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Aluminium air batteries

6K views 56 replies 20 participants last post by  donald 
#1 ·

Interesting story in that popped up on my Google feed.
I would be very interested to see what the cost of swapping the empty £5,000 batteries is with a new full battery. If it works out at 10p per mile or less then they may have a viable option. But it does make things wierd. When do you swap your battery? When it is at 0 or 150 miles? Etc. It will depend on having thousands of retailers that can fit them. Anyway this was the daily mail so it is probably not accurate.
 
#2 ·
This Technology has been around for many years, but oddly lithium ion is favoured when this has greater energy density. More info here..

and this one Renault back in 2015...
 
#3 ·
I've mentioned this several times but in relation to Alcoa's research on it. Not heard of this guy.

My position on Al-air primary cells would be to use them as range extenders. You could nibble away at the Al-air capacity over time when you go a little beyond your usual range on rechargeable. Surely that has to be the idea; a battery with a battery REx.

No indication of the price of the cells. That is the overwhelming factor. I can't see it ever making sense as the primary energy store. What do you do when you get to 200 miles left and have a 300 mile drive? Throw away 10% of the capacity? That will get expensive.

 
#5 ·
That’s the bit that struck me as odd. If you use 80% and need to swap, do you get the replacement at 80% cost since your returning 20% usable.
 
#8 ·
I only read one of the articles linked, but it says exactly the opposite:
Also, once the al-air battery is switched off it remains dormant, with no power loss until turned on again.
Where did you get the information it loses capacity quickly when not in use?

Having to refill regularly the electrolyte makes it sound like it wouldn't really save time over high power charging though.
 
#10 ·
It's fairly green in that it's 100% recyclable.

But at 7p per kWh and potentally 10% lost due to early swap out you're looking at petrol costs.
My solution would be to have two or more batteries and swap one when it's drained.
Or 5 then refull 80% on a charge/swap(hmmm where have I heard that before)

However at 5k for a tesla sized "tank" this could compete.
Assuming 20% profit, of the rest 40% of a tesla is batteries.
12.8k
thus a teslav3 equiv would be 33k vs 40k
Or 33p a mile lease + 10p a mile fuel
vs 40p a mile lease + 3p a mile fuel.

So about the same over 45 to 50k miles.
Then it just gets more expensive.

Problem is the infrastructure.
Petrol stations would need a fair whack off these. And thyd be a lot easier to steal. At 100£ each plus markup expect a fair few robbery attempts.

This seems one off these error bar 1 situations.
Depend how you do the maths this will either fail./succeed excessively
 
#38 ·
It's fairly green in that it's 100% recyclable.

But at 7p per kWh and potentally 10% lost due to early swap out you're looking at petrol costs.
My solution would be to have two or more batteries and swap one when it's drained.
Or 5 then refull 80% on a charge/swap(hmmm where have I heard that before)
The story i read said 7p per MILE not kWh. So about 4x your estimate :D
 
#13 ·
When I charge my car on 5p/kWh Octopus go electricity, it costs me less than 1p per mile, why on earth would it make sense for me to buy an aluminium air battery costing 7p per mile? If a batttery lasts for 200,000 miles and costs £5000 that adds 3.5p per mile, still way cheaper than aluminium air. Presumably aluminium air would only work with many plants to recover the spent aluminium and electrolyte otherwise you would have to transport the depleted Al-air batteries vast distances. It might make more sense than Hydrogen fool cells for trucks but I'm not convinced it works for cars.
 
#14 ·
The TechCrunch article has this info on costs....

In tests, Jackson’s Aluminium-Air power technology could create a 1,500 mile range battery with a 90 second swap system. The benefits are obvious: Cost effective for the driver; safe & CO2 free; recyclable and reusable; and with an £0.08 / mile cost to driver. The batteryis also low cost: just £60/kWh (Battery Price to OEM).
 
#15 ·
It would still come back to the oft discussed chestnut with having battery swaps for lithium batteries - the cars would need to have standardised cell sizes, etc.
And like hydrogen it needs a substantial network infrastructure to be built before it will be attractive for car buyers - the chicken and egg situation.
 
#21 ·
Bigger batteries are quicker to charge, not slower because the more full a battery is the slower the charge rate. Say you had two EVs, both near empty and needing just under 30 kWh to do a journey. One has a 30 kWh battery and the other 60 kWh. Which will get enough charge to complete the journey first from a rapid?
 
#22 ·
OK. So it sounds like this technology could be suitable for a range extender. So if you get a car with a 150 mile li ion range. You could also add to it 4*Al-Air batteries which would be relatively small and each one could have a range of anther 150-200 miles. This means that for long trips you could get a further 6-800 miles out of the vehicle without having to locate chargers etc.

So if the infrastructure is available and a large manufacturer picks up the tech and highlights it then this could be game changing. Imagine paying an extra £2000 for the new Ioniq but it comes with this range extender. It makes sense. If I was being even cleverer as a manufacturer I would not even include this physical battery just include the space for them to plug and play directly, with a decent locking mechanism. Then say you have a smart car EV but need to drive 400 miles for the weekend you simply go to the shop get 2 batteries plug them and off you go. Cheaper than renting something else. Easier than having to charge your car 6 times over a 2 day trip.

I don't think this tech will ever see the light of day in the mainstream. But it would be interesting if it did.
 
