REPORT: IBM working to develop 500-mile lithium-air battery pack
Last week, a consortium of some of the nation's leading scientists and engineers reportedly met in California to develop a new battery pack for electric cars. Sponsored by IBM and its Big Green Innovations program, the so-called Battery 500 team hopes to create a power pack capable of propelling a vehicle for up to 500 miles.
To reach this lofty goal, IBM's group is focusing on lithium-air technology, which uses lithium anodes electrochemically coupled to atmospheric oxygen through an air cathode. These batteries are thought to be ideal for EV applications due to their superior energy density – IBM's scientists say up to 10 times that of today's lithium ion batteries – and high specific energy.
Exciting technology to be sure, but IBM doesn't expect to know if these batteries will be commercially viable for another two years. By then, maybe some sort of fast charger will exist with a pipe big enough to transfer all that power into the battery in a reasonable amount of time.
[Source: Smarter Technology via GM-Volt.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Reality Hurts 4:10PM (10/06/2009)
If IBM does this, EV's will not be 90-100 mile overpriced jokes anymore. If they can get the price of the entire vehicle with this battery pack to under $30,000, the EV would FINALLY become practical.
GO IBM!
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Boyprodigy1 4:38PM (10/06/2009)
Those jokes are going to be the next wave of the next generation of cars to be penetrating the consumer market. I wouldn't scoff at them if i were you.
Andy 2:10AM (10/09/2009)
My understanding of lithium air is that they are not as straightforward to recharge as conventional lithium batteries. They will probably require some complex monopolistic infrastructure. Same as PBP, hydrogen foolery or existing gas stations. This is to guarantee an anuity (razor blade model) income to the successful infrastructure seller. They do learn a lot at business school these days.
110 miles of rechargeable battery is suitable for 90% of daily motoring requirements. The size, weight, power, reliability and cost of a battery pack this size is perfectly feasible and already in the early stages of commercialisation.
Conventional battery refueling infrastructure (plug and socket) is easy and cost effective to implement. There are no major barriers to entry or technological lockouts. Granted the electricity supply is a kind of monopoly, but it is well regulated and reasonably consumer friendly.
This leaves efficient ICE, hydrogen fuel cells and Lithium air to fight it out for the other 10% of real world motoring requirements. This might come as a suprise to you folks living in rural US, but you are a niche market in the world context. All these options are really just range extenders for infrequent use. Good luck to the technology winners, but there's no pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow.
The relevant questions is a how many miles you want on your conventional primary battery. 10, 20, 40, 80, 100, 150, 200, 300. Beyond that it's a fairly pointless discussion.
Fast charging lithium batteries and high power charge stations are the real jokers in the pack. Funny thing is they already exist.
Laurens 4:20PM (10/06/2009)
Do they still have research facilities? Every now and then a reinvention, would this not work better in a separate company unless they are also marketing power backup systems!
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Chris M 7:54PM (10/07/2009)
Yep, IBM still has research facilities at the South end of Silicon Valley, and elsewhere, though not nearly as many research facilities as in their heyday in the early 1980's.
Snowdog 4:25PM (10/06/2009)
This is the kind of breakthrough that would change everything (when affordable).
It can also keep current ranges while making the pack smaller and lighter.
A Tesla roadster pack weights 450KG - 990lbs. That is over 1/3 the mass of the whole car.
The Tesla would drop from 2700lbs to 1800lbs with one of these. The performance would shoot up, city economy would increase, handling would improve...
Batteries for 40mile PHEVs would only be about 40 lbs...
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paulwesterberg 4:46PM (10/06/2009)
And flying electric planes would be possible.
Serge 5:05PM (10/06/2009)
Lithium air batteries are superior to any lithium ion chemistry in energy density, but roughly equal in power density. So, if you want Roadster-level power performance (185 kW) you will have to build a 700-800 lbs lithium air pack (you can save weight by eliminating all the safety gear used to baby cobalt-oxide lithium ion cells in Roadster's ESS). The upside is that such Lithium Air pack will likely have 1,000 mile range due to very high energy density. The only way to shave weight is by using a hybrid approach: a small capacity, but high cycle life and high power battery such as A123, Altairnano or a supercapacitor serves as main traction battery, while a compact lithium air battery trickle charges it for long distance use.
The other upside is that lithium air batteries have incredibly simple design and don't use any expensive (think cobalt oxide) raw materials. Lithium is cheap, oxygen in air is free, so the rest of the cost is packaging, electrolytes (cheap) and and ion-separating membrane (unknown cost at the moment).
Go IBM!
Bip-D-Bo 5:16PM (10/06/2009)
Perhaps the power can be obtained by having parallel capacitors. A battery-capacitor hybrid (Current capacitor technology, not this ultra-capacitor scam) might have the best combo of high energy storage, high power output in bursts, and high rates of regenerative braking kW. Currently, regenerative braking can only get around 15% of the kinetic energy back into a battery. Capacitors could get a lot more.
letstakeawalk 10:18PM (10/06/2009)
Paulwesterberg
Electric planes are coming:
"The recent milestone is the work of an engineering team at Boeing Research & Technology Europe (BR&TE) in Madrid, with assistance from industry partners in Austria, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
"Boeing is actively working to develop new technologies for environmentally progressive aerospace products," said Francisco Escarti, BR&TE's managing director. "We are proud of our pioneering work during the past five years on the Fuel Cell Demonstrator Airplane project. It is a tangible example of how we are exploring future leaps in environmental performance, as well as a credit to the talents and innovative spirit of our team."
