A team of specialists from Zhejiang University (China) proposed a new cathode design that increases the capacity and lifetime of an aluminum-ion battery, a cheaper and safer alternative to a lithium-ion battery. The new battery withstands 250,000 charge / discharge cycles and temperatures up to +120 ° C. Aluminum-ion batteries favorably differ from lithium-ionic low cost of production, the absence of a risk of ignition and an aluminum anode of high capacity, based on the properties of the three-electron redox reaction. However, due to insufficient cathode performance, performance and the maximum number of charge / discharge cycles, aluminum-ion batteries could not compete with lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors. In order to circumvent this problem, Chinese engineers suggested using a cathode made of graphene film, created using the "trihigh tricontinuous" (3Н3С) technology,. This battery has an extremely long life (after 250,000 cycles it charges up to 91.7%) and can withstand temperatures from? 40 ° to +120 ° C. If such a battery will power a smartphone, it will work for 70 years, without losing capacity, even if it will be charged 10 times a day. As for the charging time of the phone, it is also unprecedented - in 5 seconds you can make up the battery for 2 hours of work.

Some experts, in particular Zheng Jiaotu, deputy director of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Technology and Industry Alliance, doubt the results published in the journal Science Advances. According to him, these numbers need to be treated with some caution, since even testing 250,000 charge and discharge cycles takes a very long time. "Most likely, we are talking about a mathematical model, and not about the results of testing a prototype," he says..

Original article: Chinese scientists have developed a battery that charges in 5 seconds.