#24 ·
Cost is the key to this development, apparently it could comparible to fossil fuel in terms of continued use and replacement so its more expensive than a standard battery in the long run. There's still the issue of infrastructure for the battery swaps.

The developer said the way this new variation of alumminium air battery works is more akin to a fuel cell than a battery and that its also more suited to low power applications such as electric bikes and scooters, so the scaling up for cars and trucks etc is reliant upon a lot of technical hurdles still needing to be overcome.

Although I'm slightly more optimisitc about this one, I'm still putting this one in the same category as liquid electrolyte fueling stations and tried and failed battery swap solutions.
 
#25 ·
Per wikipedia :
Energy density is: 1300 (practical), 6000/8000 (theoretical) W·h/kg

Assuming some evolution ... it can be 2kwh per kg.

Let consider something portable .. like 10 or 15kg pack ... it will be 20 to 30kwh.

20kwh is around 100km range

It could make sense as "REX" ... when people driving on motorway ...

But cost wise, I believe a super charger station could be more economical then messing around with plug in a car some module and return these before exiting the motorway

I got a bit confused on Wikipedia .. there is any hope to make this battery rechargeable ?
 
#29 ·
#31 ·
I think I heard her say something like "In just 10 years EVs ... have improved by orders of magnitude in range cost and longevity"

Let's just stick with one order of magnitude...

So can I buy an Ampera-like car for £2,000 that can do 500 AER miles (not including REx, or does that mean it can then do 4,500 miles on one tank?) and a battery that lasts for 3,000,000 miles?

hmmm....

'Literally' not correct.

Let's not get hung up on that. It's my point too, an Al air pack would be a good fall back REx to a BEV.
 
#32 ·
an Al air pack would be a good fall back REx to a BEV.
But only until the charging network catches up. Once that happens the people who run out of juice will be the same ones who don't replace their REx battery having used it several times. Hardly anyone else will use the REx and the replacement network will collapse through lack of demand.
Just one possible future of course :)
 
#39 ·
I have to say, the Mazda MX-30 is looking interesting as possible Ampera-replacement. It's a proper Rex design, not a kludged-Ice Phev. So none of that silly start-the-engine-if-I-floor-the-pedal nonsense on short trips. 35 kWh battery, let's assume 30 useable, suggests 120 mile range on a charge is reasonable. Fast charging, so motorway refills become decent ones. Rotary engine as the Rex bit, small & light, and perfectly balanced rotors so super-smooth vibration-free operation. If it can take a tow bar for a small trailer I'll be delighted. And if the Ice bit happens to heat the interior with the waste exhaust heat, I'll be extremely impressed indeed! i3 Rex missed that trick sadly. Suggested price is <30k£, but I assume that's the pure Bev one. Hopefully the Rex version's not much more, and having that get-you-out-of-jail duel-fuel aspect will I think make the Rex version a very desirable Ev indeed.

I can't see the Al-air battery, for all it's theoretical benefits, competing with a well designed petrol Rex, even as a range-extender occasional-use item. I don't want to have to stash a pile of unused ones at home & have to hoist them into the car for use; I don't want to have to pay someone at a Phev-station to swap them out for me; it's too much like the conventional petrol station setup. My fuel's already as green as it gets from my panels, and I want to load that up myself, thank you. And that means rechargeable battery in my Ev.
 
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#41 ·
Rotary engines have been in use for quite a while now, popular on ski-jets I believe! Past ones have had a reputation for eating seals if over-revved, but the beauty of the Rex approach is that you can't thrash the engine, even if you really want to! So Mazda should be able to operate it at a decently optimal speed, compression ratio etc etc.

And if the Rex gets v unreliable & dies, just drive it as a normal modest-range Ev! I have a plan B for that already! :)
 
#47 ·
There's a new energy storage system being planned here in UK, and it will use liquid air as the operating fluid. I assume the idea is to let it expand hugely by warming it from atmospheric air (free), and using the volumetric expansion to drive turbines.
https://www.energylivenews.com/2019...t-large-scale-cryogenic-energy-storage-plant/
Add that to the potential for V2G, and with luck there will be plenty of energy storage around to mop up the peaks of production.
 
#55 ·
There's a new energy storage system being planned here in UK, and it will use liquid air as the operating fluid. I assume the idea is to let it expand hugely by warming it from atmospheric air (free), and using the volumetric expansion to drive turbines.
https://www.energylivenews.com/2019...t-large-scale-cryogenic-energy-storage-plant/
Add that to the potential for V2G, and with luck there will be plenty of energy storage around to mop up the peaks of production.
This is looking very interesting at 11p per kwh vs the 13-20p per kWh Al seems to work out at*

( 7p mile @ 5 mpkwh = 35p/kwh or 15p+20p storage cost)
(7p mile @ 4 mpkwh = 28p/kwh or 15p+ 13p storage cost)
 
#50 ·
Reports on wind power. About a 1/3rd of the time it only puts out 10% of the rated power, ergo you need 10x more than needed as rated power.

What other energy storage do you propose then? Don't forget total system efficiency .. once the al is made there is no real loss of efficiency then up to delivery to the wheels.
 
#53 ·
Donald, if the main storage / buffering mechanism for renewable ever essentially consists of smelting and then re melting Al , I will personally come up to Scotland and buy you a very nice meal. No time limit except whoever pops their clogs first.
 
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