Researchers in Australia and the People’s Republic of China have taken the first step in developing the first-ever safe, efficient, and non-toxic aqueous aluminium radical battery.

In an article in the Journal of American Chemistry, scientists from Flinders University and Zhejiang Sci-Tech University announced the completion of the first stage of developing such a battery.

As batteries frequently hold hazardous materials within them that can harm both humans and the environment, the search for non-toxic alternatives has obvious global benefits. To that end, scientists at both institutions have been working together to develop a non-toxic alternative utilizing aluminium ions.

Per Professor Zhongfan Jia, from Flinders University’s College of Science and Engineering, the road to making safer batteries involves using biodegradable materials, which will be developed into soft-pack batteries.

Jia notes that multivalent metal ion batteries, including those that use Al3+, Zn2+, or Mg2+, are preferred, as those metals are highly abundant on Earth. They also provide a higher energy density than comparable lithium-ion batteries.

“In particular, aluminium-ion batteries (AIBs) attract great attention because aluminium is the third most abundant element (8.1%), which makes AIBs potentially a sustainable and low-cost energy storage system.”

A major hurdle facing scientist now is the slow movement of Al3+ ion complexes, causing batteries utilizing this ion to have low cathode efficiency. However, they are discovering organic conjugated polymers, which may well solve the problem to some extent.

Jia Lab at Flinders University has developed radical materials for organic hybrid LIBs, sodium-ion batteries, and all-organic batteries in prior projects. These materials have yet to be used in AIBs, however, as scientists do not currently understand the chemical reactions they may have when used as electrolytes.