Aluminum Air battery: The battery for electric Aviation
Вставка
- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- In this video we explore a remarkable battery that offers 4 times more energy than Li-ion and does not go into thermal runaway.
We explore why the Royal Airforce is looking to use them.
Dear All, I wanted to make a point that Aluminum Air batteries are "Rechargeable" by replacing the Aluminum plates. So yes you cannot connect to an electric charger to recharge them, but you can change the plates and remove the powdered Aluminum Hydroxide and you are good to go
Basically, you are discharging the electrical energy it took to manufacture the aluminum plates, ignoring the energy required to ship these plates to the site of use.
@@DaveDave-e4t - Similar considerations actually do apply to ALL forms of stored energy, but they are seldom mentioned in connection with Fossil Fuels. That is an example of _bogus book keeping_ and is part of the dirty tricks so widely used by the Fossil Fuel 'Mafia'. Molest me not with such bilge!
@@DaveDave-e4t - As if most people understand the Energy Inputs, Costs, and Types, that get Gasoline From Crude Oil in the Ground, to ones Vehicle!
R&D Discovery Energy, Drilling Energy, Pumping Energy, Storage Energy, Shipping Energy, Storage Energy, Refining Energy, Storage Energy, Shipping Energy, Trucking Energy, Pumping Energy, and Finally - What you get in your vehicle, at a 20% to maybe 30% efficiency in converting Supplied Energy, to Usable Energy!
Imagine if People Complained about the Energy It takes To Cook Their Meals! Or The Energy To Make the Pots, Pans, Stoves, and Plates, Bowls, & Cutlery They use!
This is not recharging but battery refurbishment, absolutely not feasible in minutes when on gas station.
Instead, robotic replacement with new battery unit is the only possibility.
So what happens to the aluminum?
Does it go into the air?
A well constructed video, thanks for not using an AI voice to hide the accent. It is relevant and concise.
agreed 100%, If an AI voice was use I would have discard this video and even give it the thumbs down
Great job of introducing a topic and explaining it as always, really looking foward to what this tech can achieve
Hopefully More to come!
This is great news for me! I note also that Airliners and large Cargo Planes in particular would easily be modified to accept Aluminum-Air batteries in the standard form factor of the aircraft's normal shipping containers. That means very quick battery swaps, perhaps quicker even than refilling aviation fuel, and no risk of spilled fuels and fires on the tarmac. No more fuel system issues bringing down planes, nor fire risk in case of crashes, either!
Swapping is going to be necessary for any real comparison to the use cases that liquid/gass fuel vehicles satisfy. Recharging has too high of requirements for time and parking space vs refill and go.
Yeah maybe maybe there will be interchangeable systems so a 2000km trip would do aluminum whereas 400km normal trip entirely lithium!?
Airliners and large Cargo Planes in particular would easily be modified to accept Aluminum-Air batteries in the standard form factor of the aircraft's normal shipping containers. That means very quick battery swaps, perhaps quicker even than refilling aviation fuel, and no risk of spilled fuels and fires on the tarmac.
@@pingnick why use lit for the 400km trip? this lit batteries could be sitting in the car for reserve power if it every needs it
@@dantronics1682 yeah not enough output I guess for airplane emergency but yeah for vehicles makes some sense I agree-you could putter along many km for just a few kg of weight
Burst power could be provided with ultra capacitors in parallel with Al-Air batteries.
You didn't mention the that fact that the energy for flight actually comes from producing aluminium in the smelter (which takes a lot of energy). But that's the point - that energy goes in to making the metal and is released when it oxidizes. In a sense, the aluminium is a fuel.
Nice, clear video.
There is nothing to stop the intruduction of li ion pack for power burst and the aluminium air or iron air for main power, there are tons of aluminium that goes into landfill at the moment so this is just another way of breaking them down quicker. ie squeezing every ounce of energy back out, people are thinking that the aluminium used was produced just for making the batteries
The Pipistrel replaces the battery pack and recharges them in the shed, so they won't need too many packs to have a trainer plane up and running. It's a nice plane.
