KAWANISHI-CITY, Japan, Nov. 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Rechargeable batteries are very important electrical device because they can store electricity produced by sustainable renewable energy such as solar power, wind power, hydrogen, fuel cells, geothermal power, wave power and biomass power generation etc…  Therefore, it is necessary to create rechargeable battery which can be stronger and cheaper than conventionally used lithium ion battery.

Green Science Alliance has been developing various type of next generation rechargeable battery technologies and materials such as lithium sulfur battery, lithium rich cathode, silicon type anode, metal organic framework derived anode, all solid state lithium ion battery etc…They have also developed recycled type lithium ion battery from black mass (waste materials from lithium ion battery scrap).

On the other hand, aluminum based battery such as aluminum ion battery, aluminum sulfur battery, aluminum air battery are one of good candidate post-lithium ion battery due to some advantages of aluminum.  Compared to lithium which has high risk of price soring and scarcity, aluminum is an abundant, rich natural resource and most recycled metal on earth.  So that aluminum based rechargeable battery can be cheaper and do not have to worry about raw material scarcity.  In addition, theoretical capacity of aluminum ion battery is approximately 2980 mAh/g which is about 10 times higher than that of lithium ion battery (200 – 300 mAh/g). On top of that, aluminum based battery can be safe and non-flammable since lithium ion battery is flammable and can be dangerous. 

Thus, the company have developed rechargeable aluminum air battery in the past.  However, due to its complicated structure and unstable aluminum reduction reaction of aluminum ion to aluminum metal in the electrolyte, it was difficult to achieve commercialization. 

And this time, Dr. Ryohei Mori has developed aluminum ion battery with aluminum anode and water based electrolyte.  He also has tested a few types of cathode materials such as oxide, carbon based materials.  Under 0.025 C at room temperature, prepared cell capacity was approximately 103 mAhg^-1 at the beginning and maintained for about 50 cycles although capacity decayed after. Therefore, charge-discharge stability still needs to be improved.  It is also necessary to improve cell capacity since it was much lower than its theoretical capacity. The cell voltage was about 0.7 – 0.8 V which is lower than that of lithium ion battery although low voltage problem can be solved when they were electrically connected in series. 

Even these electrochemical performance were inferior to that of lithium ion battery, the most profitable feature of aqueous electrolyte based aluminum ion battery is that this battery can be extremely cheap. So far, many researchers have been developed aluminum ion battery although their electrolyte was often ionic liquid based.  In addition, they need to be prepared in an inert atmosphere such as nitrogen or argon.  Thus, ionic liquid based aluminum ion battery can be cheaper than lithium ion battery although it is not drastically cheap because of the cost of ionic liquid and the necessity for special gas.  In contract, aqueous electrolyte based aluminum ion battery can be drastically cheap because they can be manufactured in an ambient atmosphere and all the components (electrode, separator and electrolyte) are ordinary cheap materials.

Even cell capacity and charge-discharge cycle stability needs to be improved, this extreme cheap cost is the big advantage compared to lithium ion battery and other type of aluminum ion battery.  It might be a bit of an exaggeration to say this but aqueous electrolyte based aluminum ion battery could be the cheapest battery of all.  On top of that, aqueous aluminum ion battery can be non-flammable and safe as described above.

Dr. Ryohei Mori as an inventor of this aqueous aluminum ion battery has wrote review article including a series of his works in one of British scientific academic journal, with the title “Aqueous rechargeable aluminum battery – a mini review”.  And made front cover of the journal.

Ryohei Mori, Aqueous rechargeable aluminum battery – a mini review,
Energy Adv., 2025, 4, 1321-1336

Journal Name: Energy Advances
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
Author: Dr. Ryohei Mori
DOI：https://doi.org/10.1039/D5YA00148J

He will keep improving cell capacity and cycle stability to create aqueous aluminum ion battery for real industrial usage such as for EV and renewable energy storage.

Contact:
Ryohei Mori
81-72-7598501
[email protected]

SOURCE Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd.