SYDNEY: A new type of battery could be used to recharge a Smartphone in as little as 60 seconds and store energy from wind farms on the national grid, scientists claim.
Unlike the conventional batteries in most mobile devices, which can take up to three hours to charge, the aluminium-based cell is cheap, bendable and impossible to burn, its inventors say.
The idea of an aluminium battery has been around for at least three decades, but scientists have struggled to find materials that can keep putting out a reliable voltage after being recharged hundreds or thousands of times.
The breakthrough came at Stanford University in California, where chemists “accidentally” hit upon the notion of using a graphite electrode opposite one made out of aluminium.
The resulting battery can be charged in less than a minute, much faster than the lithium-ion cells commonly used in rechargeable devices such as mobile phones and laptops.
Its “unprecedented” speed also makes it an attractive prospect for stockpiling the irregular spurts of electricity generated by wind turbines, solar panels and other renewable, which could ease some of the strain on the grid, according to Hongjie Dai, professor of chemistry at the university and one of the paper’s authors.
The Stanford researchers are not the first to hold out hopes of an end to the hours of waiting to fully recharge popular brands of Smartphone such as the iPhone 6 and the LG G3.
Last year StoreDot, a spin-off company from Tel Aviv University in Israel, demonstrated a dollars 30 charger capable of restoring a Samsung Galaxy Smartphone to full power in 30 seconds.
Its battery relies on biochemical “nanodots”, microscopic blobs of amino acids that improve the performance of the electrolyte, the charge-carrying fluid between the electrodes. StoreDot said that it would begin mass production of the fuel cells for smart phones by the end of next year.
Writing in Nature, the Stanford scientists said that one useful advantage the aluminium battery enjoyed over lithium-ion cells was its robustness, and particularly its resistance to catching fire. Lithium-ion batteries very occasionally sizzle, bulge or even burst into flames.
Its long life – at least 7,500 cycles of being run down and recharged – also suggests that it could be used to store energy from wind farms and solar panels on a grid, Professor Dai said.
“The grid needs a battery with a long cycle life that can rapidly store and release energy.
“Our latest unpublished data suggest that an aluminium battery can be recharged tens of thousands of times. It’s hard to imagine building a huge lithium-ion battery for grid storage,” he said.
The aluminium-based battery developed at Stanford generates two volts of electricity, more than the 1.5V that comes out of the alkaline AA and AAA batteries used in many consumer gadgets, but still less than its lithium-ion rivals.
“Our battery produces about half the voltage of a typical lithium battery,” Professor Dai said. “But improving the cathode material could eventually increase the voltage and energy density I see this as a new battery in its early days.”
