store electrical energy a million times more dense than any chemical battery and with no losses. That's the holy grail of energy storage.
Lower carbon footprint??? Aluminum is the most energy demanding metal on the planet in its refining, and hugely expensive, and I wonder how they square that peg?
By developing heavy mining equipment using these new batteries, and expanding all non-emitting electric generating solutions, of course! Including nuclear, with some of the new reactor designs that will be cheaper to build and easier and safer to run.
Stephen Logsdon alumina is recharged back into aluminum. This is already happening in Iceland as they have an abundance of cheap renewable electricity and aluminum is light per energy density .they ship it to Europe the electricity is extracted & the alumina is shipped back to Iceland to be recharged. The only mining is for additional aluminum demands.
I agree with you. It's an interesting technology, and it'll have it's place in things. But I'd rather recharge at home. The range extender idea is interesting. Also (not related) your shirt is awesome!
Waste of time, By there own data it will be 7p a mile, lithium charged at home is 2.5p. They can't supply reliable chargers at motorways, how the hell will they organise battery swapping.
Exactly. The main thing missed from this whole article is COST. There's a whole host of practicality issues as well, in particular having to get all car manufacturers to support the same battery shape and form is, shall we say "non trivial", and hugely increasing the number of aluminum smelters in each country (only one in the UK I understand for example) and the whole set of infrastructure needed to support this since self service swaps are likely out (like going back to petrol/gas stations with attendants so there's a whole extra cost to that as well no doubt lifting it above 7p a mile, but at root if its at least 3x the cost to run, why would you use this?
@@Joe-lb8qn All good points, and there's a bigger one. If your going on a long journey at what point are you going to swap it out, Risky to let it go to flat, so will be changing it way before its max capacity. And on a motorway it will be much more expensive, same as petrol, and as i said before, they can't even organise a charging socket. And the reality will be having half your car ripped apart by a monkey with half an hour training every thousand miles. And last but not least, many ev owners have solar panels so pay much less than 2.5p per mile, some next to nothing. At this very moment i'm waiting for the fog to clear to put mine on.
@@MrGonzonator It came from the DM article and includes an allowance for returning the old battery. As someone else has said perhaps it might work as a "jerry can" for emergency use but there are many many practical and financial obstacles in the way of this, when you have 250+ mile range cars that can be refueled at home or whilst you shop, why pay 3x as much and have to be continually visiting garages (since it wouldn't be practical to have one large battery you'd have many smaller ones, which brings its own challenge in terms of packaging. You cannot just have a skate board design if you are swapping batteries frequently.
@@MrGonzonator I think it was a BBC report, so went with that. However it would not surprise me if it was £3 a mile, 7p seemed a little unrealistic at the time. So with a 1500m range, that would be £4500 to swap the battery, only a politician would thing that was a good idea. It makes hydrogen powered cars look cheap.
certainly alu-air batteries could be used in applications like flying vehicles, and FormulaE and MotoE, to show that EVs can perform as traditional motorsport vehicles. BTW, the GE in longevity should be pronounced like in GErmany
What do I think? I think your take on the “refueling” model of these batteries is a bit too pessimistic. No reason that their form factor couldn’t be standardized such that their replacement would be no different than replacing batteries in a flashlight (or “torch”, depending on where you’re from 😉).
Nikki, what a great video! BTW, you are looking so beautiful lately in these videos lately. You seem happy which makes me happy. Praying that, that is the case. I really enjoy the TEN videos. So much ♥️♥️♥️ for you and your crew. Juan from Orlando.
Let's not forget, we have a perfect battery now: it's called renewable hydrogen. While we tout Lion at 300 watt-hours/Kg, and these Aluminum Air batteries are still on a bench top - a long ways from 1500 miles! I think it's important to remember perspective, the specific energy density of H2 is about 40,000 watt-hours/Kg (over 100 times more energy dense than Lion) not worth mentioning? Renewable energy driving an electrolyzer produces H2 fuel from water. Use the H2 and you get most of the energy out, and most of the water back. Not impressive? Why is renewable H2 so ignored in American thinking? Not in Japan, they understand if you want a clean world with dense fuel with no toxicity, and available to everyone (all you need is renewable energy and water) there is only one answer which satisfies all of these conditions: renewable H2. It's time to gain perspective and focus on real solutions which work for everyone.
