The lithium-oxygen battery promises to bring lighter electric cars

Not just smartphones, lithium-oxygen batteries have been studied for use on electric vehicles. This promises to bring users with models of battery capacity but lighter than today.

Engadget has previously planned to use lithium-air batteries to make lighter and healthier electric cars thanks to a 10 times higher power density than conventional batteries. However, lithium-air batteries have the disadvantage that the battery drain very quickly and wastes the energy input as heat. This makes lithium-air batteries not ideal, so having a car that will accompany you for years and being required to charge quickly. Recently, scientists at MIT, Argonne National Laboratory and Peking University have found a better way to use lithium-oxygen batteries on trams.

The battery is very light and quite durable due to its self-protection mechanism when fully charged.

Instead of sucking oxygen from the outside air to trigger a chemical reaction that produces electricity like lithium-air batteries, lithium-oxygen batteries use lithium-superoxide crystals on nanoparticles. Lithium superoxide crystals are continuously transformed into lithium and oxygen, minimizing battery power loss (five times less than conventional batteries), as well as increasing battery life. In addition, lithium-oxygen batteries are also safer to the environment when they do not produce carbon dioxide or moisture during the discharge. Besides, the battery is also lightweight and quite durable due to self-protection mechanism when fully charged.

Currently, lithium-oxygen batteries for new electric vehicles are in the experimental field. However, there is a feasible plan to create a usable prototype of the battery for the next year, as lithium-oxygen batteries do not require much of the raw materials and the use of lithium batteries normal ions. This promises to bring us electric vehicles with a battery capacity of at least double the current than with the light weight.