IBM controversial lithium air battery

Tagged: IBM, lithium air battery, Technology
Source: networkworld - Read the full article
Posted: 6 years 1 week ago



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IBM is a big proponent of the oft-controversial lithium-air battery. The controversy surrounds the fact that they tend to be expensive and use an energy-dense, highly flammable metal, to react with the readily available oxygen in the air.

According to IBM: "Because they use air that's pulled into the battery as needed, rather than store a second reactant inside the cell, lithium-air batteries could have an energy density of more than 5,000 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). That's ten times the energy available from the top lithium-ion batteries today, and begins to get closer to the 13,200 Wh/kg energy density of gasoline."

In its DOE supercomputer research proposal IBM said that the "exciting proof-of-principle work still presents very big scientific challenges before one can be confident that practical propulsion batteries can be based on the Li/Air system. The most important ones are to realize a high percentage of the theoretical energy density, to improve electrical efficiency of recharging, to increase the number of times the battery can be cycled, to limit the negative effects of moisture in the air, and to improve the power density. To this end, our research project is focused on understanding (1) the mechanisms of Lithium/Air cell discharge and recharge reactions, (2) the role and selection of catalyst and cathode surface properties, (3) the solubility of lithium ion and lithium oxides and optimization of electrolyte, and (4) the reactions occurring at the electrode-electrolyte interface."

"The obstacles to Li-air batteries becoming a viable technology are formidable, but the modeling and simulation capabilities of DOE's supercomputers will help us accelerate the innovations required in materials science, chemistry and engineering," said Argonne Director Eric Isaacs in a statement.

The Lithium-air work is part of the DOE's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, that doles out computer resources to let scientists and engineers conduct cutting-edge research in weeks or months rather than the years.

INCITE awards given out this week include research in:
