Supercomputer used to develop lithium-air battery

IBM is working together with the Department of Energy (DOE) to use the latter's supercomputers to model and simulate the new materials required to create new materials for batteries based on lithium-air technologies. This is happening as part of the DOE's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program.

Where lithium-air technology is concerned, IBM believes that it has the potential to achieve 10 times the energy densities of current lithium-ion batteries. IBM says this is "because [lithium-air batteries] use air that's pulled into the battery as needed, rather than store a second reactant inside the cell."

Lithium-air technology remains controversial mainly due to its cost and the fact that lithium is highly flammable. Of course, the same could be said of normal lithium batteries. For now though, the challenge of moving the technology into a viable product are formidable, so don't expect to see a finished product soon.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Network World

Related Articles:
Lithium-air batteries could pack 10-times the energy
Taiwanese researchers to make lithium-ion batteries safer
HP claims 24-hour battery life for notebook
US Cellular will do a battery swap for free
Virus used to build a better battery