This Battery Gives EVs 1000 Miles of Range!

when we talk about electric vehicles we aren't really talking about electric motors which are better than gas engines in every way no we're talking about the venerable lithium ion rechargeable battery a 300 mile range tesla model 3 has about a thousand pound battery pack to store an equivalent amount of energy and gasoline would require just two gallons yeah about 12 and a half pounds that's quite the challenge for the battery what if i told you there was something else that was about nine times more energy dense lithium ion batteries well it's true and of course we're talking about the aluminum air battery although it's not technically a battery with a similar thousand pound battery pack the aluminum air battery could go nearly 2700 miles on one charge well now that sounds pretty good and we thought this possible feature technology deserved a deeper dive here on two bit davinci special shout out to omaze for sponsoring this video enter for your chance to win an electric converted range rover defender and help an amazing cause use our link in the description better batteries are the key to making clean energy viable they're essential for storing renewables so that they can actually be used when needed batteries with higher energy density and lower production costs will also play a crucial role in increasing market acceptance for electric vehicles so far the ubiquitous lithium ion battery is still the most attractive on the market overall they're much better for the environment than fossil fuel and they are incredibly efficient but they do have some downsides for one as efficient as lithium-ion batteries are because they only have so much physical energy density there are limits to how much charge they can hold scaling these batteries up to store grid energy becomes a tricky issue then there are safety concerns many of these solvents used to produce lithium-ion batteries are flammable they have been several reports of incidents where batteries in everything from cell phones to electric vehicles spontaneously combust there's cost which ultimately has the biggest impact on consumers most of the cost comes from mining and processing lithium itself as well as other necessary materials cobalt nickel manganese all of which need to be mined processed and converted into high purity chemical compounds but the cost isn't purely financial the where and how of extracting these rare earth materials also carries environmental and socio-political costs many of these materials are found in regions that tend to be unstable economically and politically sixty percent of the world's cobalt for instance is found in the democratic republic of congo where minors some under the age of 10 work in unsafe tunnels all in settings prone to violence and exploitation the extraction and processing of these materials also require toxic chemicals which can affect local topsoil and water supplies not to mention the health and well-being of the workers themselves not sounding so clean after all even though the lithium-ion battery is amazing these are some of the costs that we do need to think about still many of these factors are mitigated by the fact that lithium-ion batteries are still the best option for clean sustainable energy at least for now but maybe not for long but what other miracle element can help us develop a long-range lightweight cost-efficient recyclable and ethically sourced battery turns out aluminum can huh no seriously aluminum or more specifically aluminum air batteries could potentially be the battery solution the world of clean sustainable energy desperately needs compared to lithium aluminum is a far more abundant element the most abundant metal in earth's crust as a matter of fact on top of that we already have a mature industry for processing refining and even recycling aluminum these factories bode well for bringing down the cost of battery production which would mean less expensive evs in the future best of all aluminum actually possesses one of the highest theoretical volumetric capacities of any element boasting about nine times the energy density of a lithium ion battery of comparable weight about eight kilowatt hours per kilogram compared to one to 1.5 kilohertz per kilogram of lithium or 4 times its energy density in equivalent volume all that power would in theory equal significantly increased driving range in electric vehicles 55 pounds 25 kilograms of aluminum for instance could provide a driving range of about a thousand miles with the entire battery weighing about 200 pounds by comparison the nissan leaf 600 pound battery pack provides about 100 miles of range even a tesla model s the highest range eve in the market today maxes out at about 390 miles at 100 efficiency yeah and here you thought aluminum is only good for covering your leftovers and making hats to the lizard people can't read your thoughts so how does an aluminum air battery actually work let's break it down with a quick science lesson because knowledge is power and all that speaking of power you know what really charges our batteries hitting that like button seriously give it a go so to start with aluminum air batteries aren't really batteries at all but more like a fuel cell they don't store a charge but rather they produce energy by harnessing the naturally occurring processes that happen when aluminum is exposed to air the batteries consist of pure aluminum alloy plates as the anode that's the negatively charged electrode in a power source then there's a water-based electrolyte source usually sodium hydroxide potassium hydroxide or sodium chloride for the cathode