The lithium-air battery is in its infancy but in theory could provide much greater energy storage than the conventional lithium-ion battery. These devices store more energy in a smaller battery size but are not optimally designed for commercial applications as lithium-air batteries have short life cycles and require more energy to charge than can be generated by the battery later.

A new electrolyte chemistry has been demonstrated to significantly extend lithium-air battery cycle life with the promise of increasing driving range for electric vehicles. The inclusion of trimolybdenum phosphide Trimolybdenum phosphide nanocatalysts improve the efficiency and speed of oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution reactions. Source: Mohammad Asadi et al.nanocatalysts improves the efficiency and speed of oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution reactions. The formation and presence of byproducts that interfere with these reactions, and therefore undermine battery efficiency, is eliminated.

A lithium-air battery cell equipped with the nanocatalyst achieved low discharge and charge overpotentials of 80 mV and 270 mV, respectively, and high energy efficiency of 90.2% in the first cycle. Researchers from Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of Illinois and U.S. Argonne National Laboratory also documented a long cycle life of 1,200.

A paper on this research is published in Advanced Materials.