Thank you for these great videos you produce, the topics are always great!
Cheers 👍💪✌
Thanks for the info! Appreciate your comments
It takes at least a decade for new battery technology to become available for commercial/private use. Aviation certification takes at least another decade. Even if this is the magic answer…don’t hold your breath.
Did the pipestrel take 2 decades to get certification?
This isn't a battery. This is a fuel cell. The fuel is aluminum. You don't recharge it you refuel it. Considering the cost and carbon footprint of aluminum, this is not a solution. Maybe for military drones, but not for general aviation.
Agree.
I agree that its a fuel cell but disagree on the carbon footprint, they are not producing aluminium specifcally to make these fuel cells, they are using aluminium from off the shelf
Great Video , thanks,
I do remember Toney Seber [ world famous Economist and futurist ] pointing out that it takes 9 years for a new battery to go from concept development to retail use .
In that time Lithium batteries have an average price fall of 16% per year and an improvement of energy density of 4% per year . So that whatever you invent today that is tested safe and functional for use , has to be cheaper and more energy dense than lithium batteries are forecast to be in 9 years time.
Seber said for this main reasons [ scales of economy and energy density improvement ] it has been very difficult for any new battery concept to beat Lithium Batteries The long development lead time of 9 years is the main problem with new battery technology, .
Very interesting. Given the reliability of electric motors, and decreased need for maintenance, I'm betting this will shrink the plane, and we'll see a lot more 'busses' in the sky, particularly for short hop flights. I think we will also see a jump in private and charter planes.
Wendover productions did a video on the maintenance and operating costs for electric vs. ICE planes in the short-haul market:
ua-cam.com/video/aH4b3sAs-l8/v-deo.html
@@AlbertaGeek Thanks! Watching now.
So we would be back to aaa aa c and cells which would basically be thrown away just so some rich pillock can fly to their cushy jobs.
Interesting, unfortunately Aluminium Air batteries are not rechargeable. Making them less interesting for EV's. That's a pity. Still looking for a better chemistry for electric motorcycles.
assuming the environmental costs of producing/recycling of these single use batteries is negligible compared to conventional systems then it sounds really promising
Perfect for one way kamikaze drones….as long as the enemy doesn’t have them.
The Chinese company CATL has announced that their condensed lithium ion battery has energy density of 500Wh/Kg, it's rechargeable and it's ready to deploy too. That make much more sense than the aluminium air battery.
CATL, only six tears away from actually being used.
And I have a perpetual motion engine ready for development.
nothing wrong with different chemistries for different use cases.
We are working on a 8000Wh/kg Al-Air battery right now.
@@ExploringCabinsandMines I already have one of those in my car
"They may not be suitable for aircraft that require very high bursts of power for a short amount of time because of the lower power density ..."
Not a problem. Use supercapacitors for high burst power.
Interesting wow military and wow various industry and maybe public safety applications seem likely to make aluminum air technology widespread before passenger applications!? Interesting!!
Not rechargeable why even mention it...
Agreed. It's the bottom line, IMO.
That depends on your definition of 'rechargeable'. Combustion engines have never been rechargeable. The power source simply leaked out of the airplane and needed to be replaced. That was no problem so far, so why should it be a problem to replace batteries? Whether or not an airplane can be recharged the same way as an EV is utterly irrelevant. If it's safe and the numbers add up, you have a winner, even if that is obtained by glueing a Master Yoda copy to each wing.
You can't go high altitude like you can with li ion and the aluminum plates would be expensive and carbon intensive to produce.@@Berend-ov8of
Living on the road, with my electric guitar, it is often impossible to recharge batteries. They become useless weight, together with the recharger. Learned 40 years ago, its better to work with one-way batteries.
🚀🏴☠️🎸
@@MichaelWinter-ss6lxbut you can get solar panel roll mats, like those who did 'charge around Australia'
I enjoy your videos but consider alu air irrelevant.
