IBM has decided to invest on battery research and the company hopes to develop a battery that is capable of storing huge volume of energy, almost ten times as much as energy stored in today’s batteries. The company has announced a deadline as five years for the project and will partner with U.S national labs to develop this promising but controversial technology. Though the technology is capable of producing high energy density batteries but it uses highly flammable lithium metal to react with the oxygen present in the air.

Lithium metal-air batteries are most effective and can store tremendous amount of energy as high as 5000 watt-hours per kilogram. This high energy density has made us to take the risk of going with this technology than lithium-ion batteries says Chandrasekar Narayan, manager of science and technology, IBM research.

He also added that only these new lithium metal-air batteries had the power to bring a change in the field of transportation and on grid that has made the company to go for this project. These batteries do not require a secondary reactant as these will react with oxygen from the air. The only concern with these is the moisture in the air which may prove dangerous if it is allowed to react with the lithium metal.

Source: beta.technologyreview