Silicon, the new lithium?
A new breakthrough may bring silicon-air batteries to market in less than 5 years. Is it time for lithium-ion to step aside?
Image: Technion-Israel Institute of Technology 
The joint research project led by three scientists in three continents — Yair Ein-Eli of Technion, Digby Macdonald of Penn State University, and Rika Hagiwara of Kyoto University — has yielded a working prototype of the battery which dispenses with the typical heavy, metal-based cathode structure and replaces it with something much lighter ... air.| Previous Post America's Most Endangered Mountains | Next Post Farmville farmers raise $700,000 for Haiti |
Comments
Is this recycling Li-ion batteries a profitable business that can stand alone or it has to be subsidized by goverments?
I can see a few "good news" facets to this. For one thing, if it looks like lithium-ion batteries are going to be obsolute in a 10 years, Bolivia will not hoard their lithium. They will sell it cheap, driving down the price. Also, even if the battery is never rechargable, if they are cheap enough you can drive to the "gas" station and swap out the dying battery for a new one, then recycle the old battery (or just dump it if it is nontoxic and degradable). Solves the problem of long recharge.... More
Three continents? Japan, while an island, is generally considered to be associated with Asia, and Israel is certainly in Asia, and the US is in North America. That's two continents.
You guys state that it can last thousands of hours. At what current draw? I can pull 1 milliamp per hour from a 2000mAH Eneloop, and make the same statement. Also, what is the expected capacity?
Nice graphics, no confusing labels and no explanation of how it works.
Pushing over Bolivia its own incompetence of manipulating materials over manipulating countries and people are really awesome. Besides congrats to the real scientists that are finding new alternatives
I was always told sand in your fueltank kills your engine ?
Actually, if the battery can be built so that it's easily swappable, and the components can be recycled for around the same energy cost as the battery can give, then it can run on the same model as our petrol cars do.
Also, the step from non-rechargeable batteries to rechargeable ones can be a *big* one. Unless someone can make that step, this is not at all a replacement for Li-ion batteries.
So, good work, keep it up, but it's not yet a big deal.
Karl, you said: "Lithium batteries,... are not easily recycled". This is not correct: Umicore has a prooven technology for all Li-ion battery chemistries and is going to invest in a 7000 ton capacity installation in Belgium. See www.batteryrecycling.umicore.com
