New battery chemistry results in first rechargeable zinc-air battery

[BlackHatGuy]

This is kinda interesting.

[Rex Sanders]

Sorry, but yawn. Yet Another Revolutionary Battery Technology that probably won’t work out for most of us, and this one is a long way from being useful in the real world.

Rechargeable zinc-air batteries have been the next big thing every 10 years or so for decades. Sometimes you could buy them at peak hype cycle. A long-forgotten wireless modem I owned from the late 1990s used them. 128 Kbps was wicked fast back then, and it worked in (small) parts of three states!

Even that Ars Technica article indicates the main application this time around would likely be giant battery banks for electrical grids, leaving lithium-ion batteries for cars and smaller devices.

— Rex

[Jerry Adams]

the next big thing in 10 years – like fuel cells on cars, fusion power plants,… : )

battery technology is improving quickly from all sorts of directions, it’s amazing.  Both portable batteries for phones and cars, and batteries for grid storage.

I have a 10,000 mAh Lithium battery for backpacking – 8 ounces – a few years old

Then I decided that wasn’t quite enough capacity so I got a 13,000 mAh one – same weight

[Bonzo]

That’s a very interesting article; thanks for posting it!  Getting back to using cheaper, easier-to-obtain materials would be a serious improvement in battery manufacturing, and advances that allow easier manufacturing or recycling can also increase the cleanliness of the process…so that’s good news on both fronts.

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