A new inexpensive aluminium battery that could charge cellphones in just one minute has been developed by Stanford scientists.
The new aluminium battery is much safer than existing lithium-ion and alkaline batteries in wide use today and does not catch fire, researchers said. “We have developed a rechargeable aluminium battery thatmay replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batteries, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames,” said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford University.
“Our new battery won’t catch fire, even if you drill through it,” said Dai. Aluminium has long been an attractive material for batteries, mainly because of its low cost, low flammability and high-charge storage capacity, researchers said.
An aluminium-ion battery consists of two electrodes: a negatively charged anode made of aluminium and a positively charged cathode.