Better alkaline batteries, made rechargeable, to power electric cars?

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Grammy

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Better alkaline batteries, made rechargeable, to power electric cars?
Green Car Reports
[email protected] (Sean Szymkowski)Aug 10, 2017

Alkaline batteries have been a staple energy source for decades, but their potential has been capped by their chemical properties.
Notably, alkaline batteries cannot be recharged, which means their application is often limited to single usess in small devices such as flashlights and remote controls.
An alkaline battery finding its way to an electric car has been viewed as all but impossible, while lithium-ion batteries have become the industry standard.
DON'T MISS: Battery legend Goodenough not done yet: new solid-state chemistry introduced
However, a startup company says it has unlocked the secret to safer, more powerful alkaline batteries with a solid-state variant it suggests holds potential to revolutionize the industry.
Battery start-up Ionic says it has developed a solid-state alkaline battery that can be recharged hundreds of times, according to The New York Times, and does not carry the combustion risks of some lithium-ion battery chemistries.
Prototype units of the new alkaline battery have been recharged up to 400 times, Ionic says, but the company believes it can triple this figure with further effort.

If the technology and engineering proves effective, a second practical battery chemistry might have large effects on multiple industries—including the automotive arena.
Current lithium-ion batteries are expensive, despite the drop in cost over time, and use various metals—nickel and cobalt are two—that can be expensive and whose mining is often anything but clean.
At present, Ionic's prototype batteries weigh more than a traditional lithium-ion unit of the same energy capacity, but they're made from zinc and manganese, which are less expensive and more abundant than, say, cobalt.
READ THIS: Electric-car battery progress: incremental improvements, not revolutionary leaps
Save for the weight penalty, then, Ionic's batteries offer potential cost savings and raw-material benefits.
Though it gave few details, the company also noted that aluminum is a possible raw material to replace zinc in the future, despite its tendency to corrode.

Aluminum batteries, however, would reduce the weight of the alkaline units and offer performance that is more comparable to that of lithium-ion batteries.
Overall, technology improvements in battery technology have incremental, with revolutionary advances few and far between.

Volkswagen and Tesla have been relatively outspoken about the need for vastly increased battery production to ensure cell supply doesn't fall short of demand as electric cars gain traction and production volumes increase.
It remains to be seen if alkaline batteries will one day power something as large as an electric car, but Ionic seems determined to push the envelope as far as it can.

Being no woman of science I can make this statement with no fear of reprisal as I already admit my ignorance, however, the battery must be a very difficult thing to change as we see so many technological changes yet this battery is not getting a better face lift like everything else. The company that cracks the nut and innovates the battery to become the perfect recyclable long lasting massive energy storing safety first component may win the electric car race :) Now that is not a tall order at all :)
 
I read the other day that neuro scientists are getting involved now in the electric battery. As many jobs that may be lost along the way during the transition of not having gasoline engines mainstream in vehicles and having ev's become main stream there will be just as many jobs created. So many industries that weren't being utilized by the auto industry are now due to the EV
 
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