CATL announced a 500 Wh/kg last year, and expect commercial electric aviation in 27/28:
“When it comes to airplanes, everyone thinks about the big ones. We had started a small one. We have tried the airplanes which is four tonnes to take off,” he said. “But for commercial ones, it needs to be 8.8 tonnes. It’s still work in progress,” he explained.
Four times li-ion is still not enough. Talk 10 times at least for it to make sense.
It less a battery and more an aluminum burning aluminum fuel cell.
3:00 So the Lithium-Sulfur batteries were rejected for not having enough charge cycles and instead they chose the Aluminum-Air batteries with ZERO charge cycles? 🤔
Good point. Li-S batteries are still in development and there is reasonable progress, but not so big to go commercial.
In case you don’t know.
An aluminium air batteries are non rechargeable. They have a huge amout of energy because aluminum is made by electrolysis from aluminium oxside. And it takes a huge amount of energy and nasty chemistry to do so. It also, like fuel, doesn't need to bring the oxygen. So unlike a normal battery it only has to carry half the chmical components.
You can "recharge" it by replsing the aluminum once consumed. But aluminium is expensive and not at all friendly to the environment to make. So the idea thisnis a reusable "eletric" airceft is really a bit erroneous. It basically needs aluminum fuel and this has its own diposal and pollution problems.
They were investigated as one use bateries with very high power for things like missiles. So you can keep it on the shelf for 20 years, and it will just start up and give full power. And it's going to blow up anyway.
A new militarily application would now be for suicide drones. Their range could be massively extended. Suicide drone aircrft could also be made very quiet if eletric insted of petrol.
But its an absurd use to put it in a plane. The amout of aluminium required is a horrendous waste of a valuable resource.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery
When you can replace and recycle it, than it's not waste but just a source to recycle using the same energy which was consumed.
If they can produce an " In-Use " Rechargable version of these , then the " Battery Revolution " will have happened .
Improbable... Changing aluminium hydroxide into aluminium instantly seems as impossible task. You need factory.
Perfect choice for maritime industry too.
Wait, what? 500W/kg? That's excellent. The 200W/kg listed on wikipedia always seemed like a major limiting factor for aircraft use. But since you still have to size the pack for power rather than capacity, the lack of rechargeability will result in a lot of waste. Especially if your route uses 40-50%, you have to throw out over half the energy or else run low toward the end of the second trip.
Good point. Perhaps aluminium air would make sense as an emergency reserve in aircraft? Or as an occasional range extender in EVs?
@@tewrgh Or, it gets put on a grass mower and cuts grass until depleted for the county - plenty of uses to deplete batteries
Its no good for spacecraft and submarines, and for that reason... I'm OUT! 😂
...because those markets are so much bigger than automotive or aviation?
Thank you for this video. I have been reading about this battery type and its use in aviation for a few years but you are the first person to show the reuseable battery angle.
With the cost of an idle airplane, swappable is preferable to chargeable. One "negative" of aluminum air is a non-issue.
I have suggested EV's use a 100 mile rechargeable battery with slot to install 3 swappable, 100 mile (25lb) aluminum air batteries. Commuter type driving, you have one aluminum air installed as a range extender. When you go cross country, you fill all 3 slots, and replace them as needed at "filling" stations.
Sounds good.
If these Al batteries are used in killer drones , the recharge is a non issue since they are destined to be destroyed in the mission
It depends on price, batteries made in small numbers are always very expensive.
There are already very efficient electric vehicles perfect for commuting, they are called TRAINS or LIGHT RAIL.
This type was featured in the Towards 2000 series in the 1990s. It just recovers some of the ele trical energy used to produce the aluminium in the first place.
An obvious application for aluminum air batteries is the military "kamikaze" drone. Since the drone is fated to explode at the end of its flight, rechargeability is not a consideration.
Surveillance drones that loiter for around 8 to 10 hours before returning is another application. Just swap the battery when they return and send them back
@@ElectricAviation Exactly like that, you would swap them anyway, but with LiIon ones. So why not use the Alu/Air and you will get 4x range or working hours.
