Ideal fullness, realistic skinny? Analysis of aluminum air battery in the end is not reliable

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a special meeting on further supporting the development of new energy automobile industry. Vice Minister Xin Guobin of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology hosted the meeting and made an important speech. Xin Guobin proposed five tasks that need to be done in the next step. One of them is to strive to achieve the power battery revolution and promote the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Automotive Power Battery Industry" to accelerate the construction of the Power Battery Innovation Center.

In recent years, under the increasingly strict requirements of environmental protection and energy conservation, new energy vehicles have been pushed to the forefront. The core of the new energy vehicle, the power battery, is naturally also of great concern. Most battery companies' research mainly includes hydrogen fuel cells, graphene batteries, and mainstream lithium batteries in China.

But have you heard of aluminum air batteries recently?

This thing is long like this

Its working principle is also very easy to understand, with high-purity aluminum Al (containing 99.99% aluminum) as the negative electrode, oxygen as the positive electrode, and potassium hydroxide (KOH) or sodium hydroxide (NaOH) aqueous solution as the electrolyte. Aluminum takes up oxygen in the air, produces a chemical reaction when the battery is discharged, and converts aluminum and oxygen into aluminum oxide. It is reported that the current development prospects of aluminum air batteries are quite promising. In this case, as a mature lithium battery in all aspects is naturally not satisfied. Then we compare the aluminum air battery with the lithium battery.

Battery energy density comparison

As a battery, the energy density ratio is naturally a more important measure. It is estimated that the energy density of aluminum air batteries can reach 1300~2000Wh/kg, and lithium batteries are generally around 200-300Wh/kg or even lower. Do not talk about other factors such as battery rate performance and stability. In terms of energy density, aluminum air batteries are indeed a lot better than lithium batteries.

Security comparison

I believe that everyone will see such reports in the news from time to time - a certain mobile phone explodes while charging. It can be said that the problem of safety, the performance of lithium batteries has been criticized. The reason why lithium batteries burn is because the electrolyte used is organic. When it encounters oxygen and water, it will release heat. When the temperature is high, it will burn. However, the aluminum air battery uses an aqueous solution as an electrolyte, and the entire aluminum air battery is decomposed, that is, a combination of metal plus water and salt. It’s hard to burn.

Practical convenience

The aluminum air battery is essentially a disposable battery. As long as the power is used up, replace it with a negative one and continue to use it. Unlike the charging of lithium batteries, in the case of Xiaobian, it is quite convenient to replace the battery at one time. And with the high specific energy of the aluminum air battery, replace a battery or equal to the lithium battery charge 3 times.

Having said that, is there any unreliable place for the aluminum air battery? The answer is definitely yes.

First of all, as a new "baby" in the industry, compared with lithium batteries, many aspects are a squat arm. After all, lithium batteries have experienced commercial development for more than two decades. From the perspective of the development of manufacturing systems and marketing models, they are quite mature. As a new energy vehicle industry, Tesla himself got an "electric vehicle extended range hybrid battery system", directly using lithium batteries as the core driving energy of the car, and aluminum air battery is a spare for charging lithium batteries. This also confirms from the side that there are many practical defects in aluminum air batteries.

On the other hand, as mentioned above, if the open system is considered as a whole system of the battery, the performance index of the aluminum air battery is indeed excellent. But for practical use, every detail in the run is a range to consider. The problem of the principle of the aluminum air battery is still quite a lot. For example, when discharging, the generated alumina will affect the discharge efficiency of the battery.

It can be seen that the prospect of aluminum air battery is naturally broad from the perspective of future development space. At present, the research results have also made great breakthroughs, but the results are not equal to products, products are not equal to industrialization, and industrialization is not equal to user acceptance. Under the conditions of pursuing convenient life, environmental protection and energy saving, will the future aluminum air battery not have a reliable solution, just like the development of mature lithium batteries, who knows?