This kind of luggage-sized primary battery could be consigned ; like a propane tank for the kitchen, at a station you take a new one and give the used one. A factory will recover the oxidized material and purify it with higher energy cost than a simple recharge. The advantage is that the battery is inspected at each recycling, this ups the quality and security of the battery. Lithium ion is too bulky and heavy to be distributed to homes for power in case of catastrophe, but this Al-Air could be as viable as a 20L tank of fossil fuel. I don't think it would be needed to have a robot or a professionnal swapping the batteries. You could have one luggage size in the frunk and one in the trunk and go. By hand, yourself, two minutes. At the peak of the heatwave I carried 40kg of Li-ion up 6 stories to enable 4 hours of air conditioning. That was no fun. With Al-Air the same amount would have given a day of AC.
A rechargable aluminum-ion chemistry is completely feasible, this battery in the article is a primary cell (ie: non-recharable) so it is not suitable for EVs. There have already been individual breakthroughs in developing rechargable aluminum-ion, but has not reached commercial maturity as of yet. Lithium Ion was an important steeping stone for EVs but eventually lithium-based battery chemistry is going to become a burden for EVs and renewable energy as a whole. If the EV industry and stationary energy storage applications scale up to take over all fossil fuel territory, they will not be economically or environmentally sustainable, they require too many rare elements and minerals. If EVs are to ever be truly revolutionary, there needs to be a large push towards developing a more seminal concept for rechargeable batteries based off of highly available, cheap and recyclable elements like aluminum and iron.
Okay, Ginger, you want to be able to come home and take a few hours to charge up on your own home made energy, but then, after so many battery re-cyclings, to have to pay $5000, or something for a completely new battery. What you don't like is to pull into a 'Gas' Station and have the attendant take a mere minute to pull out the old battery and swap in a new battery for some slight 'ex-change' fee. Well doesn't this solve the biggest problems, that is, how to transition between Before and After. We keep the Service Stations, and if anything "fill up time" is actually shorter here (in a few years the 'attendant' can be a robot that will have programming on how to yank out and stick in for every car on the road). You're idea for an auxillary battery would only multiply essential systems and add weight to every car. Do you want less moving parts or do ya? Multiplying Systems is also more to go wrong during the trade in inspection when it comes time to sell the old and buy the new. So you don't want to buy a lot of crap you don't really need, do you?
Your swappable range extender idea could be a good one (depedino on cost). All that would be needed is to add 400 or so miles. I've read a good number of comments from folks suggesting renting range extender batteries for road trips. so maybe it could get some traction. would depend on how small, how light and how costly.
Not being able to charge them at home (or anywhere) is going to be a deal-breaker for a lot of people, including me. But, I can certainly see where it could be useful in some situations. Personally, I think solid state batteries will be the real game changer (or a brand new li-ion chemistry that allows very fast charging AND doesn't need cobalt or any other expensive rare earth elements).
Especially practical. Light weight. Frame on bikes exposed make for easier swap. Lithium bikes have not fared well on range and much less so than cars. Still just too heavy. But extremely practical for motor bikes.
It would all depend on how well the used batteries could be disposed of/recycled, and how much the replacements would cost. If it's similar or cheaper than running a lithium iron battery for the same milage, and it sounds like it would be far quicker to change than a current EV battery takes to charge, then I can see the appeal. We would just need these aluminum cells to be standardised for all makes and models of cars, and for them to be as common as charging stations are now.
Disposable/recyclable car batteries that you can't recharge is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, this would be a complete step back, market should wait until these kinds of batteries can be recharged, otherwise they won't be ecofriendly.
Good "jerry can" foe E planes flying over rough terrain or water or cold areas. Even for those hybrid E emergency planes. With a ICE engine and electric backup motor (use A batteries instead of L batteries for a more compact "jerry can").
so instead of transporting high energy density liquid petroleum fuels to gas stations we are going to transport large quantities of batteries to filling stations?? To swap out in vehicles. At the station. You're just creating a disposable battery it will require infrastructure, and transportation to make viable . Doesn't make sense to me The range extender idea is a good one fits well with this tech.
Our grid system can't handle millions of plug in electric cars. Unless and until battery technology catches up, electrics will be confined to the green loonies. Same goes for solar homes.
