Zep
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I am sure there are people on the forum with a greater knowledge of the subject than i have. The achillies heel of EVs at the moment is range and charging infracstructure.
Ive always thought that a drive in quick swap out battery facility would be a better option which would mean that you can pick up a pretty much instant full charge / refuel on your travels anywhere.
With the above in mind i really dont understand why aluminium air batteries have not been pushed as the way forwards. There are issues to resolve but the main benefits seem to be.
Smaller form factor for upto 8 times the range.
Mechanical recharging can be done.
Alluminium is cheaper to produce in comparison to other batteries used in EVs and also lighter.
Im sure a fairly simple drive in and swap out battery facility could be achieved as the form factor is much smaller for the same or higher capacity.
As always i dont think there will be a single solution but on the face of it aluminium air batteries could /should form part of the soltion.
The problems with metal-air batteries are fairly fundamental, to produce power the anode reacts with oxygen. Aluminium for example, is highly reactive with oxygen, so produces lots of power, but also a lot of byproduct (aluminium oxide) which has to be removed to maintain it. In essence, they are not rechargeable. Which means that energy density is great, but production costs and I imagine embodied carbon are not good at all.
The challenge with battery chemistry is to get a lot of reaction and long life. This is how we ended up with the chemistry we have.