Ok.. its not so grim.....unicrumba's SMH reference when looked at elsewhwere seems more positive than the SMH comment on this... But isnt that typical of the SMH folk?
I cut this from Chemistry News commenting on teh same announcment.. its a bit clearer......
....But aluminium-ion batteries have been plagued by numerous difficulties: the discharge voltages have often been as low as 0.55V and various cathodes trialled have disintegrated during repeated cycling, causing the lifetimes of the batteries of the batteries to drop to 85% or less within 100 cycles.
But now Hongjie Dai and colleagues at Stanford University in California unveil a prototype battery with a new graphite cathode that solves these problems. The group's discovery of the remarkable properties of graphite began with a stroke of luck. While investigating the potential of metal oxide films as cathodes, the researchers used graphite particles to increase their conductivity.
