Aluminum-Air Battery Powered Electric Car Raises Hopes For 1600 Km Range

Kaustubh Katdare · 2014-06-08T22:59:19+00:00

Most of the modern electric cars are powered by Lithium-Ion batteries. While these batteries offer high energy density and lower self-discharge rate, they suffer from several drawbacks. The Li-Ion batteries are not only expensive, but are subject to aging as well. The biggest drawback of the batteries being the very limited range they offer. While the world makes a slow transition to electric powered cars; a new technology, in the form of Aluminum-Air batteries has raised hopes. Alcoa and Phinergy have debuted a new electric car powered by Aluminum-Air battery. The two companies are collaborating to produce a car that does 1600 Km (~1000 miles) on a single charge. Martin Briere of Alcoa (Canada) has said that the focus of automakers has been to develop zero-emission cars that match the range of the regular gasoline-powered cars. He said that the aluminum-air battery holds the promise to meet that challenge. The battery is manufactured using 100% recyclable material and no carbon dioxide emissions. The aluminum-air battery uses water and air to unlock the energy trapped inside aluminum. A silver-based catalyst is used to accelerate the reaction between aluminum and water in presence of oxygen to produce electricity. According to Phinergy, each battery has about 50 aluminum plates and each of these plates is capable of delivering 20 mile range. It can also be used along with regular Li-ion battery and together can push the range of the vehicle to over 1600 Km. Do let us know your thoughts on electric cars. Do you think the world's ready to go 100% electric? Source: #-Link-Snipped-#

Aluminum-Air Battery Powered Electric Car Raises Hopes For 1600 Km Range

Kaustubh Katdare
@thebigk

Updated: Oct 15, 2024

Views: 1.3K

Most of the modern electric cars are powered by Lithium-Ion batteries. While these batteries offer high energy density and lower self-discharge rate, they suffer from several drawbacks. The Li-Ion batteries are not only expensive, but are subject to aging as well. The biggest drawback of the batteries being the very limited range they offer. While the world makes a slow transition to electric powered cars; a new technology, in the form of Aluminum-Air batteries has raised hopes. Alcoa and Phinergy have debuted a new electric car powered by Aluminum-Air battery. The two companies are collaborating to produce a car that does 1600 Km (~1000 miles) on a single charge.

Martin Briere of Alcoa (Canada) has said that the focus of automakers has been to develop zero-emission cars that match the range of the regular gasoline-powered cars. He said that the aluminum-air battery holds the promise to meet that challenge. The battery is manufactured using 100% recyclable material and no carbon dioxide emissions.

The aluminum-air battery uses water and air to unlock the energy trapped inside aluminum. A silver-based catalyst is used to accelerate the reaction between aluminum and water in presence of oxygen to produce electricity. According to Phinergy, each battery has about 50 aluminum plates and each of these plates is capable of delivering 20 mile range. It can also be used along with regular Li-ion battery and together can push the range of the vehicle to over 1600 Km.

Do let us know your thoughts on electric cars. Do you think the world's ready to go 100% electric?

Source: #-Link-Snipped-#

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Sarathkumar Chandrasekaran

Member • Jun 8, 2014

Yep.We want to take a decision on switching to other fuels as soon as possible in a large scale.Latest technologists had proved that both mileage and power can be produced using Battery power.Still i reserve my support to biofuels but the sad part is about emission.Thought we could curb the emission of CO other gases are still emitted.On another note, wean use resources which are abundant .We have to consider so many aspects before taking any decision like availability of source(aluminum in case of this topic), emission( if biofuels ), power and efficiency!

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Rajni Jain

Member • Jun 9, 2014

Not Yet, The manufacturing and maintenance cost of these cars is huge. In-fact, the battery itself, costs almost 30% of the Car's cost.

I have used a Hybrid car for some time, before the battery drained off and the new battery was costing almost 30% of new car's cost.

It will still take a while before the electric car companies will come with something magical that can produce the good batteries with dirt cheap price.

However, in respect to this article 1600 Km on single charging is very impressive figures.

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