Cody Friesen, 31 Fluidic Energy Making cheaper, higher-energy batteries to store renewable energy Technology Review: Betting on a Metal-Air Battery Breakthrough Technology Review: TR35 Within two years, Friesen hopes to be selling batteries that can hold twice as much energy as the lithium-ion batteries used in laptops and, increasingly, in electric cars. He calculates that his rechargeable metal-air batteries could ultimately hold 10 times as much energy as lithium-ion devices at a much lower cost. Now that would make a car make go as far as with a tank of gasoline !
Zinc-air batteries have the highest energy density of all, over the counter batteries. But they have such low power rates, they remain limited to very low power applications. I have been thinking along the lines of zinc-air into an LC circuit to provide recharge power for an ordinary NiMH or LiON cell. But that is something for another forums and another day. Bob Wilson
Great article! For comparison, the NiMH batteries in the Prius are 46 Wh/kg. High power/cycle life LiFePO4 or LiTitanate are around 100 Wh/kg. Standard Li-cobalt oxide (ie lithium ion used in laptops, Tesla EV etc) is around 200 Wh/kg. Polyplus have been working on the lithium-air couple with a theoretical energy density of 11,600 Wh/kg, of which they reckon 3,000 Wh/kg is a realistic practical target.