How does the charge get consumed? ie A plane has 10 batteries, it flies to a destination that uses 70% of the batteries charge. Do all of the batteries need to be exchanged, wasting 30%, or can 7 of batteries be replaced restoring the full range?
The Al plates get thinner as the battery is used. So you can replace the plates with fresh thicker plates, if you want full range at the start of a mission and use the depleted plates for shorter missions
It may depend on battery management, which should keep some batteries as spare, not even used. And use them when other batteries are nearly depleted. Because the plane during normal flight consumes only a small amount of energy compared to takeoff so e.g. half of batteries may be kept unused.
I have been reading about this for 30 or 40 years. High time they were used for aircraft propulsion. Sudden power bursts could be handled with supercaps. The aluminum hydroxide can be reduced to metallic aluminum with electricity,which could be derived from renewable sources.
For reciprocating ICE, with engine ~2x the mass of fuel carried, effective energy density of AvGas is:
45 MJ/kg x 25% engine efficiency x 33% fuel fraction = 3.7MJ/kg or 1042Wh/kg
This is why electric light aircraft will be commercially feasible once batteries achieve >500Wh/kg. Amprius already have a pilot plant for 500Wh/kg, and if gamma phase sulphur can be scaled up then expect Li-S to beat this with high cycle numbers.
I think for aerial drones there could be a good case for use of this technology. Swapping components out at a base would not be unheard of.
ALL METAL-AIR BATTERIES HAVE A FATAL FLAW! If an aluminum -air battery weighs 100 pounds when fully "charged" then it will weigh ~150 pounds when fully discharged! The kWh/kg of metal - air batteries is always quoted when they are fully charged (sneaky) but they GET HEAVIER when they discharge because the oxygen they use from the surrounding air to oxidize (burn) the metal ends up being stored in the battery. In an aluminum -air battery the aluminum hydroxide becomes the stored waste product. Not good for aircraft when the battery gets heavier as it consumes its fuel.
Burning gasoline or diesel works the same way except the non-heat waste product is a gas (CO2) and is just excreted into the air (pollution). A gallon of gas weighs ~6 pounds but burning it exhausts 19 pounds of CO2.
What’s nice is fact you can change the plates in a second the water solution easy change. Less waste materials. Also power in a instant
@2:19 what is the units on the X axis supposed to be Milli AmpHour per CM square? Wouldn't a measure of per cubic cm be better? Just asking
What format / size are these batteries available in? I'm thinking that they would be the "cat's ass" for use in FPV drones in Ukraine. Longer range, don't have to worry about recharging most of the FPVs.
The 400kWh/kg figure that Elon Musk suggested was one his most ignorant statements that he's made and he's made many. There isn't a single magic figure, just the range that different batteries densities can provide, 400Wh/kg just takes us to short haul range, it's a long way from being good enough for medium let along long haul, until we can achieve the later we'll not displace the biggest aviation polluters.
At 1000+kWh/kg batteries start to make things far more capable of replacing medium haul passenger aircraft, this is where things could get really compelling.
Batteries will never be able to achieve medium and long haul. Its not cut out for that. It has a niche in Urban and suburban air mobility
@@ElectricAviation Medium hail is 3-6 hour flight time, that's within reach for a 1000+kWh/kg battery. Please do the sums of aircraft + propulsion efficiency, % all up weight dedicated to batteries and range for a different battery densities, would make a great video illustrating what current tech is capable of, what next gen batteries might provide and what leaps would be required to displace medium and lpng haul flight.
@@ElectricAviation Never say never...
The problem with non rechargeable batteries like this is they will never be fully discharged. Pilots will not take off with partial "fuel" and will replace the batteries with half charge or less. We need to see what the economics of this look like. How much do the batteries cost? How much do you pay for recycling? What is the cost per flight hour as compared to avgas?
What effect would using an Aluminiumm/lithium alloy have? Since these have favourable characteristics for building planes.
The ease of recycling of the Aluminum-air battery, it’s energy efficiency and carbon output is the key to whether they make sense.