The tech sounds interesting though as yet unproven at a scale large enough to power any EV or plane. And the article quickly smudges over the need for a bigger fuel cell. There’s a definite bias against lithium batteries, where the text reads or implies things like: • lithium batteries are more expensive to recycle than throwing them away; • lithium batteries are not recycled due to cost • lithium batteries are heavy but makes no reference to how heavy an aluminium fuel cell would be, if powerful enough for a car • dismisses lithium batteries as being “unfeasible” to power buses and trucks, saying the weight of the vehicle would be greater than the cargo. Without recognising that nearly every present day motorised private vehicle, is already much heavier than the people and their luggage that they transport. As do many if not all fossil burning/EV buses and many lorries/trucks • dismisses the fact that there are already many buses and some lorries/trucks that are EVs It says that a Tesla Model S battery costs £30,000 and then goes on to say, that each aluminium fuel cell could cost approx. £5,000 each. Now the cell as reported, (if big enough) would power a car for 1,500mi, while the Tesla goes about 370mi, (their figure). Then fudges over, that the Tesla battery is good for about a million miles. Whereas the aluminium fuel cell is spent at the 1,500mi mark. So while the Tesla battery may cost “£30,000” and will of course need recharging to cover the million miles. I’d seriously doubt, that the Tesla will cost the same or more, than enough aluminium fuel cells to cover the same distance. 1x aluminium fuel cell = 1,500 at £5,000ea 100,000mi / 1,500 = 66.66 fuel cells 66.66 x £5,000 = £333,333.33 100,000mi in a Model S on: • Tesla Supercharging only £5,232.40 • avg. paid for grid elec. £4,260 • cheapest paid for grid elec. = £1,148.60 • and depending on home owned solar array and or wind generation. The cost could be much less. Or you could get your car converted for aluminium fuel cell at approx. £3,500 and spend another £33,333.33 to go the same distance.
How is it more wasteful? The AL battery can run with recycled metal and the depleted battery can by recycled through processes already used by many countrys. The inventor showed this by using an empty Coke can to power a lamp, small scale I know but still a proof of concept
For all the naysayers, there is a lot of intense research going on in this area right now to make rechargeable aluminium/air (and other metal-air, sulfur-air) batteries. There are some examples (published studies you can find right now, see below) where air batteries have been recharged, but the battery life drops off rapidly with each cycle currently. New organic electrolytes and membranes have made the biggest leaps for the performance and recharge-ability of these cells. It's not impossible but it may be a few years yet until that nut is cracked, and when it is, boy oh boy, dump your lithium stocks, sell your batteries and prepare for a whole new world of awesome devices/transport/robotics. Use Google Scholar to search for these recent publications to get a feel for current progress on metal air batteries: "Recent Progress in Electrically Rechargeable Zinc-Air Batteries" - Zn-air reaching 150 cycles. "Rechargeable Multi-Valent Metal-Air Batteries" - Fe-air batteries reaching 50 cycles. "Semi-solid-state aluminium-air batteries with electrolytes composed of aluminium chloride hydroxide with various hydrophobic additives" - Al-air batteries hitting 25 cycles. "Activity of different AlCl3-based electrolytes for the electrically rechargeable aluminium-air battery" - Al-air getting 15 cycles at 56% efficiency.
(Not super-important, but just for the pedantic record, energy storage per unit mass is called “Specific Energy.” “Energy Density” is energy storage per unit volume, although it sometimes is, not technically correctly, used as an arguably more-intuitive moniker for Specific Energy.) Good report! I like your suggestion of using them in place of ICEs in a PHEV; that’s a clever approach! Being an electrical engineer myself, although mostly in computers, I read an engineering-theory-level book on EVs (somewhat out-of-date, but with a lot of excellent and still-relevant info), and it spoke about aluminum-air and zinc-air batteries. That book pointed out, as did you, that these battery chemistries have a long history in hearing aids. From an EV perspective, the book described them as “refuelable” batteries, interestingly. In particular, suggesting that the materials can be refilled without replacing battery casings.
