Exploring the 1000 Mile Car Battery - Aluminum Air Hype?

this video is brought to you by morningbrew even though electric vehicle adoption is picking up speeds some buyers are hesitant because of range anxiety and concerns about lithium-ion battery safety there's a lot of money and time being invested into alternative battery tech to address some of those issues and an interesting one popped up recently involving metal air technology that could make an ev with over 1 000 miles of range is it too good to be true let's explore aluminum air batteries and whether they're a game changer or only hype i'm matt farrell welcome to undecided [Music] along with green power sources electric vehicles are an important piece of the puzzle for setting course towards the net zero future the ev market has been growing fast in the last few years according to the international energy agency or the iea in 2016 the global electric passenger card stock was 2 million but as of 2020 that topped 10 million but driving range and range anxiety is still a barrier for some and it's slowing down the ev market growth although lithium-ion batteries have been driving a revolution in electric vehicles we typically see ranges of 300 miles or less which may not be enough for long trips depending on where you live and nobody wants to wait for a long period of time while recharging on a road trip or to struggle finding a nearby fast charger in the first place on top of that there's still some concerns about perceived lithium battery risks like battery degradation from temperature variations leakages caused by mechanical stress and overcharging and discharging these issues have left the door open for researchers and companies around the globe to find better alternative battery technologies like liquid air liquid metal solid state super capacitors flow batteries there's almost a never-ending list but an approach that may have been overlooked in some parts of the world has been receiving heavy investment in india aluminum air batteries aluminum air batteries date back to the 1960s but weren't considered commercially viable due to concerns around their safety of their electrolyte composition an engineer and former officer in the uk's royal navy by the name of trevor jackson started doing experiments with these batteries in 2001 and the belief that aluminum air batteries were potentially dangerous has taken them on a different path but before i get to that different path let me share another interesting path that can get you up to speed quickly on the news of the day from today's sponsor morning brew i used to spend way too much time endlessly scrolling through twitter rss feeds and news sites trying to stay up with the latest news morning bruce really simplified that it's a free daily newsletter that boils down the essentials into a quick five-minute read each morning and it has a really nice bit of wit too if it wasn't for morning brew a report from the brookings institute on the state of ai in the u.s would have passed me by there's no reason not to subscribe if you're interested in business finance or tech which i'm pretty sure almost all of you are it only takes a few seconds to sign up and again it's completely free click the link in the description to subscribe to morning brew today and thanks to morningbrew and to all of you for supporting the channel now back to that different path for aluminum air batteries aluminum air batteries utilize aluminum alloy plates as the anode a non-toxic safe electrolyte like potassium hydroxide or even water and air in the cathode with a catalyst which can be silver based so how does it work well if you're familiar with hydrogen fuel cells this works in a similar way air is sucked into the cathode system containing a catalyst in order to speed up a chemical reaction to separate the oxygen molecules from the air a simple example of a catalyzed reaction is the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide which undergoes a very slow decomposition under ambient conditions forming oxygen gas and water for example when we put hydrogen peroxide in a wound we can see the formation of bubbles which are basically oxygen gas being formed very quickly the reaction was accelerated by putting the hydrogen peroxide in contact with the wound the same basic principle is at play in the aluminum air battery oxygen is separated from other components of air by the silver-based catalyst that blocks co2 from entering the battery but it allows oxygen to pass through the electrolyte in order to react with the water and produce negative hydroxide ions at the anode positive ions of oxygen react with the aluminum causing the formation of aluminum trihydroxide which is a white powder and electrons and it's those electrons that mean we can generate electricity when the battery is connected to a load like a light bulb these electrons move from the anode to the cathode to give back those electrons that were lost during the chemical reaction aluminum is the most abundant metal available globally and it isn't expensive or complex to recycle on top of that aluminum air batteries have a great advantage with weight compared to lithium batteries because aluminum which you're probably already aware of is extremely lightweight which makes it a great choice for the anode the oxygen that's used in the cathode doesn't need to be stored since it's pulled from the surrounding air this results in a much lighter battery that can give a significant amount of energy to something like an ev because of these pros the technology has been on the radar for some countries as a sustainable solution now as we all know china is a global giant that provides materials and technologies to most countries around the world but countries like india have been looking for new alternatives to become independent when it comes to energy storage technologies indian oil corp which is the largest oil company in india has been betting on aluminum air batteries as a better alternative to lithium-ion they've invested and partnered with the startup finergy in order to bring this technology to market now although the company has some lithium resources indian jungles have a large reserve a bauxite which is used to make aluminum so it shouldn't be a surprise that india is one of the top 10 bauxite producers of the world and they're trying to become one of the largest smelters of aluminum in the world so the pros of being lightweight and having ample materials to make aluminum air batteries what's the catch nothing's perfect and neither are these batteries one problem is the cost of materials that need to be added to the battery to avoid power dropping when it comes to cost aluminum is still very cheap compared to other elements used to build batteries aluminum costs 2.55 cents per kilogram