Discuss about zinc air battery and lithium battery

From mobile MP3 players to electric cars, making rechargeable batteries that are safer, last longer and have more cycles has been a key technical challenge. The lithium ion battery technology we have used for many years has many obvious disadvantages, such as fast battery degradation, short life, not environmental protection, and so on.The overheating and explosion accidents of lithium batteries that have appeared many times have still left people with a lot of trouble.

Among the many promising alternatives to lithium-ion batteries, a new force has recently emerged: zinc-air rechargeable batteries. In fact, zinc air battery technology has been invented for more than 100 years. Activated carbon is used to adsorb oxygen in the air as the positive electrode active material, zinc as the negative electrode, and ammonium chloride or caustic soda solution as the electrolyte. In the 1960s, thanks to technological improvements brought about by space engineering, zinc-air batteries began to be put into practical use. Today, many button batteries used in hearing AIDS are actually zinc-air batteries.

SINTEF set up the company ReVolt in Switzerland to lead the product development and marketing of zinc-air rechargeable batteries. The company said tiny zinc-air rechargeable batteries for hearing AIDS will go on sale next year, as will zinc-air rechargeable batteries for other mobile devices such as cellphones. When it comes to market, its charge and discharge life should reach 300 to 500 times.

In addition, by referring to the fuel cell structure, ReVolt indicates that the zinc-air rechargeable battery will be used in electric vehicles in the future. Its charging and discharging life exceeds 10,000 times. However, the technology is far from practical at present.

Rechargeable battery technology that can be recycled has long been impossible due to the structural limitations of zinc-air batteries. In recent years, SINTEF, a Norwegian research institute, has implemented charging technology for zinc-air batteries by improving zinc electrodes and internal humidity control. The current rechargeable zinc-air battery has achieved more than 100 charge and discharge cycles in the experiment, and its expected life can reach 200 times. Compared to lithium-ion batteries, zinc-air rechargeable batteries can store up to three times as much energy, cost half as much and have no risk of overheating or exploding.

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