Underwater drone battery can drink sea water to extend battery life

Nowadays drones are very popular. Underwater drones are more useful. Exploring the ocean, searching for fish, divers photography... are all inseparable from the help of underwater drones. However, underwater drones also have some drawbacks, such as the limited distance that can be taken with each charge. As a result, Open Water Power, a startup funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed a battery that converts water through seawater to extend the working distance of underwater drones tenfold!

Underwater drones usually use lithium batteries , but such batteries can cause problems. For example, such batteries can cause fires, so airplanes generally do not carry lithium batteries, which are transported through large vessels. Open Water Power's R&D team has developed a better battery. The company has developed car engines that use air as an oxidant for chemical reactions. Now they use seawater to power underwater drones.

Ian Salmon McKay from Open Water Power said that the newly developed battery can “drink” seawater and discharge waste. Compared with the way of discharging the onshore engine, the technology does not cause much damage to the environment. .

The interior of the new battery consists of an aluminum alloy anode, a nickel alloy cathode and an alkaline electrolyte. After the seawater enters the cell, the cathode breaks it down into hydroxide anions and hydrogen, after which the anion reacts with the aluminum anode to form aluminum hydroxide and release electrons for power supply.

According to the R&D team, the new battery provides 10 times more power than ordinary lithium batteries and is safer and more durable. However, the new battery can maintain its power through the above principle only when it is not in the water, and the researchers found that the aluminum anode is more susceptible to corrosion, but the user can replace the aluminum anode at a low price.

This new battery is extremely versatile. The US Navy has partnered with Open Water Power to apply this battery to acoustic sensors for detecting enemy submarines. In addition, this summer, Open Water Power will also work with a company called Riptide Autonomous Solutions, the company's existing underwater drone, which can work 185 kilometers on a single charge, and hopes that through this cooperation, there will be no one The working distance of the machine is extended to 1852 kilometers.

These collaborations are just the tip of the iceberg, and the new Open Water Power battery can be used wherever we want to work underwater. For example, new batteries can be dive into the sea, draw sea level or shipwreck maps; can be used for long-distance oil exploration; and can also be used to find wrecked aircraft wrecks.

McKay told reporters that in the search for wreckage, a large part of the battery's energy consumption during the machine's decline and rise, the actual search time on the seabed is very small, and Open Water Power's new battery will improve this situation.

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