Engineers at MIT have developed a new battery using common materials like salt, sulfur, and aluminum, which are widely available.
The battery is low-cost, fire-resistant, and can be charged very fast, making it useful for powering a home or charging electric vehicles.
The battery uses aluminum for one electrode and sulfur for the other, combined with an electrolyte of molten chloro-aluminate salt.
In tests, the new battery cells can sustain hundreds of charge cycles, and charge very quickly, sometimes under a minute.
It can operate at high temperatures of up to 200°C, and actually work better when hotter. At 110°C, the batteries charged 25 times faster than at 25°C.
The selected electrolyte prevents the formation of dendrites, which form between the two electrodes until they cause a short circuit, a know problem of lithium-ion cells.
Lithium-ion batteries have dominated the market for the last few decades. However, the material is becoming scarcer and more expensive.
The cost of the new battery cells would be only one-sixth that of a similar-sized lithium-ion cell.