I believe you and the other proponents for Aluminum Air have a misunderstanding of the true nature of that technology. It would be more realistic to think of it not so much as in Wh/kg but in battery consumption per hour. If considered more in the way that highly stressed military missile and drone propulsion is, which is essentially a one trip aircraft with an "engine rich exhaust", you have a better description of the single use Aluminum Air Battery.
Aluminium metal is made by high eletric current. Recovering that leavs muck behind. Similar to gas engines. Aluminium is expensive.
This could also have military applications in systems that are not recovered. Sonar buoys, loitering munitions, or any place where light weight disposable batteries are needed.
Excellent video. Great technology. Far safer for aviation than lithium or hydrogen.
Magnesium is high density, cheap, lightweight, and high capacity. It can recharge umpteen thousand times with little degradation or dendrite formation. Sounds perfect! Interesting to see more on magnesium battery development
I might be showing my age but I remember when we use to buy non rechargable batteries for all sort of things and didnt even think much about it. using aluminium air is just going back to that stage but with higher density. what it is is that you youngsters think if it cant be recharged then its no good for anything.
well aluminium air bateries are not exactly bateryes , becose those are not rechargeble...are single use
Aluminum battery energy density is 8.7 kw/Kg but these design is terrible.
Make this video in six years time when "maybe" they have this battery in a plane.
1 hour, gasoline can do 10 hours, not rechargeable....
cost of replacing the battery is an important consideration
That relates to the energy recycling costs of Al. but if you have a lot of clean energy spare like Scandinavia's hydro generation... Or Geothermal then the chances are they are already making Al. 🤷🏻 Recycle to recharge.. it takes less than initial extraction and refining. Though I'm not sure if it uses the same flux Cryolite ...Na Al Fluoride...which can be nasty in the environment.
How does an electric aircraft handle lightning 🌩️?
A friend working on these Aluminium-air fuel cells mentioned an interesting aspect of their chemistry: traditional infernal combustion engines ditch their exhaust products continually, but Al-air cells don't. Nothing is jettisoned, yet air is continually input, therefore the Al-air cells are actually heavier at landing than they are on takeoff! (This don't 'alf bugger the Breguet range equation).
Interesting, but how can it be heavier at landing than take off, are you saying aluminium oxide is heavier than aluminium metal?
Yeah, the Pipistrel velis club has much longer endurance, more useful payload, and higher cruise speed than the velis electro, so it's far from accurate to claim that's there's only a 2-3 times difference.
Still, the Velis electro has enough range for it's purpose, and that's even a model based on a combustion engine model, and not fully optimized from the ground up with electric propulsion in mind.
Also, it would be possible to just increase the size of a plane and sacrifice usable payload to increase the battery capacity and increase range that way. Sure it would mean very large planes for a given payload capacity, but that would make it possible to have short range commercial flights with currently available li-ion batteries.
Using aluminium and then recycling it is an intriguing possibility, but it's not commercially viable if it's too expensive, which it probably is, in fact it i is probably very much to expensive in reality. Reaching even to somewhat near theoretical potential capacity probably requires many years of extensive R&D, trial and error. Which are things that typically comes after wide commercial adoption. In fact aluminium-air batteries have a lot of similarities with synthetic fuels, similar disadvantages, and also some very significant extra disadvantages compared to synthetic fuels, like only having a small fraction of the energy and power density of synthetic fuels.
No unfortunately. There is an optimal ratio of batteries to aircraft weight.
At the beginning of the video, you state that the AirAL battery has 4x the power density of Li-ion, but at the end you say it has half the power density at around 500W/h. Did I miss something?
Energy density is 4 times. Power is 500 W/kg
It's great! Only one little problem.
So…the most expensive part of an electric craft is the battery, and here that needs to be replaced after every flight? That sounds wildly uneconomical
In China robotic replacement of LiIon batteries, instead recharging is reality. It is about building a different type of energy distribution and life cycle on commercial level.
