Honda’s Fluoride-Ion Battery Breakthrough: The Future of EVs?

Honda Research Institute (HRI) has announced a new battery technology breakthrough that uses fluoride instead of the more popular lithium. Fluoride is the most electro-negative element on the periodic table, and in contrast, lithium is the most electro-positive one. According to HRI, fluoride has the capacity to store more energy than the positive element opposite it.

The new battery breakthrough, which HRI developed with researchers from National Aeronautic and Space Administration–Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA-JPL) and California Institute of Technology (Caltech), enables the use of higher energy density materials compared to existing battery tech.

Fluoride-ion batteries attract electrons instead of shedding them like lithium-ion cells do. By having low atomic weight and a very high capability to store electrons, Fluoride can have up to 10 times the high energy density of lithium-ion batteries. Unfortunately, they only work at 150 degrees Celsius or more—that is, before HRI conducted its study. Check out the video explaining fluoride-ion battery technology in detail below:

The researchers managed to develop a work-around to fluoride-based battery’s temperature limitations, allowing their newly-developed tech to yield more energy-dense fluoride batteries even at room temperature. In addition, fluoride-ion batteries, the researchers say, do not overheat, unlike lithium-ion batteries that tend to be volatile and explosive under the same situation.

Even better, the new battery tech is a lot more eco-friendly than lithium, mainly because of the lower environmental impact offered by its source materials.

Researchers with Honda, NASA-JPL and Caltech expect their technology to go beyond electric vehicles and expand to everything from consumer gadgets to home devices sometime in the future.