Researchers develop new aluminum-sulfur battery with energy density expected to reach 660Wh/l

According to foreign media reports, in the European AMAPOLA (a marketable aluminum-sulfur battery based on polymer) project, researchers analyzed the combination of aluminum and sulfur in batteries. The crustal reserves of these two elements are abundant. The project aims to achieve greater energy storage capacity than lithium-ion batteries at a lower cost for application in specific markets such as transportation and aerospace.

(Image source: fetfx.eu)

From a battery perspective, this aluminum-sulfur battery is expected to have very high energy density (660Wh/l) and specific energy (400Wh/kg), utilizing innovative polymer gel electrolytes (PGEs) based on new highly conductive and low-cost deep eutectic solvents (DES), thus achieving a lower cost, lighter, stronger and safer battery concept.

AMAPOLA is a Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) foresight project funded by the EIC Transition to Innovation Activities Fund, building on the Explorer (FET-Open) project SALBAGE, which ended earlier this year with an eye towards commercialization.

The SALBAGE project is dedicated to the development of a new type of secondary aluminum-sulfur battery, with a focus on the synthesis of solid-like electrolytes based on polymerizable ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents to obtain polymer gel electrolytes with overall ionic conductivity between 1-10 mS/cm at room temperature.

In the AMAPOLA project, researchers focus on:

Further development of the materials proposed in the SALBAGE project, in particular the preparation of controlled phase gel electrolytes using new highly conductive DES; development of advanced cathode formulations combined with promising new redox mediators to achieve high sulfur loading and high sulfur utilization in the cathode; and proposal of strategies to address the problem of oxide layers in aluminum anodes.

Scaling up for practical applications.

The AMAPOLA team includes researchers from the University of Leicester, the Technical University of Graz (TUGraz), the University of Southampton and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), battery company Varta Microinnovation and SME Tech2Market.