Energy density about the same as lead acid. 7500 cycle life with rapid chargingaluminum ion

that'll never fly. same density as lead acid means same size per amp-hour. maybe it'll be useful if they can increase the density to match at least nickle batteries. lead is a lot cheaper than aluminum, and most applications using lead batteries wouldn't pay the higher cost for weight savings alone.

To me density means pounds, or to get technical slugs (Mass not pounds) and if that is the case Aluminum batteries I would excpet to b physically larger. Still.... That is a LOT of cycles.I also double checked Energy DensityLead Acid is roughly half Li-On (Source Wikipedia)And the Stanford cell is 20-40% of LiOn.This is watts or units-energy per kilogram (or Slug if you like).

I guess "density" would mean mass to a mechanical engineer and energy density to an electronics engineer, at least in the context of a battery?Curiously, I looked it up - lead and aluminum are about equal, as far as buying it on the stock market - $0.8 to $1 per pound over the last year. I always thought aluminum to be a far more valuable metal.Maybe these batteries will have merit if the retail costs are similar to AGM or SLA per mass-unit and per energy-unit (whatever they may be :) DEKA - East Penn rates the AGM batteries I bought at a huge number of cycles as well, using 1 cycle = 10% or less discharge with immediate recharge. Personally, my definition of a cycle is 50%-80% discharge, with 6-12 hours elapsed before a recharge.

So long as the aluminum batteries can be charged at low temperatures I'll be quite interested.Fascinating that they can be rapid charged--a cell phone in one minute.

There seems to be a new headline about a new emerging battery technology about every 2 weeks.I'll believe none of them until they can actually make inroads into the electrical storage market, viably.Until then, these headlines are designed to cause increased Advertising revenue and nothing else, in my opinion.By all means keep up the research, but the Media's hyping the newest latest and greatest distant hope is based solely on generating revenue.

aluminum ion battery | Good Sam Community

SCVJeff
Explorer
Apr 09, 2015
Apparently no one saw the actual story on this technology. It's in an engineering lab at a major university. The capacity equals that of a LiPo without the risk of catching fire, and it's CHARGE rate is well over 50C.. I easily pull that on my helicopter, so that's old news for a discharge rate, but charge is apparently a different challenge. They didn't talk any further about the technology since this was a generic news story, but it's absolutely real.
mlts22
Explorer
Apr 10, 2015
I'm looking forward to seeing that. If it is the same energy density per volume as lead/acid, then I'd jump to it for safety reasons.

If it has more energy density, it only makes it more attractive.

Even if it had less energy density, for large storage battery applications, this technology will be useful.

I do see a lot of new battery technologies... I just hope something pans out. As of now, we have lead/acid, and lithium. The biggest problem with Li based batteries is that it needs a very sophisticated charge and discharge controller that monitors/controls all amperage/voltage coming in and out. Without this... boom.
pianotuna
Nomad III
Apr 10, 2015
Hi mlts,

I suspect it will have many of the same attributes as LI--where the battery bank does NOT need to be taken to 100% and where 80%discharges are available.

The depth of discharge essentially increases useable capacity by 30% over the best lead acid formats.

Unfortunately, my oldest bank is now 9 and showing its age, so I guess I'll be looking for cheap 12 volt bats soon enough.
MrWizard
Moderator
Apr 10, 2015
too me "mass" means size/volume, the same cubic inches of Alu will weight less than the same volume of Lead

density is weight.. so the same density, will mean a battery that is physically larger for the same amp hours

lithium has the advantage of more amp hours for less weight in any physical size so far

hopefully the New Alu technology will have cross over characteristics

more power than lead for less weight in the same pkg, with less cost than lithium
pianotuna
Nomad III
Apr 14, 2015
a little video about it:flexible
mlts22
Explorer
Apr 14, 2015
About a year or two ago, I read about a fuel cell which turned aluminum into aluminum oxide (also called an aluminum-air battery although it is not rechargable). It has a lot of energy density, but has to be replaced (the aluminum oxide has to be put in with the piles of bauxite.) This would be useful for something that puts out watts over time to keep the batteries topped off, in addition to solar.

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