Work is continuing on IBM's wish-we-had-it-now lithium-air
battery technology. Today, IBM is announcing that two new partners – Asahi
Kasei and Central Glass – are joining the Battery 500 Project team. The idea,
as the number suggests, is to develop a battery for passenger cars that can
provide enough energy to go 500 miles. The secret? Energy pulled from thin air.
Okay, it's not quite that fantastical. The technology more
accurately works like this. Lithium anodes in the battery electrochemically
couple with oxygen in the atmosphere through an air cathode. When this happens,
energy is released. When the car is charged oxygen is released back into the
air, freeing up the anodes to attach to more oxygen to release more energy. The
main benefit? A lot more power for the car to use, up to ten times as much as
today's lithium-ion packs.