The Toyota Blog

The highly skilled team at the Advanced Battery Lab of Toyota Central Research and Development Laboratories has developed a new advanced gas-utilising battery with a discharge capacity nearly three times that of a non-aqueous li-air battery.

Using a mixture of O2 and CO2, the new battery has to be a primary battery because of its difficult electrochemical decomposition in the cathode. However, its high discharge capacity offers the potential for an alternative energy source with the use of a CO2-rich gas and this could be extended to non-lithium systems.

The theory behind the concept was published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Chemical Communications and suggests that because of its potential very high energy density, li-air chemistry is a promising candidate to meet the demands of future vehicles.

The oxygen reduction at the cathode in particular is the most important process in the battery. It is well known that O2 can be captured by CO2 and the reaction has been applied to CO2 sensors and molten-carbonate fuel cells. This series of reactions was noted to slow down the precipitation speed of the discharged products.

The unique point of the battery is thought to be the rapid consumption of the superoxide anion radical by CO2 as well as the slow filling property of the Li2CO3 in the cathode.

{Authored by: Paul Lucas}
{source: Green car website}