At present, there are still many drawbacks with Li-Ion batteries, one of the biggest is how difficult they are to recycle, often using more energy than it is actually worth in the process.

By combining the attributes of a solid fuel cell and a metal-air battery researchers have come up with a new type of battery that will last longer, cost less to manufacture, and most significantly will be fully recyclable. At present we are having to deal with limited range and a limited battery lifespan that will ultimately cause just as much waste as any other car.

Although it is still in the early stages of development, if salt can deliver in the real world it could play a big part in moving the green energy revolution forward.

Molten Salt

Molten Salt
IDOM

Initially researchers used molten salt as the electrolyte, it requires high temperatures to activate the chemical reaction, it is cheap to manufacture and has a long lifecycle.

It also has a couple key drawbacks, the heat it operates under makes it aggressively corrosive and volatile, not exactly ideal for mass-market applications. The breakthrough came when fine tuning this technology, by turning the molten salt into a fine soft salt they created a quasi-solid-state (QSS) electrolyte that will be suitable for use in common metal-air batteries. By creating this QSS electrolyte they were able to eliminate the volatility of molten salt and keep the operating temperature down to a more acceptable level; around that of an ICE car’s exhaust gasses.

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Extended Range

Range Anxiety
Via Fleet Europe

If this promising research bears fruit, it could make the current Li-Ion king almost irrelevant. It is cheaper, able to store more energy, lasts longer, and is more easily recycled.

Although the applications are limitless with so much technology reliant on Li-Ion, the main relevance to the automotive sector will be range. It has long since been one of the biggest drawbacks to EV ownership and range anxiety is still a very big part of the EV experience thanks to the limitations of the current crop of Li-Ion batteries. As much as this won’t be a silver bullet, it will improve range, improve charge times and increase the battery lifespan. Even at the end of its lifespan it will still be fully recyclable, something that quite simply cannot be said for the current Li-Ion alternative.

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Sustainable Future

With molten salt technology already being used in energy storage, we truly hope to see it make its way into full development as a QSS battery.

It will drastically improve the carbon footprint of the automotive industry and help pave the way to a sustainable transport network. Although it will still be some time before this technology is ready for the mass market, it could well change all our lives for the better.

Next: Electric Vehicles: Where We Are And What Consumers Expect