New rusty batteries could provide up to 100 hours of storage

Expensive and somewhat impractical Today’s lithium-ion batteries require expensive materials that originate mostly from other countries such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite. The new battery, however, stores electricity using widely available iron metal and functions on the principle of “reversible rusting.” Iron-air batteries were first evaluated in the early 1970s for electric vehicles. Today, however, more recent data implies that they could help promote and diversify the country’s future supplies of green electric power for utilities, told Scientific American George Crabtree, director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory.Iron-air batteries are much larger than lithium-ions and can store and discharge power for as long as 100 hours. This is a significantly larger amount than the four hours provided by lithium-ion batteries.We’re…

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