Recently, the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOC) has entered into a joint venture with Israel-based battery technology startup Phinergy to develop aluminium-air technology based battery systems for electric vehicles.
- The public sector oil company is evaluating the Aluminium-air batteries, because of its lightweight and not having the necessity to electrically charge the batteries, unlike Lithium-ion variants.
Aluminium-air batteries Vs Lithium-ion batteries
- Aluminium-air batteries are said to be a lower cost and more energy-dense alternative to lithium-ion batteries .
- Aluminium-air batteries utilise oxygen in the air which reacts with an aluminium hydroxide solution to oxidise the aluminium and produce electricity.
- However, aluminium-air batteries cannot be recharged like lithium-ion batteries. Large scale use of aluminium-air battery based vehicles would require the wide availability of battery swapping stations.
- Aluminium-air battery-based electric vehicles are expected to offer much greater range of 400 km or more per battery compared to lithium-ion batteries which currently offer a range of 150-200 kilometres per full charge.
(Source: Indian Express)
