Lithium

An interesting claim about using Lihium Salt for high yield, long life batteries.

Today's batteries are expensive, heavy, short-lived, and full of noxious acid and heavy metal. But chemist Michel Armand and his colleagues at the University of Montreal say they've fixed all that. Standard car batteries contain dense lead plates along with toxic sulfuric acid as the electrolyte the fluid that conducts electric charge. The lithium ion batteries used in watches and cellular phones are far more efficient, but they can't be scaled up to car size because they have a nasty tendency to explode when they get too hot. Armand's team circumvented that problem with a new type of lithium salt that, when mixed with a special nontoxic polymer they created previously, makes a solid, stable electrolyte that is cheap, safe, and environmentally benign.

Hydro-Quebec, a Canadian power corporation, has supported development of the lithium salt battery as a storage device that would help avert brownouts. The U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium, a coalition of car companies and the U.S. Department of Energy, is also sponsoring Armand's work. He thinks they'll find the electric car's time has finally come. "Our battery can propel electric cars for about 200 miles at decent speeds, about five times the performance of a classic lead-acid battery," he says. It can be recharged at least 1,000 times, so it should last about 200,000 miles. Plus the battery itself is thin and easily molded, according to Armand: "You can roll it, cut it, stack it, fold it into a zigzag shape. Someday you could make a battery the shape of a car's fender."

Offered by Steve.