Room-temperature liquid-metal battery promises more power than lithium ion

Most batteries are composed of either solid-state electrodes, such as lithium-ion batteries for portable electronics, or liquid-state electrodes, including flow batteries for smart grids.

The so-called "room-temperature all-liquid-metal battery” developed by a team at The University of Texas at Austin is claimed to combine the many benefits of existing options while eliminating their key shortcomings and saving energy.

Solid-state batteries feature significant capacity for energy storage, but they typically encounter numerous problems that cause them to degrade over time and become less efficient. A Liquid-metal battery can deliver energy more efficiently, without the long-term decay of sold-state devices, but either falls short on high energy demands or require significant resources to constantly heat the electrodes and keep them molten.

The metallic electrodes in the team's battery can remain liquefied at a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius the lowest operating temperature ever recorded for a liquid-metal battery, according to the researchers. This represents a major change, because current liquid-metal batteries must be kept at temperatures above 240 degrees Celsius.