If these can be used in small UAVs like FPV UAVs then not be rechargeable might not even be an issue in scenarios such as their use in Ukraine where they are used in a kamikaze mode.
Definitely feasible usage model. Drones and one-time used devices, energy hogs. The thing is if there's enough demand to build big factories and offer reasonable prices to market. Because batteries made in small numbers will be very expensive.
I believe that Elon said 500 watt hours was the number which would make medium duration electric flight possible
He said 400 Wh. This is actually true. The current 4 seater air taxis would love to have it
Elon is no Confucius.
Is it salt for the electrolytes
CATL already has 500 wh/kg
When and where can we buy some? Thanks
9:10 presumably 700Wh per *litre* (for volumetric density)
Yes true
Cycling is extremely inefficient
You're off by an order of magnitude to get to batteries to replace jetA. Even given the ~35% efficiency of potential energy into thrust and a 100% efficient electric motor, you need something closer to 5kWh/Kg not 400Wh/Kg to make electric aircraft viable.
Aluminium air potential 8kWh/Kg.
Lithium Air 11kWh/Kg
But I think the actual revolution will be with iron.
@@UmmerFarooq-wx4yo Ya, the air batteries have potential, but they're not remotely viable yet and may never be.
@@UmmerFarooq-wx4yo The even bigger issue is generating that much energy. I did that math on a typical day in HKG, and you need about 80GW of always on power generation to keep up with the current energy demand of the airport if the fuel minus the inefficiencies were provided by electric.
Even if it were all nuclear, which has the lowest land use per W, there's no where to put 80 nuclear reactors let alone low density wind or solar. I think even natural gas would struggle with that kind of output and land use.
@@z987k that's not too hard. 8 million homes with 10kW solar could easily sustain that. Just need HK$600 billion. Which sounds like the 1/10 of the price of 80 nuclear plants.
Might be cheaper still with roll out mat solar collectors.
@@UmmerFarooq-wx4yo There's not enough land in the whole of HKG to put up that much solar. The reason it'd have to be nuclear is available land, though there's not enough land for those either. Also if you did it in solar you have to at least 4x the generating capacity due to only generating at about 25% capacity over time.
But what's the cost of reprocessing the aluminum?
Not much but complication. Replacing the batteries with new ones is the only way. This needs complete cycle of distribution of batteries etc. and thus extreme costs at the beginning.
They are not sustainable.
Thanks for the video! Your videos are always interesting. Alu-Li batteries sound like an exciting alternative, but also very expensive as long as they can only be used once.
no thanks i will walk
Ty
$100 million #POW
I WISH we had every new battery that promises to be a game changer:)
lol
Another wonderful overview and thank you. In my mind, the bigger question is "why". If this is being done to provide cleaner and "more eco friendly" alternatives to fossil fuel combustion, then we also have to consider the environmental costs of producing these batteries vs. buring av-gas if they are a 1-use option.
Anyway, as usual you have presented the information in a wonderfully structured form and I've learned something today as a result! Cheers from Sydney - Dave
Think about it, any country with wind. solar and bauxite can produce these batteries bypassing the big boys who control the oil production,
what is also 500W/kg, RTG pu-238 and am-241, but its millions times more energy dense and produces direct heat
That tech offers much more to gain, but also much more left to develope and it's more critical.
Cost is a limiting factor
Running cost is higher than Li-ion but lower than conventional fuel when used in EV
Electric aviation will never be a thing
I disagree. It will be thing for short distances in near future. Longer distances depends on technologies advance, it will take decades for sure.
@@vencdee it’s not practical today, neither will it ever be. The energy required is simply to high for batteries to, not now nor in the future.
Take weight, landing weight, fire hazard, and many other flaws.
The regulations require at 45 min fuel reserve. Adverse weather, ice, headwinds all make it a non starter.
It’s simply not practical.
⚡plasma cells ⚡are the future. 🤠
I just wish you made more videos
If these batteries could be used as reserve capacity, so not used unless vital, then less Li-Ion would be needed (engage rocket equation), and they wouldn't need swapping very often.