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(Phys.org) —Researchers have demonstrated a new class of high-energy battery, called a "molten-air battery," that has one of the highest storage capacities of any battery type to date. Unlike some other high-energy batteries, the molten-air battery has the advantage of being rechargeable. Although the molten electrolyte currently requires high-temperature operation, the battery is so new that the researchers hope that experimenting with different molten compositions and other characteristics will make molten-air batteries strong competitors in electric vehicles and for storing energy for the electric grid.
The researchers, Stuart Licht, Baochen Cui, Jessica Stuart, Baohui Wang, and Jason Lau, at George Washington University, have published a paper on the new molten-air battery in a recent issue of Energy & Environmental Science.
"This is the first time that a rechargeable molten-air battery has been demonstrated," Licht told Phys.org. "There have been rechargeable batteries that use molten electrolytes, but not air. For example, molten-sulfur batteries have been widely studied for electric car and grid applications. However, sulfur is twice as massive as oxygen (per electron stored) and its mass needs to be carried as part of the battery (whereas air is freely available). The molten-air batteries are the first rechargeable batteries to use a molten salt to store energy using 'free' oxygen from the air and multi-electron storage molecules."
This ability to store multiple electrons in a single molecule is one of the biggest advantages of the molten-air battery. By their nature, multiple-electron-per-molecule batteries usually have higher storage capacities compared to single-electron-per-molecule batteries, such as Li-ion batteries. The battery with the highest energy capacity to date, the vanadium boride (VB2)-air battery, can store 11 electrons per molecule. However, the VB2-air battery and many other high-capacity batteries have a serious drawback: they are not rechargeable.
Molten-air battery's storage capacity among the highest of any battery type
(Phys.org) —Researchers have demonstrated a new class of high-energy battery, called a "molten-air battery," that has one of the highest storage capacities of any battery type to date. Unlike some other high-energy batteries, the molten-air battery has the advantage of being rechargeable...
phys.org
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