Non-Flammable Battery Six Times Cheaper Than Lithium-Ion One Developed

As the needs for energy keeps growing worldwide, there is more demand for economical ways to store it. Today’s lithium-ion batteries are still pretty expensive, and researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and elsewhere have developed a new kind of battery, made entirely from widely available and inexpensive materials, RTS reports.

The electrodes of the new battery are made of aluminum and sulfur, with a molten salt electrolyte in between.

Professor Donald Sadoway of MIT, along with 15 colleagues from all over the world, has managed to make a cheap alternative to batteries commonly used today.

– I wanted to invent something that was better, much better, than lithium-ion batteries for small-scale stationary storage, and ultimately for automotive – explains Sadoway.

Inexpensive, available and non-flammable

Aside from being expensive, lithium-ion batteries contain a flammable electrolyte. Sadoway therefore sought not just cheap materials, but also those which are not flammable.

As for potential substitutes, the commercially dominant iron doesn’t have the right electrochemical properties for an efficient battery, he says, but the second most available metal, aluminum, does.

Then he started searching for a material to pair aluminum with as the material for the other electrode. The cheapest of all the non-metals is sulfur, which is abundant.

For the electrolyte, he used molten salts that have relatively low melting points – around 530 degrees Celsius.

All the three main ingredients are extremely cheap and available. Aluminum, the same kind used for the production of foil, sulfur, which is often a byproduct of petroleum refining, and widely available salts.

– The ingredients are cheap, and the thing is safe — it cannot burn – Sadoway says.

In the experiments, the battery cells endured hundreds of cycles at exceptionally high charging rates. Even more importantly, the battery is projected to be six times cheaper than the lithium-ion one.

They also showed that the charging rate was highly dependent on the working temperature. At 110 degrees Celsius, it showed 25 times faster rates than at 25 degrees Celsius.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT

Donald Sadoway

lithium ion batteries

alternative to batteries

cheap battery

inexpensive battery