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Austrian scientists develop innovative air battery that could do away with lithium-ion batteries. Oxygen batteries are longer lasting, safer and cheaper.
The batteries of lithium ions are already present in various electronic devices and electric cars, being produced with great ease today. However, researchers have been developing a new technology that could revolutionize the battery market: the production of oxygen ion batteries. This novelty has the potential to make batteries more efficient and durable, as well as safer and more sustainable. In this article, we are going to explore how this new technology works and how it can impact our daily lives.
Air batteries?
The innovative oxygen batteries can be developed without using expensive and rare chemical elements, and will be produced using only non-combustible materials, thus reducing the risk of explosions and fires, something that is very common in lithium batteries.
The air battery concept was launched by a trio of researchers from Vienna University of Technology, in Austria. According to Alexander Schmid, researchers already have a lot of experience with ceramic materials, which have been used for fuel cells for some years now. This generated the idea of investigating whether these materials could also be suitable for developing a battery.
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The ceramic materials studied by the team are capable of releasing and absorbing oxygen ions with a double negative charge (O²). When an electrical voltage is applied, oxygen ions migrate from one ceramic material to another, from where they can be forced to migrate again, thus generating an electrical current. According to Professor Jurgen Fleig, the basic principle of oxygen batteries is really very similar to that of lithium-ion batteries, however their materials have some essential advantages.
New battery has longer life
The oxygen ion battery concept has another great advantage: its longevity. Schmid says that in many batteries there is the problem that, at some point, the charge carriers can no longer move, thus it is not possible to generate more electricity and the capacity of the battery is reduced. After many charge cycles, this can cause a serious problem.
The oxygen-ion battery, on the other hand, can be regenerated without any problems: If oxygen is lost due to side reactions, the loss can simply be compensated for by oxygen in the ambient air.
Regarding the materials used in its construction, ceramics are not flammable, practically ruling out fire accidents, which happen repeatedly with lithium ion batteries. Furthermore, at least in theory, rare elements are not needed, which are expensive or in limited supply in a few areas of the world.
Challenges to be faced by researchers
It is important to mention that this air battery is still not the long-awaited revolution in the field of batteries for portable devices and electric cars, which, although it has incremental improvements, has been stuck in the same technology for longer than anyone would like. This is because the new oxygen batteries reach about a third of the energy density of lithium-ion batteries and only work correctly at temperatures between 200 and 400ºC.
In this way, this is an extremely interesting technology for storing energy from intermittent sources, such as solar and wind, making it possible to feed the electrical grid 24 hours a day. Currently, this area is dominated by flow batteries.
According to Schmid, if an entire warehouse full of energy storage modules is built, the lower energy density and the increase in operating temperature do not play a decisive role. However, the strong points of its battery would be particularly important, such as the long service life, the possibility of producing large quantities of these materials without rare elements and the fact that there is no risk of fire with these batteries.
