Low-Cost Batteries Made From Inexpensive Materials

DETROIT – An aluminum-sulfur battery, made from inexpensive, abundant materials, could provide low-cost backup storage for renewable energy sources.

As ever larger installations of wind and solar power systems are being built around the world, the need is growing fast for economical, large-scale backup systems to provide power when the the air is calm and sun is down. Today’s lithium-ion batteries are still too expensive for most such applications. Other options such as pumped hydro require specific topography that’s not always available.

Now, scientists at MIT and elsewhere have developed a new kind of battery, made entirely from abundant and inexpensive materials, that could help to fill that gap.

The new battery architecture, which uses aluminum and sulfur as its two electrode materials, with a molten salt electrolyte in between, is described today (August 24, 2022) in the journal Nature. The paper was written by MIT Professor Donald Sadoway, along with 15 others at MIT and in China, Canada, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

To read more, click on Interesting Engineering