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Lithium-ion batteries may be impressive, but some people feel they can do better – with zinc. Power Air, a startup from Livermore, CA, is designing zinc oxide fuel cells. In their fuel cells, zinc is dissolved in an electrolyte solution, and exposure to the air causes zinc oxide to form, releasing electrons and generating electricity. In theory, the zinc oxide can be collected, reduced back to zinc metal and fed back into the cycle.
Zinc air batteries are already used in hearing aids, though companies like Power Air hope to build batteries more suited for power and charging mobile electronic devices. Toyota is even researching ways to use zinc-air cells in electric vehicles, though they have put a 2020 timeline on the project, which means we won’t be seeing it any time soon.
As far as the chemistry goes, using zinc is no different than any other fuel cell, or regular battery for that matter (zinc, in fact, is a major component of most alkaline batteries). So what’s so special about it? It has two big advantages over something like lithium. Firstly, it is abundant and cheap, whereas there are fears about the supply of lithium. Secondly, it is safe and recyclable. It also has a relatively high energy density (energy contained per unit of volume).
Of course, it has its drawbacks. How would the zinc actually get recycled? Would battery owners have to recycle it themselves? How much energy would be going into reducing the zinc metal? And how does it make sense to make a car battery out of zinc? Zinc is far heavier than lithium, and delivers far fewer watts per pound… not ideal for a car.
Guess we’ll leave it to Power Air to show us that a zinc economy is feasible.
Via CNET Green Tech news
Image vie Power Air
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written by nuvi, November 26, 2008
'Zinc is far heavier than lithium, and delivers far fewer watts per pound… not ideal for a car.'
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written by alex, November 26, 2008
2. These get energy from air the same way a person, a fire, or a fuel cell does: it uses oxygen from the air to oxidize something (in this case zinc to zinc oxide) and that releases energy. Nothing revolutionary about this. You can't get BOTH reactants from the air and expect to release energy, or it would happen spontaneously. But we use the oxygen this way all the time.
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written by bbm, November 26, 2008
The problem is that you can not simply recharge it, like you can with Li ion or other betteries. You have to swap the pack out (currently) and reprocess the whole thing.
It's unlikely to be parctical, or affordable to do so in millions of cars.
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written by Rob Stanhope, November 26, 2008
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written by Rob Stanhope, November 27, 2008
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written by Craig, December 02, 2008
As an aside, the fireplace spam is interesting but why is it allowed in this particular discussion?
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written by David Rubin, February 21, 2009
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written by Anil P.Deshmukh, March 10, 2009
Can we have comments . Is some work done on Zinc-air batteries ?
Please let us know 1
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written by Martti Pitkanen, May 05, 2009
It seems to me that everything but recharging logistics of slurry is there already. Actually,
they are, ie. gasoline stations. Anyway, lithium-ion batteries are heading to a blind alley.
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written by Larry, May 31, 2009
http://scienceservice.si.edu/pages/001026.htm
General Atomics was leading the way until Gulf Oil took over that division. Hmmm. Typical of a company with a lot to lose should battery power take over in vehicle propulsion. Good luck finding the research data. I contacted General Atomics and got no comment on the historic data. The slurry approach seems the logical step in making this a seamless change from gasoline to zinc air power.
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A battery which makes power from air... I would like to see that! LOL