“An aluminum battery developed by Stanford University researchers is an alternative to the current lithium-ion batteries used in smartphones and researchers claim it won’t damage the environment or be combustible,” Arjun Kharpal reports for CNBC.
We have developed a rechargeable aluminum battery that may replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batteries, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames. Our new battery won’t catch fire, even if you drill through it. — Hongjie Dai, professor of chemistry at Stanford University
“Two key characteristics of the battery is that it is bendable, allowing it to be used in potentially flexible devices, and costs very little to produce,” Kharpal reports. “Stanford scientists’ battery can withstand more than 7,500 charging cycles without any loss of capacity… a typical lithium-ion battery lasts about 1,000 cycles.”
“The researchers admitted that more work needs to be done until the battery will become a viable consumer product,” Kharpal reports. “Dai said the aluminum prototype can generate about two volts of electricity, more than the 1.5-volt AA and AAA batteries consumers currently use [sic produce], but about half the voltage of a typical lithium-ion battery.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Every battery story starts out so promising and then ends in exactly the same way: Wah-wah.
However, as Dai says in the full article, the battery is in its early days,” so the promise remains.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “cococanuck” for the heads up.]