Aluminium-Ion Batteries From Stanford University: Safer and Faster Than Lithium-Ion Batteries

Researchers at the Stanford University have developed a new aluminium-ion battery that isn’t a fire hazard like the present age of lithium-ion batteries and can be recharged within a minute. The aluminium battery prototype was developed by a team at Stanford University led by Professor Hongjie Dai. The team claims that the battery prototype will not catch fire even when someone tries to drill though it. While the concept of aluminium-ion batteries isn’t new, the team at Stanford has tried to perfect it by improving charging times and cycles which were the pitfalls of the initial iterations. Aluminium is a perfect material for building batteries because it’s cheaper, less flammable and has a high storage capacity.


The aluminium-ion battery built by the Stanford team has an aluminium anode and a graphite cathode placed in an ionic liquid electrolyte inside a flexible polymer coated pouch. The team isn’t specifying the details of the battery electrotyle for obvious reasons. Unlike the lithium-ion batteries available in our smartphones which take hours to replenish, the aluminium-ion battery prototype recharges fully within a minute. Previous aluminium battery attempts were able to achieve 100 charge-discharge cycles but Stanford’s version is able to survive 7500 cycles. Commercial lithium-ion batteries that we find on a laptop or smartphone can only last for a thousand cycles. The biggest advantage of the aluminium battery is perhaps it flexibility. Since the battery pack is made out of a flexible polymer coated pouch it can be easily compatible with the new-age curved smartphones and smartwatches.

The team expects that when the battery is perfected, it shall be used to store renewable energy on the electrical grid and offer an environment-friendly alternative to 1.5volt AA and AAA alkaline batteries. The aluminium-ion battery is however not without its faults. The team admits that these batteries produce about half the voltage of a typical lithium ion battery. The team will be testing different cathode materials to sort this issue in the coming days. In the meanwhile you can check out the short video the team made about their path-breaking innovation below.

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