New type of long-lasting battery invented

A new type of oxygen-ion battery has been invented at the Vienna University of Technology. This battery has several important advantages. Although it does not allow for quite as high energy densities, its storage capacity does not decrease irrevocably over time: it can be regenerated and thus enables an extremely long service life.

A patent application for the new battery idea has already been filed together with cooperation partners from Spain. Ceramic materials are used. Ceramics are not flammable. For this reason, fire accidents, which occur repeatedly with lithium-ion batteries, are practically ruled out. In addition, there is no need for rare elements, which are expensive or can only be extracted in an environmentally harmful way.

The oxygen-ion battery could be an excellent solution for large energy storage systems, for example to store electrical energy from renewable sources. However, the new battery concept is not intended for smartphones or electric cars, because the oxygen-ion battery only achieves about a third of the energy density that one is used to from lithium-ion batteries and runs at temperatures between 200 and 400 °C.

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