A New Class of Hybrid Aluminum-Lithium Ion Batteries

Energy storage systems including batteries are critical to the development of EVs, renewable energy (solar and wind) and smart grids. New battery chemistries and advanced battery materials are desirable, because even the state-of-art lithium ion batteries are insufficient to meet the needs of these applications. Aluminum batteries are very attractive due to distinguishable advantages in terms of low cost, high abundance and high energy density. However, the development of aluminum batteries faces some tough challenges: passive surface oxide film, parasitic hydrogen evolution, as well as slow kinetics of aluminum ion diffusion/transfer. As a result, none of rechargeable aluminum batteries got success in the past. In this work, we adopted a new battery concept to realize the dream of rechargeable aluminum batteries. A new class of hybrid aluminum-lithium ion batteries was developed using aluminum metal as anode, ionic liquids as electrolytes, and lithium intercalation compounds as cathode. The electrochemical redox reactions include reversible aluminum deposition and dissolution at anode and lithium insertion and extraction at cathode in ionic liquids. Several ionic liquid electrolytes and different lithium intercalation cathodes were screened to achieve an optimal battery performance in terms of voltage, capacity, cycling performance and rate performance. Some details about this innovative work will be disclosed in this presentation.