The Future of Rechargeable Battery Technology: Lithium-air and Its Potential Use in Electric Vehicles

For the past decade the lithium-ion battery has had great success in powering many of our rechargeable energy needs. It’s ability to hold more energy than other conventional batteries is what has kept it at the top of the battery pyramid for more than a decade. However, to create a more sustainable future, scientists and engineers have continued to search for a battery technology that could one day replace the Li-ion and solve its many limitations. One of the most intriguing and promising of these technologies is called lithium-air, which could potentially allow electric vehicles to become just as efficient as their gas-powered counterpart. Lithium-air takes in oxygen from the atmosphere and uses that oxygen to react with the lithium-ions from the anode, rather than only reacting with the carbon as lithium-ion batteries do. This paper will discuss briefly the limitations of the Li-ion battery before describing the Li-air technology and the problems that are preventing it from leaving the development stage. Engineers have designed several prototypes of the lithium-air battery, which could potentially resolve these problems and allow the technology to achieve its theoretical potential. A working Li-air battery will benefit electric vehicles and, in a broader sense, sustainability in general. Key Words—air, battery, electric-vehicles, lithium, lithium-air rechargeable, next generation battery