Superionic Batteries – Are We There Yet?

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Aircraft Materials, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Tohoku University, near the northern Japanese city of Sendai, finds, in a recent paper, “…The development of complex hydride solid electrolytes that exhibit high ionic conductivity at room temperature will be a revolutionary breakthrough for all-solid-state batteries employing a lithium metal anode.”  Researchers at the University lists the potential energy density for a battery using these so-called “superionic” materials as greater than 2,500 Watt-hours per kilogram “at a high current density of 5,016 miliAmps per gram.   This energy density would result in the fabled 10X battery – ten times the energy density of a conventional lithium-ion battery – that has been the subject of international research for the last decade. Tohoku’s press release states, “Scientists from Tohoku University and the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization have developed a new complex hydride lithium superionic conductor that could result in all-solid-state batteries with the highest energy density to date:”  Led by Sangryun Kim from the Institute of Material Research (IMR) and Shin-ichi …