The first is ready battery of the future, capable of recharging smartphones and PCs in one minute and destined to replace traditional batteries. It was developed inStanford University of California and is described on Nature magazine. The new generation accumulator, made of aluminium, is intended to replace traditional batteries, including the lithium ones which are currently used for mobile phones and laptops. The new batteries have a longer life and are 'greener' and safer, notes research coordinator, chemist Hongjie Dai.
The prototype has endured 7.500 recharge cycles without losing power, while normal lithium-ion batteries begin to have lower performance from the hundredth recharge. Furthermore, the new accumulators will be less expensive than current batteries, given that the price of aluminum is lower than that of lithium.
Stanford tuned aluminum batteries they are intended to replace most of the traditional type batteries, such as the very polluting alkaline ones, and the lithium ion ones, which are potentially dangerous if used incorrectly. Thanks to their unique characteristics, the new generation batteries recharge very quickly, last a long time and are cheap. For decades, aluminum has been considered an interesting material to use to build batteries, mainly due to its low cost, but until now there was no technology that could achieve this goal.
The prototype aluminum battery built at Stanford has the negative electrode made of aluminum (anode) and the positive electrode (cathode) made of graphite. The two elements were placed in a liquid salt solution at room temperature inside a flexible polymer which has the function of conductor (electrolyte).
