Hello,

Read the following article:
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/aluminum-ion-battery-033115.html

Bertus

 

Interesting. I wonder what the mystery 'salt' electolyte is?

 

Interesting. I wonder what the mystery 'salt' electolyte is?

I am betting the electrolyte is 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride and AlCl3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium_chloride )

Very interesting article. Apparently, it gives 2V per cell.

John

 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14340.html

 

Really interesting. I wonder what's "wrong" with it.

 

Also featured here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32204707

 

Really interesting. I wonder what's "wrong" with it.

Currently, only one lab has working batteries.
They probably have patents since they released a news brief.
There will probably be some government red tape to cut through to be able to sell the batteries.
They need to create a company to fabricate the batteries (since nobody want to pay royalties).

I expect about 5 years before the batteries are on the shelves.

 

Just 5? I think that's very optimistic.

 

Just 5? I think that's very optimistic.

It more fun than being pessimistic.

 

It more fun than being pessimistic.

Realistic is more like it. We've seen dozens of breakthroughs in technology that was 5 years away from commercial reality 30 years ago.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/elon-musk-not-impressed-stanford-amazing-battery-fully-164009895.html

 

I've read papers showing that so-called pessimists are right far more often than optimists. It doesn't have to be discouraging to recognize reality. Embrace it! Optimism has its place, but it's a poor substitute for accuracy.

I worked in the business of moving biotechnology from the lab bench to the market, and I can tell you that 5 years for a technology of this magnitude would be nearly a miracle. Manufacturing, regulatory, legal - lots of challenges every way you turn.

 

Really interesting. I wonder what's "wrong" with it.

I'm betting it's its volume to energy ratio, or maybe even its weight to energy ratio...

 

I've read papers showing that so-called pessimists are right far more often than optimists. It doesn't have to be discouraging to recognize reality. Embrace it! Optimism has its place, but it's a poor substitute for accuracy.

I agree... there's the pessimist, the optimist and then there's the skeptical... I consider myself a mixture of the the latter two groups.
Though, as you're implying, pessimism has its place too.

"I like pessimists. They're always the ones who bring lifejackets for the boat" - Lisa Kleypas

 

An optimist wants an answer. A skeptic must have one.

 

Hello,

Read the following article:
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/aluminum-ion-battery-033115.html

Bertus

This is fascinating to me! Somehow I missed finding out about this until now despite the fact that I read news from different sources all the time. I wonder if one might be able to experiment and gain some success with a bit of aluminum, graphite and maybe a simple electrolyte composed of pink himalayan salt dissolved in a solution of water and alcohol at the proper levels in order to keep the salt in liquid form? Seems to me though that the salt would wreak havoc on the aluminum but as a simple test it might be worth the time to try it out. Perhaps I may try it tomorrow if I can find the time. I believe John above is most likely correct as he speculates what the electrolyte they are using is. That electrolyte is a bit expensive to purchase in decent quantities however. Anyway, I sure appreciate you sharing this with the community here!