Launching electric vehicles using aluminum-gas battery technology

A year ago, Phinergy and Alcoa announced that they have successfully developed metal batteries - the gas promises to increase the range of electric vehicles to 1600km. And now, the first electric cars with aluminum-gas battery technology have been officially tested at Gilles - Villeneuve, the famous track in Montreal, Canada with a length of up to 4,361km per race.

Currently, the biggest limitation of electric car generations is the distance traveled after each charge. The leading position held by Tesla's Model S with 500km travel distance after a full charge. Not stopping there, many studies continue to be done to develop the generation of metal-gas batteries with the aim of increasing the range of electric vehicles.

These batteries have a much higher energy storage level than conventional batteries thanks to the traditional "cathode" cathode replacement technique that draws oxygen from the environment as an oxidizer. However, an inherent problem of metal batteries - gas has emerged: the amount of carbon dioxide that comes in with O2 reduces the battery's performance.

The aluminum battery system , developed by Phinergy and Alcoa, uses the energy released from the chemical reaction between aluminum and oxygen to generate electricity. Using a silver-derived catalyst and a unique design structure allows oxygen to enter the battery but prevents CO ₂ penetration.

Phinergy said the technique could improve the performance of metal-gas batteries with an energy storage density of 8kWh / kg, a 25kg battery system that could give electric vehicles uptime of thousands. continuous hours. Besides, this technique also helps to reduce the cost of production and operation of the battery and greatly increases the benefits compared to using gasoline and oil engines.

Despite the outstanding improvements, metal-gas batteries still have a big drawback: they cannot be recharged but can only be renewed after using up the energy. Considering that, Phinergy believes their battery technology will be more suitable when used in conjunction with traditional li-ion batteries. Accordingly, li-ion batteries will be used for short-term daily travel needs in the city, while aluminum-gas batteries will be used when making journeys that are thousands of kilometers long when needed.

Until now, Phinergy has not yet released more detailed information about the performance of its aluminum-gas engine. However, this technology promises to form a new line of electric cars in the near future. Below is a video describing the first electric cars using aluminum batteries - gas officially rolled on the track Gilles - Villeneuve.