VIEWS on BATTERY NEWS: Aluminum air gets legs. Ambient air construction for Li. REAL wireless charging.

Aluminum air battery technology has been of interest for a long time because of the theoretical high energy density. However, because there hasn't been a rechargeable variant in the lab it can only get niche funding. But someone may have found a way to solve the problem.

The experts at Fuji Pigment are experimenting with replacing the current electrolyte (water) with an ionic liquid, as well as placing a TiO2 (titanium dioxide) as an internal layer to separate the electrodes and battle the accumulation of byproducts. They claim these two upgrades, if successful, will make aluminum-air batteries rechargeable.

That's some pretty good news. But it's only a theory as of this point. It hasn't even been tested in a lab. And even if it is tested in a lab, that doesn't mean it can become a commercial product. But that's never a good reason not to note the possibility!


Increasing the energy density of lithium batteries is always a welcome advance. This one comes courtesy of a chemical process that allows both less expensive construction and a higher capacity battery.

It is also claimed to allow for more cycles of the battery during its working life. It's like a win-win-win. The idea is to create an electrode that can be built in ambient air. Right now, electrodes have to be built in controlled environments so they don't react while they are produced. This not only makes it more expensive to make batteries but it also starts a battery off with a deficit in capacity.

Hailiang Wang said this about the technology, although he is only an interested party and not a part of this particular research:

The initial Coulombic efficiency of electrodes is a big concern for the Li-ion battery industry, and this effective and easy-to-use technique of compensating irreversible Li ion loss will attract interest.

No one likes irreversible loss.. Having people who are outside the research making positive comments about it is always a plus. And another plus is this process seems to be good for other chemistries which may yield even more capacity.

Wireless charging has been another great idea that just doesn't seem to have the technology available to work the way it really needs to. Right now we can place a device that has a wireless charging plate built into it on a charging pad and it saves us the trouble of actually plugging it in where the charging pad is.

What we really need is to come into any room that has a wireless charging device in it, and without even taking our phone off our person it will charge without even having to think about it.

And that's just what some researchers are proposing. By utilizing a certain property of magnetic waves and metamaterials they have found a way to beam the magnetic field to where the device is. The device would have to be built with this kind of charging in mind to track the beam and convert the energy to the proper voltage.

But wouldn't this mean, in many places, that you'd never have to plug your cell phone or laptop in ever again?