Aluminum battery from Stanford offers safe alternative to conventional batteries

The new aluminum-ion battery could replace many of the lithium-ion and alkaline batteries in wide use today

Stanford University scientists have invented the first high-performance aluminum battery that’s fast-charging, long-lasting and inexpensive. Researchers say the new technology offers a safe alternative to many commercial batteries in wide use today.

“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,” said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. “Our new battery won’t catch fire, even if you drill through it.”

Dai and his colleagues describe their novel aluminum-ion battery in “An ultrafast rechargeable aluminum-ion battery,” which will be published in the April 6 advance online edition of the journal Nature.

Aluminum has long been an attractive material for batteries, mainly because of its low cost, low flammability and high-charge storage capacity. For decades, researchers have tried unsuccessfully to develop a commercially viable aluminum-ion battery.  A key challenge has been finding materials capable of producing sufficient voltage after repeated cycles of charging and discharging.

Graphite cathode

An aluminum-ion battery consists of two electrodes: a negatively charged anode made of aluminum and a positively charged cathode.

“People have tried different kinds of materials for the cathode,” Dai said. “We accidentally discovered that a simple solution is to use graphite, which is basically carbon. In our study, we identified a few types of graphite material that give us very good performance.”

For the experimental battery, the Stanford team placed the aluminum anode and graphite cathode, along with an ionic liquid electrolyte, inside a flexible polymer- coated pouch.

“The electrolyte is basically a salt that’s liquid at room temperature, so it’s very safe,” said Stanford graduate student Ming Gong, co-lead author of the Nature study.

Aluminum batteries are safer than conventional lithium-ion batteries used in millions of laptops and cell phones today, Dai added.

“Lithium-ion batteries can be a fire hazard,” he said.

As an example, he pointed to recent decisions by United and Delta airlines to ban bulk lithium-battery shipments on passenger planes.

“In our study, we have videos showing that you can drill through the aluminum battery pouch, and it will continue working for a while longer without catching fire,” Dai said. “But lithium batteries can go off in an unpredictable manner  – in the air, the car or in your pocket. Besides safety, we have achieved major breakthroughs in aluminum battery performance.”

One example is ultra-fast charging. Smartphone owners know that it can take hours to charge a lithium-ion battery. But the Stanford team reported “unprecedented charging times” of down to one minute with the aluminum prototype.

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