Toyota Research Institute of North America is ditching lithium for magnesium in making rechargeable batteries in everything, from mobile devices to cars.
According to the study, unlike lithium-ion, magnesium-based batteries will stand longer, are cheaper and environment friendly, and will eliminate the need to make electrolyte shielding, the Pocket Lint reported.
Magnesium has long been considered an outstanding candidate to replace lithium since the former is way safer than the latter. For instance, when lithium is exposed to air, it becomes unstable and could combust as evidenced by the exploding cellphone batteries.
So to avoid potential harm brought by lithium-ion batteries, ions are decreased and lithium is placed into graphite rods. This results to a lesser amount of metal for reducing density, thereby also decreasing the amount of power the battery could store, Gizmag revealed.
Magnesium, on the other hand, is relatively stable and more energy dense. However, the problem scientists initially faced was creating an electrolyte without degrading the magnesium and still offering an efficient transfer. This problem was eventually solved through the discovery of hydrogen fuel cells, according to Auto Industry News.
Rana Mohtadi, a scientist and chemical engineer from Toyota, teamed up with Toyota's research group and integrated her hydrogen storage research for fuel cell technology on the development of magnesium-based batteries. After extensive testing, it was deemed successful.
Mohtadi said the scientists managed to successfully extract and use the material in hydrogen storage and made it useful for magnesium battery chemistry.
"We try to put people from diverse backgrounds and diverse technologies together and allow them to collaborate," Paul Fanson, Energy Storage Group Manager, said. "This is a great example of that working very successfully."
Currently, the research is on its laboratory developmental stage, and this is unlikely to be released soon since it has to undergo more various stages of development and testing. Experts estimate the new technology is at least two decades away from realization.
