

Aluminum Battery Charges in 1 Minute - popper189
http://mfgtalkradio.com/aluminum-battery-charges-in-1-minute/

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ComputerGuru
_Plus aluminum cells only carry 40 watts of electricity per kilogram compared
to lithium’s 100 to 206 W /kg power density. “Improving the cathode material
could eventually increase the voltage and energy density,” said Dai.
“Otherwise, our battery has everything else you’d dream that a battery should
have: inexpensive electrodes, good safety, high-speed charging, flexibility
and long cycle life. I see this as a new battery in its early days. It’s quite
exciting."_

I found that almost hilarious. "Yeah, five times less energy density, but
otherwise perfect and totally going to kill lithium ion."

Yawn.

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zzalpha
I wonder if it's better suited for large scale energy storage? Cheaper
materials, improved safety, and longer cycle life may be worthwhile, even at
the expense of storage density, as that might be less important in a static
setting like that?

Edit: Ah, they actually mention that application in the Stanford article
linked elsewhere in the comments.

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kjhughes
Better announcement/overview link:

[https://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/aluminum-ion-
batte...](https://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/aluminum-ion-
battery-033115.html)

Or the research paper itself (alas paywalled):

[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14340.html)

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sctb
HN discussion of the Stanford article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9331102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9331102)

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owenversteeg
A max 40 Wh/kg is ridiculous. For comparison, I have some Li-ions that are 260
Wh/kg. They say that the main advantage is the 7x number of charge cycles, but
if your aluminum battery weighs seven times more for the same capacity you
could literally carry seven equivalent Li-ion batteries (!) and just change
which one you use to get 7x the charge cycles.

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frik
Aluminium–air battery:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery)

Iron-air battery has some great advantages too (and disadvantages). It is used
in hearing aids.

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johnfitzeecs
"The aluminum-ion cell isn’t perfect (yet) as it can only produce about 2
volts, far less than the 3.6V that lithium-ion an muster." Derp

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Dylan16807
Voltage doesn't matter at all.

