New Lithium-air Batteries Being Developed by IBM

IBM is currently working on a project they call the “Battery 500 Project”. They’re trying to develop an electric car battery that can drive 500 miles on just one charge using lithium-air. Because the battery uses incoming oxygen as one of its electrodes, it weighs much less and is more energy dense than the current lithium-ion batteries. Today, lithium-ion car batteries can only give a car around 150 miles per charge, so a battery powerful enough to give 500 miles per charge would certainly be a game changer for electric vehicles. A major hurdle so far has been recharging this new type of battery. One of the problems with recharging it is that instead of releasing pure oxygen it releases carbon dioxide, which won’t help reduce carbon emissions like we need. It looks like lithium-air batteries are far from hitting the market.

Source: NBC News: Big 'Green'? IBM works on 500 miles-per-charge battery