while lithium and nickel cost 15.75 cents per kilogram and 18.75 cents per kilogram but one of the other elements you typically use in aluminum air as a catalyst in the cathode is silver which costs about 773 dollars per kilogram another tiny little problem that might catch your attention these batteries aren't rechargeable but india oil thinks that they've already figured out a solution which involves making it quick and easy to replace and recycle the batteries according to the company the battery can be replaced within three minutes and india oil service stations can be used as swap stations finergy has raised 60 million dollars from an initial public offering in tel aviv this year intel communication companies have tested their energy storage systems as a backup power source for transmission towers and other sites in addition the company tested out their tech in an ev using an aluminum air battery to charge the vehicle's lithium-ion power pack that could provide a range of about 750 kilometers or about a thousand miles and to give this some context a tesla model s can get about 370 miles with a single charge trevor jackson who i mentioned earlier claims that replacing a conventional tesla lithium battery pack with an aluminum air battery of the same weight can get over 2 700 miles that's a seven times boost in range which makes it just a little hard to believe aluminum air batteries currently have an energy density of about 1300 watt hours per kilogram and they're projected to get up to about 2 000 watt hours per kilogram and the theoretical energy density of aluminum is about 8 100 watt hours per kilogram that's about 14 times the energy density of commercial lithium cobalt oxide batteries that are currently on the market which come in at about 570 watt hours per kilogram automakers mahindra mahindra maruti suzuki india and ashok leland will be running tests for one year in order to evaluate the feasibility of wide scale use of aluminum air batteries in india if things go well and they see enough demand india oil and finergy plan to set up a gigawatt scale factory to make the batteries in india but interest in aluminum air batteries doesn't stop at cars the super high energy density low weight eco-friendliness and good recyclability have also drawn a lot of interest for marine applications yara marine technologies created a startup accelerator program called yara marine x earlier this year aiming to support startups pioneering green marine technologies green marine sounds like a marvel character now among several startups that applied phoenician energy's aluminum air battery impressed the scientists for six months era marine x will provide the capital marketing and networking that phoenician energy needs to manufacture and build out aluminum air batteries so far phoenician energy has built a 4.8 megawatt hour system enclosed in a 20-foot shipping container for marine applications ud errol founder and president of phoenician energy said aluminum air batteries have one of the highest energy densities of all batteries with more than four times the capacity of the conventional lithium ion battery in addition we do not recharge our system on board instead we replace it with a fully charged one eliminating downtime that would be required for recharging conventional batteries after the six months of yara marine x supporter up yara marine may offer 150 000 investment in exchange for a 10 stake in phoenician energy although aluminum air batteries may have some great potential some of the hype around this has been overblown and i have to get back to the major disadvantages and challenges like the fact that it's not rechargeable once the aluminum is consumed the battery just stops working and has to be replaced imagine traveling with your family at night and missing the fact that your long lasting battery is almost out of charge what happens when you run out of juice battery swapping stations wouldn't be available everywhere a regular ev could get a tow charge or a small top up from a portable battery wherever they are from an equipped tow truck an aluminum air battery would have to be towed to a battery swap station that's a big problem in addition alkaline electrolytes provide good battery performance for aluminum air batteries especially under high discharge current which is the case for evs but alkaline electrolytes combined with aluminum electrodes tend to be highly corrosive which is the main problem holding back aluminum air batteries aluminum air batteries have a high degradation rate due to aluminum corrosion while lithium batteries have a five percent degradation after a month of being used aluminum air batteries lose 80 of their capacity and although some techniques have been tested to overcome this drawback they reduce the power output to get around the corroding electrolyte issue it's been suggested to use a pump to pump the electrolyte out of the battery while isn't being used and then pumping it back in when it's needed it's a bit of a brute force solution but aluminum corrosion can still cause problems by clogging the pumping system to get around this researchers from mit have designed a system that utilizes oil pumping brandon hopkins and his research associates noted the oil pushes out the corrosive electrolyte from the surface of the aluminum electrode which is what stores the energy in the battery this approach resulted in energy loss of just .02 percent after a month of running the battery even though aluminum air batteries have been in existence for over half a century they're still at the developmental stage challenges with corrosion degradation the non-rechargeable capacity raise serious questions about whether they can be a viable replacement for lithium the crystal ball prediction for the future of the aluminum air battery market is still cloudy but there's a lot of investment and research needed to overcome the drawbacks but what do you think would you want to drive an ev that required battery swapping i'd really like to know jump in the comments and let me know thanks to all of my patrons who get early access to each video and a big welcome to new supporter plus 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Channel: Undecided with Matt Ferrell

Views: 743,791

Keywords: 1000 mile car battery, 1000 mile car, 1000 mile battery, 1000 mile battery car, 1000 mile electric car, 1000 miles, battery day, battery degradation, aluminum air battery, aluminum air battery car, aluminum air battery how it works, aluminum air battery vs lithium ion, ev battery, million mile battery, million mile battery tesla, tesla battery, tesla battery day, tesla battery technology, tesla new battery, aluminum air, evs, undecided with matt ferrell

Id: 9OOq3f6mUxU

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021