New lithium-air battery could be 4x better than Li-ion

New battery designs are on the minds of researchers globally with the proliferation of electric vehicles that are dependent on lithium-ion batteries.

In Chicago, a new lithium-air design is being developed by Illinois Institute of Technology Chemical Engineering Assistant Professor Mohammad Asadi in collaboration with researchers from Argonne National Lab and University of Illinois Chicago. The research was supported by the US Department of Energy.

 Asadi considers  lithium-air a breakthrough design that could possibly be engineered for market production.  The research is described in the journal Science, penned by 16 authors.

The battery design could potentially store one kilowatt-hour per kilogram or more, four times greater energy density than the potential of lithium ion technology. At that rate, it would be suitable for converting heavy-duty vehicles to electric, including airplanes, trains and submarines.

Asadi made a battery with a solid electrolyte of polymer and ceramic, common solid electrolytes that separately don’t work as well. By combining them, the result took advantage of the ceramic material’s high ionic  connectivity and the polymer’s high stability.

With this solid electrolyte, a lithium-dioxide reaction can occur at high rates at room temperature.

“The solid-state electrolyte contributes around 75% of the total energy density,” Asadi said in a statement. “That tells us there is a lot of room for improvement because we believe we can minimize that thickness without compromising performance and that would allow us to achieve a very, very high energy density.”

The Science abstract says a lithium-air battery based on lithium oxide “can theoretically deliver an energy density comparable to that of gasoline.”  The composite polymer electrolyte was based nanoparticles of Li10GeP2S12 embedded a polyethylene oxide polymer.  The battery created is rechargeable for 1000 cycles.

The current market for lithium-ion batteries was valued at $44 billion in 2022, and expected to reach $135 billion in 2031, according to Markets and Markets.   Even though the lithium-air design holds potential for greater energy density, many experts believe the world’s supply of lithium could be stretched by 2025 as lithium demand for batteries triples by then.

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