that's the positive electrode nothing but oxygen from the atmosphere a selectively permeable membrane allows oxygen to enter the cell while holding gases like carbon dioxide out which will inhibit the battery's function and just generally ruin the party kind of like a bouncer at a nightclub the oxidation reaction consumes the aluminum producing aluminum hydroxide ions releasing electrons in the process which is nothing but pure energy aluminum air batteries actually date back to the 1960s but were deemed unfit for commercial use due to the electrolytes at the time being dangerously caustic and poisonous yeah but with new research developers have found ways around these initial problems with some promising results before we get back to the show let me tell you about our very good friends and video sponsor omaze i'm in love with their latest campaign because you can enter for your chance to win an electric converted range rover defender and twenty thousand dollars cash i've always wanted one the word about maintenance and reliability so i hear electric range rover defender and i say sign me up just thinking about it makes me wanna pack it in and go out on an african safari which is convenient because by entering you'll also be helping the african community and conservation foundation accf my sons love watching videos on two things dinosaurs and animals and none more than the land giants found in africa from the african rhino to the majestic african elephant the accf helps preserve wilderness areas and empowers communities alongside these habitats recent accf projects include kanangani in mozambique the rwanda project and malayalangue trust in zimbabwe so visit omaze.com tbdv links in description for your chance to win an electric range rover defender and reconnect with our childhood obsessions with animals and great wilderness by supporting organizations like the accf as research develops aluminum air batteries are beginning to generate quite a bit of traction in march 2013 israeli startup finergy and marketing giant indian oil corporation test drove a citroen c1 powered by a small lithium-ion battery and fitted with a 50-plate 55-pound aluminum air battery that used distilled water as an electrolyte for this experiment the car didn't just solely rely on an aluminum air battery but also had a lithium ion battery with a 100 mile range the vehicle functioned like a hybrid using aluminum air battery to extend the driving range by the end of the test the aluminum battery was able to extend the vehicle's range by about 600 kilometers or nearly a thousand miles but finergy isn't the only company tossing their aluminum hat into the ring a prototype with 25 aluminum air cells stacked in a series is being tested in electric trucks and buses by maruti suzuki and electric three-wheelers by ashok leyland all really big companies from india india-based log-9 materials has not only been using aluminum air batteries to power their buildings but they've also developed a modified vehicle that can run on these fuel cells as well other benefits include overall energy efficiency especially when applied to evs aluminum is notably lighter than other materials and the cathode material oxygen doesn't have to be stored in the battery at all lowering the weight of the vehicle overall and increasing overall efficiency plus without any stored charge or flammable solvents aluminum air batteries could be a much safer option as far the environmental impact one major win for aluminum is that it's already recycled in major quantities all over the world even the byproduct aluminum hydroxide can be recycled back into a hundred percent aluminum so great looks like aluminum air batteries are the solution right should we call papa elon and tell him to tear down his gigafactories well not quite yet the major drawback of aluminum air batteries is that because of the nature of essentially degrading the aluminum anode they can't be recharged like a lithium ion battery from one angle this is a potential win in that with an aluminum air battery you could say goodbye to range anxiety but the obvious downside is that once the anode is completely consumed the battery would need to be replaced which would require you to take your car to some kind of battery swapping station obviously this would be a major inconvenience and a potential added cost to consumers the inconvenience gets compounded when you consider that different companies may require taking your vehicles to specific facilities it's the inkjet ink cartridge problem all over again another considerable drawback is the buildup of sludge that occurs as a result of the oxidation process in some experiments the buildup of oxide film was found to significantly impede the electrochemical reaction impacting vehicle performance this would require owners to add clean water every so often to added inconvenience while production could be potentially less up front upkeep could theoretically end up costing the same or even more in the long run some of these costs and impacts could be offset by the recyclability of the aluminum hydroxide it's possible that the anode replacement facility could also provide credits for drivers in exchange for the aluminum waste that could be processed back into usable aluminum but it's difficult to say what the reality of this type of a system would really look like at this stage then there's a fundamental physics problem in aluminum production as of right now one kilo of aluminum takes 15 kilowatt hours of electricity and releases 10 kilos of carbon dioxide production of aluminum also leaves an environmental footprint not much better than lithium again