Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed breakthrough battery tech that could speed up the renewable energy transition.

Made from currently abundant and inexpensive materials, the battery is six times cheaper than conventional lithium-ion batteries and could massively accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources, researchers said.

Lithium-ion batteries are currently used in many modern products and will become ever more in-demand as the world moves towards a carbon-neutral future.

However, current lithium-ion batteries are still too expensive, and other options such as pumped hydro require specific topography that’s not always available.

As well as being expensive, lithium-ion batteries contain a flammable electrolyte, making them less than ideal for transportation, MIT scientists said.

The breakthrough battery tech, which has been developed using aluminium and sulphur as its two electrode materials, with a molten salt electrolyte in between, was developed by MIT Professor Donald Sadoway, along with 15 others at MIT and in China, Canada, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Sadoway commented: “I wanted to invent something that was better, much better, than lithium-ion batteries for small-scale stationary storage, and ultimately for automotive [uses].”

The team set about trying to make a suitable battery made of aluminium, the second most abundant material on the marketplace, and sulphur, the cheapest of all the non-metals.

In their experiments, Sadoway and his team showed that the battery cells could endure hundreds of cycles at exceptionally high charging rates, which cost around one-sixth that of comparable lithium-ion cells per cell.

They also showed that the charging rate was highly dependent on the working temperature, with 110° Celsius (230° Fahrenheit) showing 25 times faster rates than 25°C (77°F).

Research added that the battery requires no external heat source to maintain its operating temperature. The heat is naturally produced electrochemically by the charging and discharging of the battery.

“As you charge, you generate heat, and that keeps the salt from freezing. And then, when you discharge, it also generates heat,” Sadoway says.

Recommended

• Could batteries be our next global shortage?
• Comment | It’s time for IT to increase the scope carbon reporting
• Jack Dorsey payments company sued over security breach

In a typical installation used for load-levelling at a solar generation facility, for example, “you’d store electricity when the sun is shining, and then you’d draw electricity after dark, and you’d do this every day. And that charge-idle-discharge-idle is enough to generate enough heat to keep the thing at temperature.”

Sadoway said that the technology would be ideal for installations of about the size needed to power a single home or small to medium business, producing on the order of a few tens of kilowatt-hours of storage capacity.

A new startup called Avanti has already been set up to commercialise the technology and has licensed patents.

“The first order of business for the company is to demonstrate that it works at scale,” said Professor Sadoway.

Get the latest news from DIGIT direct to your inbox

Our newsletter covers the latest technology and IT news from Scotland and beyond, as well as in-depth features and exclusive interviews with leading figures and rising stars.

To subscribe, click here.