For car use, a range extender sounds like their best use. However, for that to work best you’d need some kind of standardisation (voltage/physical size/connector placement) similar to what there is with AA, AAA, B, C etc batteries, and they need to be user swappable. I rarely use the REx on my i3, but there are times when I’ve had to do a fairly long journey requiring more than one full tank of petrol/gas (due to either time constraints or broken/unavailable Rapid chargers). If you have to take your car to a dealer to replace the REx battery it becomes a lot less convenient. What sort of sizes are we talking about for range v size? Would a shoe box sized Al/air battery provide 50/100/200 miles?
Evolve this......RandD better and more efficient ICE engines. Refueling batteries for EV's by the UK's electricity that is produced by burning fossil fuels, mainly natural gas (42% in 2016) and coal (9% in 2016) is a far better process than roof top solar or any type of wind power.
No. "Dinojuice" really mineral energy users, is a three minute refill for the driver, requiring no mechanical refit or deterioration of contacts, plug harnesses and no pumping skill. Battery swaps are really silly on anything but a moped using the battery powered drill principle and hand held battery packs. Ford and Shell getting together to take over all the aging and poorly serviced ad-hoc public chargers. Putting them in fuel stations where staff can monitor their service, handle immediate problems, and also allow the casual BEV driver to simply find energy as easily as finding a competitive gas station (no app or other anal retentive nerdgasm dash computer involved) will make this work for the masses. This is what is already happening in the UK as the street charge points are like fighting over a cleared parking space in a Boston blizzard. However those thinking you were giving the finger to Big Oil: SURPRISE! I'm still watching this develop. The Leaf was either the Model T or the Tesla 3 is in the century old metaphor. Most of the brass era designs before 1925 were discarded by 1930 for the "modern car" that the new roads were built for. This will happen again and the early BEVs will fall into those quirky nostalgic categoiries. Is the T3 the fully realized Model A, Chevy or Austin of 1929...or is it the Model T that operates like no new car on the road after 1927?
Al-Air batteries could, once the myriad technical problems have been overcome, be a good solution for heavy goods vehicles instead of fuel cells or perhaps public transport and buses, where the depots would have their own "rebatterying" stations.. But for private vehicles and LGVs then you're right to be a bit cynical about this announcement. There have been just so many false hopes, the idea that there's some revolutionary technology, but it's likely progress will come as usual from the continued refinements of what we already know. There's a very thorough examination of this 50 year old technology here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S246802571730081X Would you believe for instance a theoretical maximum energy density of 8 kWh per kg, i.e. an 80 kWh Al-Air battery would weigh just 10 kg or little more than a bucket of water. You could swap the battery out by hand from a shelf from a "electrical service station". In 2016 an Al-Air battery was fabricated weighing just 100kg which would power an efficient electric car for 3,000 kms!! -The paper's well worth reading. You also need catalysts for the chemical reaction, platinum for instance. Now that's hardly cheap or abundant. Reading this information also makes you realise how an amateur tinkering in his back garden shed would be able to achieve anything other than raising a very naive and false hope, equivalent to "cold fusion". Thanks for a considered and knowledgeable review.
I am really sorry, I have tried resisting making a comment but its proving impossible. How is everyone missing the obvious issues with this technology, Every time it discharges you need to buy a new one, this isn’t a Duracell that costs £4.99. Its a £5000 purchase every 1500 miles. Not to mention the environmental impact of manufacturing a new battery every time it discharges, sure aluminium is highly recyclable but thats hardly the point. Lithium ion is approaching 700k miles of expected life (approx 2k charge cycles for one outlay of manufacture and delivery. I understand the source is the daily mail and therefore of questionable veracity to be kind but why is everyone letting them get away with this nonsense, people who know better. Its baking my brain TBH.
I think they said it costs 5,000 pounds for a battery that can run a car, and after 1500 miles you have to buy another one. That's more than 3 pounds per mile. Way too expensive. The pound is currently about 1.3 US dollars. Cha-CHING! This won't work unless it can be made much cheaper.
Maybe if there's an industry standard for size, shape and connection per Al-air battery so you aren't locked into a particular dealer from a particular brand and a particular model to avoid the "Oh sorry, no Tesla of your year in stock, come back next week and we *MIGHT* have one". Recharging stations (or lack thereof) are the biggest hurdle for EVs in my area. There aren't any. It's a 4-5 hour drive to find one at highway speeds. A bit like mobile phone coverage, actually - what coverage???
