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Is LWP/GraphenEra offering 2 different type of batteries?

Because LWP/GraphenEra is talking about Aluminium-Graphene-Oxygen battery technology, I started to research on Metal-Air batteries first and then Al-Air batteries which is a kind of metal-air battery.

The I realised that LWP might be talking about two different batteries on the June 16^th announcement.

Patent Application #1 : Aluminium – Graphene – Oxygen Battery (Metal-air electrochemical cells).
Patent Application #3 : Aluminium – Graphene – Ion Ultra-Fast Rechargeable Battery (Metal-ion electrochemical cells)

P#1 is Metal-Air and P#3 is Metal-Ion.

Aluminium Metal-Air batteries are known as non-rechargeable while Aluminium-Ion batteries are ultra-fast rechargeable. These are known facts.

Israeli company "Phinergy” is working on a non-rechargeable Aluminium-Air battery and partnered with Alcoa. Stanford University was working on an Aluminium-Ion battery project. See below for more information.
However, I am not sure about the role of graphene involvement in LWP/GraphenEra’s batteries. That should be the ground breaking part.

LWP said on the announcement that the GraphenEra would manufacture the highest quality graphene on a commercial scale by using their patented (pending) chemical synthesis process and they intended to independently validate, then commercialize the Aluminium-Graphene-Oxygen battery by using the synthesis graphene.

That means the Metal-Air type Aluminium-Graphene-Oxygen battery will have an Aluminium-Graphene composite anode electrode. I have never come across a metal-air battery which uses this type anode during my research.

Also, it seems that Aluminium-Graphene-Ion Ultra-Fast Rechargeable Battery (Metal-ion electrochemical cells) will be using the same Aluminium-Graphene composite electrode. However I am not if it will on the anode or cathode. It should be certainly on the anode as on Stanford University’s experiment.

Or they will be making only one battery type, but they needed to lodge two different patent applications. Time will tell that.

Let’s have a look at the Metal-Air batteries now.

Metal-Air Batteries- Extreme Energy & Power Density

Because LWP/GraphenEra is talking about Aluminium-Graphene-Oxygen battery technology, I started to research on Metal-Air batteries first and then Al-Air batteries which is a kind of metal-air battery.

When Nikola Tesla first proposed using Aluminium-Air batteries as a way to deliver power to households in America the idea was ridiculed as another of his wild ideas. In reality the power companies that he had helped create with his alternating current (AC) delivery system was the power behind the discrediting of this idea. Again Tesla was a hundred years before his time.

As the chart below shows, Metal-Air batteries can blow traditional lithium-ion out of the water. Keep in mind that the chart below is exponential, meaning that fuel cell technology has 10 times the energy density of a typical Li-ion-Cobalt battery.



And I have found out that Metal-Air batteries have significant advantages over the conventional batteries including Li-Ion batteries;

• Ultra High Energy Density
• Zero CO2 Emission
• Sustainability
• Fully Recyclable Materials
• Lightweight/Compact

In all batteries oxygen is the key reactant releasing energy from the metal. Metal-Air batteries featuring AIR ELECTRODE that breaths oxygen directly from ambient air, making them significantly lighter. Simply put; if like the difference between the scuba diver and the fish; while the diver carries oxygen tanks in order to breath, the fish simply breathes through its gills.


IBM has downgraded its Lithium-Air battery project

IBM started the Battery 500 Lithium-Air Battery project in 2009. IBM said that current Li-Ion technology is far from being viable for replacing the gasoline internal combustion engine power.



They said in 2012 that they were targeting 2020 for commercial production. However in 2014, Winfried Wilcke, the most bullish player in lithium-air and director of IBM’s Battery 500 Project, had a “change of heart” about lithium-air and had turned his favour to a technology featuring sodium. In an electric car, a sodium-air battery, he said, stood a better chance of meeting the economics needed to compete with conventional cars. It was a dramatic move. At the time, an IBM spokesman said that the company is now working on both lithium-air and sodium.

About the same time, the project partner JCESR dropped its lithium-air project entirely. A JCESR manager, said it concluded that the challenges were too overwhelming to resolve any time soon. “The penalty of using gaseous reactions overwhelmed any advantage”.

The problem has been the chemical instabilities of lithium metal limiting the recharging cycles, making lithium-air impractical for use in cars. The anode is pure lithium metal, which provides a lot of energy but also ignites when exposed to water, carbon dioxide, or other contaminants. What is more, the lithium-oxygen itself can turn into unwanted lithium carbonate. Hence, the battery would need screening technology to keep both electrodes pristine, adding weight and cost and obviating the advantages of going to all that trouble.


Aluminium–Air battery - Extreme Energy & Power Density




Aluminum is actually is an energy metal. It is still used as a rocket fuel in some applications as well as in fireworks for hundreds of years. It is the most abundant element with highest energy density (MJ/L), also has very high specific energy (MJ/kg) which is nearly same with graphite and 25% less than Lithium. (Lithium has 73% less energy density than Aluminium). Ionising aluminium also liberates three electrons compared with lithium's one, potentially giving the batteries a higher charge capacity.

(See the energy density and specific energy tables below if you are more interested).

Aluminium–air batteries ( Al–Air) batteries produce electricity from the reaction of oxygen in the air with aluminium. They have one of the highest energy densities of all batteries.

Aluminum is used as ANODE (-) and air rather oxygen in the air is used as CATHODE (+).
(I am still not sure what will be the role of the graphene in GrapenEra’s battery. My research is going on about this issue.)