like lithium the overall environmental footprint is offset by the carbon reduction and recyclability on the back end but whether or not these offsets make it carbon neutral or negative is something researchers are going to have to try to figure out with all that in mind however there is a good chunk of time and money being poured into aluminum air battery technology as we speak even tesla hasn't ruled them out completely while elon has already tried and abandoned an aluminum air battery project the company was awarded patents for a safety method for a metal air battery pack as recently as 2020 so it looks like the idea hasn't been abandoned altogether while not completely foolproof it looks like enough companies are putting time and money into developing aluminum air batteries that it seems like there's a good chance we may start seeing them in the real world in the near future even if they aren't perfect they can help bring down the cost and increase the range of evs we might start seeing electric vehicles become the more standard vehicle of choice for consumers okay so let's wrap this up a little bit and talk about some things that are in the industry today so there are companies that say they can take out your current battery pack and swap in a fully charged pack and you can be back on the road in about five minutes that means that charging that kind of an ev would be pretty much the same as a gasoline car but for lithium-ion batteries i don't think that really makes that much sense but for an aluminum air battery it just might because even though the aluminum air battery isn't rechargeable if we combined it with the swapping stations and the fact that aluminum air batteries are so easily recyclable and rebuilt into battery packs that could be a pretty winning solution consider a car that could drive a thousand miles or so and when you're done you'd pull into a station and in five minutes do a swap pay a cost and you'll be back on the road but imagine for example in more rural areas or countries that are developing like in india where there's probably not enough of an electrical infrastructure to support charging multiple killed hour battery pack evs instead if you told somebody that a car has a 2700 mile range and that every two or three months whatever time frame it took to drive that much you had to take it to a station to do a battery swap that might not be such a bad deal because remember it doesn't require charging and that's a critical point i remember when i was watching a long way up the ewan mcgregor documentary where they took electric motorcycles and drove it from patagonia to los angeles there were tons of rural cities that they encountered where no plug in any residential area could support the kind of charge rate that these electric vehicles would require and this is probably going to be the case in several countries around the world so to my eye if you want to clean up the act and typically the most polluting gas engines are the ones that are found in older cars in more emerging markets well maybe a future with aluminum air batteries that are used up then brought back swapped and the driver goes back to his way with pure clean non-polluting energy sources while that pack then goes into a recycling system is recycled and retrofitted for the next person this could happen in large factories in centralized locations with more stable power and if the scale was big enough they might be able to do it for cheap enough and more environmentally friendly to make this a really viable option i've always said the future is going to be awesome but we don't always exactly know which technology will take off we know for sure the lithium ion batteries are going to be a staple going forward but there's a lot of mining questions that do need to be answered the aluminum air battery answers all those questions it becomes incredibly easy and sustainable to use but it has its own challenges and then there's hydrogen and everything else so i say why not invest in all of it and let's see where we land in a couple of years this is interesting and hopefully that kind of gives you an idea of why there is truly a lot of promise with the aluminum air battery but at the same time because they're not rechargeable they're not exactly a direct replacement for lithium-ion batteries so what do you guys think should we continue to invest in this research is the aluminum air battery as exciting as i think it could be sound off in the comment section below as always and thank you for watching a huge thank you to all of our youtube channel members and our patrons on patreon your guys's support is what makes this show possible and if you want to be a rock star supporter of this show to see more content like this more frequently consider joining the two-bit tribe by joining us either as a channel member or patron also check around the channel there's other videos we think you'll probably like and until next time i'm ricky with tuba davinci and remember the future is going to be awesome

Channel: Two Bit da Vinci

Views: 992,934

Keywords: electric cars, aluminum air, metal air battery, aluminum air battery, electric vehicle batteries, aluminum air battery how it works, aluminum air battery rechargeable, aluminum air fuel cell, aluminum air battery car, aluminum air cell, how to increaes ev range, future batteries to increase ev range, tesla battery pack, solid state battery technology, million mile battery, electric cars vs gas cars, electric cars in india, aluminum air batteries, aluminium air battery

Id: Q2QeHmfBjyw

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/stockratic]

Very interesting!