Chinese-led team from Stanford reports major breakthrough in aluminum battery development

A Chinese-led research team from Stanford University announced they have developed a rechargeable and high-performance aluminum battery that could be a safe alternative of conventional batteries.

Aluminum is considered as an attractive material for batteries, but commercially viable aluminum battery has previously not existed, contended the researchers in an academic paper published in the online edition of Nature Monday.

Previous researches into aluminum battery have failed to produce meaningful results, mostly due to the challenge of finding proper materials for cathode and electrolyte to ensure the battery running after repeated cycles of charging and discharging.

By using aluminum for anode, graphite for cathode and an ionic liquid as electrolyte, the Stanford scientists claim they are able to create aluminum-ion battery which is fast-charging, long- lasting, inflammable, inexpensive and flexible.

"This is really a breakthrough in developing the rechargeable aluminum battery, because previously aluminum battery that is rechargeable essentially is not in existence, especially with the performance that we are having today, " said Hongjie Dai, research team leader and professor of Chemistry at Stanford University, which is located at Stanford, the U.S. state of California.

He said that their aluminum battery is very safe because the ionic electrolyte is nonflammable and aluminum and graphite are also quite safe and much less reactive than lithium. It's safer than the widely used lithium-ion battery, which can be a fire hazard.

Videos provided by the team show that to test the safety of the battery, the researchers drilled through the aluminum battery pouch and it was still running for a while without catching a fire.

Besides safety, the aluminum battery developed by the Stanford scientists has other major advantages, according to the researchers. For example, the battery can be charged and discharged very quickly. It can be charged in a matter of one minute, while it takes hours to charge the lithium battery that most smartphones and laptops use.

The aluminum battery can withstand over 7,500 charge-discharge cycles without losing any capacity, while a typical lithium battery lasts about 1,000 cycles. Another feature of the aluminum battery is that it can be bent or folded without causing damages to it or flammability problems.

"This was the first time an ultra-fast aluminum-ion battery was constructed with stability over thousands of cycles," the paper said.

According to the researchers, the battery now operates at about two volts reversibly and that's a record for rechargeable aluminum battery. They believed that the aluminum battery can be a safe alternative to alkaline battery and many other commercial batteries in wide use today.

The aluminum battery may also be used for electrical grid to rapidly store and release energy, said Dai, who noted for these future applications, however, the technology still needs to be improved to increase the energy density of the aluminum battery. Endite