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2008/q2/080403a_nr.html
Rudi 8:15AM (10/07/2009)
There is on electric plane I know of its called the sky spark
http://www.skyspark.eu/web/eng/index.php
Tony Belding 5:02PM (10/06/2009)
It doesn't actually say "rechargeable" lithium-ion batteries, does it?
From what I know about aluminum-air batteries, you basically insert bars or sheets of aluminum into them, then later remove the aluminum oxide sludge and send it back to the factory (i.e aluminum refinery) for recycling into pure metal again.
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letstakeawalk 5:07PM (10/06/2009)
Li-Air, from what I understand, is very difficult to recharge, if not impossible. They could be good candidates for swappable batteries, though. That way you'd always get a fresh one, and the old ones could be sent for recycling.
What does it involve to recycle a Lithium battery?
Boyprodigy1 5:17PM (10/06/2009)
Lithium air can be recharged. But if you want to read IBM's approach here you go.
http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ideasfromibm/us/electriccars/20090928/index.shtml?sa_campaign=message/leaf1/corp/smarterplanet/electriccar
letstakeawalk 5:39PM (10/06/2009)
Interesting charging chemistry. Many of the explanations call for replacing an aqueous Li solution to decompose the Li-oxide that results from the discharging process.
Many people are also referring to the battery as more like a fuel cell in operation. That kind of talk could really upset the anti-fuel cell/pro-BEV crowd. How would feel if the ultimate expression of battery tech couldn't be charged at home?
http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_e/latest_research/2009/20090727/20090727.html
http://mid-autumn2008.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-lithiumair-battery-having-unique.html
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/06/ibm-li-air-20090624.html
jake 5:56PM (10/06/2009)
From what I am reading, IBM will attempt to make it rechargeable. Currently though, it is true lithium air isn't a rechargeable battery in general. If it isn't rechargeable then it is more suited to range extender use and not for BEV use. In general, I don't like the idea of having to exchange cartridges; it defeats the whole purpose of a plug-in.
Lithium sulfur is the other rechargeable alternative, but it has cycle life issues that has to be resolved. My guess for the industry is to move to manganese and iron phosphate first for lower raw costs and better safety. When mass production and density improvements from those chemistries have saturated, then we will try the newer chemistries. For BEVs I don't foresee really needing a 10x increase, 2x should be enough (would move range to 200 for typical BEVs and 400-600 for ambitious ones like the Tesla Roadster and Model S) and this can be accomplished without lithium Air.
Serge 6:32PM (10/06/2009)
Tony, Jake: Aluminum Air are primary (non-rechargeable) batteries indeed. Lithium air can be both primary and secondary. As latter they had poor cycle life for a while, however researchers at AIST have achieved a breakthrough with regards to ability to repeatedly recharge Lithium Air batteries electrically (see my post below).
Letstakewalk: ability to mechanically recharge a lithium air battery is what makes it similar to a fuel cell. It can also be recharged electrically. I bet many in the plug-in community will actually cheer when Lithium Air battery (fuel cell) becomes commercially available. That's the day when pro-hydrogen fuel cell people will finally shut up.
letstakeawalk 9:51PM (10/06/2009)
Serge
The day the Li-Air battery comes out, we fuel cell people will happily add it to our PHEVs and enjoy our 1000+ mile ranges...
;p
letstakeawalk 5:02PM (10/06/2009)
Li-Air is the holy grail of battery research at the moment. The current problem is the amount of lithium required - about 3-4x as much as a current Li-ion battery. Lots more power, but they need lots more Li. They discharge very quickly, are hard to "hold" in "stand-by", and are also quite difficult to recharge. Thankfully, the explosive nature of Li to explode when it comes into contact with water has been finally solved by using protective membranes around the anode.
Li-Air would be nice, but they still have a long way to come before they can be considered for mass production.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/whats-next-in-lithium-batteries/
http://www.batteriesdigest.com/lithium_air.htm
Anyway, I'm glad to see IBM working to reach this very difficult goal.
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Serge 5:29PM (10/06/2009)
Amount of lithium is not a problem; it's not a very expensive metal (prices in inflation adjusted $s are pretty much flat).
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/450798.pdf
Also, you are confusing capacity with power. Like I mentioned in a post above, Li-Air is superior to Li-ion in capacity, but roughly equal in power (by weight equivalent).
Rechargeability was an issue for some time, but AIST in Japan had a breakthrough this summer.
http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_e/latest_research/2009/20090727/20090727.html
I wonder if "beyond lithium ion" battery repeatedly mentioned in Toyota's PR releases is in fact Lithium Air.