In excess of seven million barrels of gasoline are consumed by
vehicles in the United States every day. As scientists race to
find environmentally sound solutions to fuel the world's ever-
growing transportation needs, battery researchers are exploring
the promise of lithium-air battery technology. Argonne
researcher Lynn Trahey loads a coin-sized cell on a testing unit
used to evaluate electrochemical cycling performance in
batteries. (Larger hi-rez version.) Photo by Wes Agresta. Li-air
batteries use a catalytic air cathode that supplies oxygen, an
electrolyte and a lithium anode. The technology has the
potential to store almost as much energy as a tank of gasoline,
and will have a capacity for energy storage that is five to 10
times greater than that of Li-ion batteries, a bridge
technology. That potential, however, will not be realized until
critical scientific challenges have been solved. Researchers at
the U. S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National
Laboratory are leveraging their broad and deep