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Lithium-Air Battery Achieves Required Energy for Electric Planes

A General Electric Propulsion Test Platform plane takes off near Victorville, California, US, March 28, 2018. (Reuters)
A General Electric Propulsion Test Platform plane takes off near Victorville, California, US, March 28, 2018. (Reuters)
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Lithium-Air Battery Achieves Required Energy for Electric Planes

A General Electric Propulsion Test Platform plane takes off near Victorville, California, US, March 28, 2018. (Reuters)
A General Electric Propulsion Test Platform plane takes off near Victorville, California, US, March 28, 2018. (Reuters)

Researchers have achieved a world-leading energy density with a next-generation battery design, paving the way for long-distance electric planes, The Independent reported.

The lithium-air battery, developed at the Japanese National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), had an energy density of over 500Wh/kg. By comparison, lithium-ion batteries found in Tesla vehicles have an energy density of 260Wh/kg.

The new battery can also be charged and discharged at normal operating temperatures, making them practical for use in technologies ranging from drones to household appliances.

According to the researchers, the battery “shows the highest energy densities and best life cycle performance ever achieved” and marks a major step forward in realizing the potential of this energy storage.

“Lithium-air batteries have the potential to be the ultimate rechargeable batteries: they are lightweight and high capacity, with theoretical energy densities several times that of currently available lithium-ion batteries,” according to a release posted by NIMS. The team is now planning to implement other materials into the battery with the aim of significantly increasing the battery’s cycle life.

Energy density has been the biggest obstacle towards the advancement of electric planes, with 500Wh/kg viewed as an important benchmark for achieving both long-haul and high-capacity flights.

Lithium-air batteries have the potential to hold up to five times more energy than lithium-ion batteries of the same size (3,460 Wh/kg), however previous experimental designs have consistently failed beyond the lab scale.

The batteries work by combining oxygen in the air with the lithium present in the anode, which comes with safety issues that the latest research was able to overcome.

Until now, electric planes have been small and incapable of carrying large numbers of passengers over long distances, with efforts typically focusing on short-distance private aircraft.

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Technology

PlayStation at 30: How Sony's Grey Box Conquered Gaming

The little grey box sold 102 million units. Richard A. Brooks / AFP
The little grey box sold 102 million units. Richard A. Brooks / AFP
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PlayStation at 30: How Sony's Grey Box Conquered Gaming

The little grey box sold 102 million units. Richard A. Brooks / AFP
The little grey box sold 102 million units. Richard A. Brooks / AFP

Japanese electronics giant Sony is set to celebrate 30 years since it launched the PlayStation console, the little grey box that catapulted the firm into the gaming big league.
PlayStation was Sony's first foray into the world of video games and when it hit the shelves in Japan on December 3, 1994, the company needed to sell one million units to cover its costs, AFP said.
In the end, the gadget became a legend, selling more than 102 million units, helping to launch many of the industry's best-loved franchises and positioning Sony as a heavyweight in a hugely lucrative sector.
"PlayStation changed the history of video games," said Hiroyuki Maeda, a Japanese specialist in video game history.
"It truly transformed everything: hardware, software, distribution and marketing."
One of the keys to its success was broadening the appeal of a pastime that had often been dismissed as a hobby for children.
From the off, the firm was clear that it wanted to trash this image.
In part this stems from Sony's rivalry with Nintendo, which was already a dominant player in the sector by the mid-1990s, but whose games skewed young.
Sony 'humiliated'
The original PlayStation can trace its history to a falling out between the two great Japanese firms.
They had partnered in the late 1980s to develop a version of the Super Nintendo console with an in-built CD player.
But Nintendo suspected Sony were using the project as a way to muscle into the gaming sector and abruptly cancelled the partnership in 1991.
"Sony found itself in a humiliating position," said Maeda, so pushed ahead with the project by itself.
The hardware proved to be revolutionary, CD-ROMs being cheaper and storing much more data than the cartridges used by Nintendo and other consoles.
And to further distinguish itself from Nintendo, Sony courted a young adult audience with fighting games like "Tekken", out-and-out horror with "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill", and military titles like "Metal Gear Solid".
Its advertising also followed a more grown-up path.
Hollywood auteur David Lynch was drafted in to direct ads for the PS2 launched in 2000 -- conjuring a nightmare vision of floating heads and talking ducks certainly not meant for younger audiences.
"The older audience obviously had better purchasing power than children," said Philippe Dubois, founder of M05, a French association that aims to preserve digital heritage.
The PS2 is still the most successful console in history, having sold more than 160 million units.
'New sensations'
Over the past 30 years, the competition has intensified and the technology has been honed.
While Sega and other rivals have fallen by the wayside, Microsoft has entered the fray with its Xbox, and Nintendo is still on the scene with its Switch console.
But the industry is enduring tough times.
A surge in popularity and investment during the pandemic has subsided and Sony's PlayStation division recently laid off hundreds of workers.
Plenty of analysts are also predicting that cloud gaming will soon render consoles obsolete.
Sony appears undaunted though, recently launching an upgraded version of its PS5 with a marketing push that highlighted new AI features.
Bloomberg has reported that the Japanese firm is also planning a new hand-held version of the PlayStation, which would once again pit it against old rival Nintendo, undisputed king of portable devices.
However, for the purists, few innovations were as great as the original console's ability to handle 3D graphics.
The technology was instrumental for the appeal of classic games such as "Tomb Raider" and "Final Fantasy VII".
"We discovered sensations, emotions that we hadn't experienced with earlier consoles," said French YouTuber and PlayStation enthusiast Cyril 2.0.
He said he had collected almost every title released for the PlayStation in Europe -- some 1,400 -- and insisted the formula for success was not complicated.
"For consoles, games are still the most important thing," he said.