Electric car batteries are the most expensive component. Its chemistry is one of the great long-term issues, requiring more efficient materials in terms of energy density. Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute is researching aluminum ion batteries.
Lithium runs out, the great natural reserves of this Chemical element preferred by manufacturers for electric car batteries his days are numbered, but still in the very long term. Still, suppliers have already got to work to find new solutions, such as sodium.
The Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, a true eminence in the field of research in the service of cars, is at a very advanced stage with aluminum ion batteries. A technology whose managers point out that support very fast charging power and high efficiency, with hardly incurring residual losses Nothing less than 90% energy efficiency and up to 10,000 charge cycles.
Aluminum batteries offer significant benefits
The Germans consider that aluminum batteries are possible successors to lithium batteries, being cheaper by not needing special materials. Research group sources explain that current lithium batteries have a high-purity aluminum foil coating and a graphite anode, so their research is based on use aluminum foil as anode.
More specifically, the team explains that “With this battery, no special quality requirements are imposed on aluminum and the standard foils on the market are completely sufficient for this purpose. Aluminum batteries also offer a high level of safety, because there is no risk of fire as with the use of lithium. In addition, among its advantages, aluminum offers a volumetric energy density theoretically four times higher».
Ulrike Wunderwald is the head of battery materials research at the Fraunhofer Institute, who has explained that using graphite powder in the cathode has reached an energy density of 135 Wh / kg, so the battery can be charged, and discharged , in 30 seconds. Logically, this time it’s not that of a car battery, but the German does not rule out that in the future this technology may reach future models.