Zinc-air battery could be low-cost alternative to lithium-ion

The results, published in Nature Communications, could lead to the development of a low-cost alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries widely used today.

‘There have been increasing demands for high-performance, inexpensive and safe batteries for portable electronics, electric vehicles and other energy storage applications,’ said Hongjie Dai, a professor chemistry at Stanford and lead author of the study. ‘Metal-air batteries offer a possible low-cost solution.’

According to Dai, most attention has focused on lithium-ion batteries, despite their limited energy density, high cost and safety problems.

‘With ample supply of oxygen from the atmosphere, metal-air batteries have drastically higher theoretical energy density than either traditional aqueous batteries or lithium-ion batteries,’ he said in a statement. ‘Among them, zinc-air is technically and economically the most viable option.’

Zinc-air batteries combine atmospheric oxygen and zinc metal in a liquid alkaline electrolyte to generate electricity with a by-product of zinc oxide. When the process is reversed during recharging, oxygen and zinc metal are regenerated.