The AL-Air battery has a theoretical specific energy level of 8,100 Wh/kg and has the second largest capacity among various types of potential secondary batteries. Theoretical specific energy of a commercialized Lithium-ion battery is 120-200 Wh/kg.

Therefore, the aluminium-air battery possesses theoretical capacity more than 40 times as large as that of a lithium-ion battery.

It should be noted that Lithium-Air battery has to highest theoretical specific energy level of 11,400 Wh/kg. Which is 40% higher than AL-Air battery. However when the price factor between lithium and aluminium is considered, AL-Air battery is being much cheaper in price, energy and power ration.

An electric vehicle (EV) with Al-Air batteries has the potential for up to eight times the range of a lithium-ion battery with a significantly lower total weight.

The Al-Air battery system can generate enough energy and power for driving ranges and acceleration similar to internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. Al-Air EVs are the most promising candidates compared to ICEs in terms of travel range, purchase price, fuel cost, and life-cycle cost.

It has such a high energy and power density that it was thought that this type of battery cannot be electrically recharged; basically it could be a non-rechargeable battery (primary cells).

For a long time Al-Air batteries are considered as non-rechargeable (primary cells). Once the aluminium anode is consumed by its reaction with atmospheric oxygen at a cathode immersed in a water-based electrolyte to form hydrated aluminium oxide, the battery will no longer produce electricity.

Also, Al-Air battery is not commercially produced due to high production cost of anode and corrosion of aluminium anode due to carbon dioxide of ambient air. Till date, use of this battery is restricted in military application only.

Could Al-Air Battery be the next big thing?


Yes it could be. It is already possible to mechanically recharge the battery with new aluminium anodes made from recycling the hydrated aluminium oxide. Such recycling would be essential if Al-Air batteries are to be widely adopted. Also other advantages;

• Aluminium is an abundant, cheap and safe material which can be applied for metal-air batteries. Therefore, battery prices can be cheap.
• The new battery can be manufactured and work in an ambient atmosphere because it is stable in ambient air conditions. Moreover, there is no need to worry about explosion or flammability like a lithium-ion battery.
• All materials (electrode, electrolyte) are safe and cheap, and can be made very easily even in the house kitchen.
• AL-Air batteries have actually been used in specialized military applications for years, which is important. It means there’s some pre-existing expertise and known characteristics that can be leveraged to create additional capacity.

Multiple manufacturers are working on commercializing designs. Well known Israeli company "Phinergy" has improved this technology and they are demanding that they will start production of commercially available Al-Air battery for electric vehicles by 2017. (Alcoa partnered with Phinergy in 2013 with plans for a 2017 debut). Fuji Pigment Co. Ltd. is working on Al-Air battery technology and constantly improving the battery performance and was planning to commercialize this new type of aluminium-air battery in the market by 2016 but no news is release so far.

Al-Air battery powered vehicles have been under discussion for some decades.

• An aluminium powered plug-in hybrid minivan was demonstrated in Ontario in 1990.
• In March 2013, Phinergy released a video demonstration of an electric car using aluminium-air cells driven 330 km using a special cathode and potassium hydroxide.
• On May 27, 2013, the Israeli channel 10 evening news broadcast showed a car with Phinergy battery in the back, being "fuelled" with "pure" drinkable water, claiming 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) range before replacement of the aluminium anodes is necessary.

How It works

There are some major differences with a regular battery: they are closed cells, whereas the al-air battery uses an external element to trigger its chemical reaction. Also, once the Al-Air battery is switched off it remains dormant, with no power loss until turned on again. It’s like an on-board power station, that doesn’t need mains charging.

The reaction gradually consumes the aluminium though, so each cell’s anode has to be replaced depending on usage, like slotting a new cartridge into a printer. And you’ll have to stop every 250 miles to fill the ‘fuel’ tank with electrolyte. So al-air batteries will require electrolyte refuelling pumps at gas stations, though that’s simpler than the recharging points for today’s EVs.

Phinergy’s Citroen C1 demonstrator uses 25kg of aluminium cells providing 100kWh, giving a 600-plus mile range (though with two 30-litre electrolyte top-ups). With its 50kW motor it has an 81mph top speed and 0-60mph in 14sec; Renault’s Zoe packs 22kWh, an 84mph v-max and 13.5sec to 62mph – but only a 130-mile range.

Lighter, more compact, with greater energy output and conceivably less than half the price of lithium-ion batteries, aluminium-air technology might just transform the EV’s appeal.
Electrochemistry

As in the figure below, an Al-Air battery has AIR CATHODE (+) which may be made of a catalyst and it helps to block CO2 to enter in the battery but it allows O2 to enter in the electrolyte. Then this oxygen reacts with H2O in KOH electrolyte solution takes electrons from solution and creates OH- ions. These ions then associate with Al anode (-) and create Al(OH)3 and release electrons.

These electrons then flow to the AIR CATHODE (-) from ALIMINIUM ANODE (+) through the external circuit for compensating lack of electrons in the electrolyte solution due to cathode reduction reaction (Redox Reaction)

The anode oxidation half-reaction is: Al + 3OH⁻ → Al(OH)3 + 3e⁻ -2.31 V.
The cathode reduction half-reaction is: O2 + 2H2O + 4e⁻ → 4OH⁻ +0.40 V.
The total reaction is: 4Al + 3O2 + 6H2O → 4Al(OH)3 + 2.71 V.


4 aluminium atoms react with 3 oxygen molecules and 6 water molecules and produce 4 aluminium hydroxides.