World's first air-powered battery unveiled

This battery can store up to 10 times more energy than existing Lithium-ion batteries

Working of the battery

Now-a-days companies are putting in all their efforts to produce green (environment friendly) products by using renewable materials and harnessing the renewable sources of energy. Professor Peter Bruce, at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, has just done that, by developing a battery that uses air as a fuel. It is called STAIR which is the short form for St. Andrews Air battery. The project is still in the development phase and preliminary tests have shown that the new air powered battery is capable of storing up to 10 times more energy than existing Li-ion batteries. This may well be the future of batteries for use in notebooks, netbooks, mobiles, and other portable devices.

This new battery has a porous carbon electrode rather than the lithium cobalt oxide electrode which is normally used in Li-ion batteries. This porous electrode allows the lithium ions and electrons in the cell to react with oxygen in the ambient air through the use of air vents on the battery. This creates more energy which can be used to continuously charge the discharging battery.

It is expected that this battery would be cheaper than the batteries presently available in the market because it uses a porous carbon component which is cheaper than the lithium cobalt oxide component. There is also a reduction in the size and weight of the battery as the same sized battery can now carry more charge. The project will still take two years to complete and further one more year to go in to actual production. This means that the new air powered battery won’t be available in the market before 2012.

These new batteries would further lower the cost of the portable devices and provide them with increased battery life thereby reducing the need for frequent recharging of the battery. They surely will provide a cleaner environment through green computing.