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The challenges and opportunities of battery-powered flight

Nature volume 601, pages 519–525 (2022)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 15 March 2022

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Abstract

Aircraft, and the aviation ecosystem in which they operate, are shaped by complex trades among technical requirements, economics and environmental concerns, all built on a foundation of safety. This Perspective explores the requirements of battery-powered aircraft and the chemistries that hold promise to enable them. The difference between flight and terrestrial needs and chemistries are highlighted. Safe, usable specific energy rather than cost is the major constraint for aviation. We conclude that battery packs suitable for flight with specific energy approaching 600 watt hours per kilogram may be achievable in the next decade given sufficient investment targeted at aeronautical applications.

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Fig. 1: Energy and power used for flight.
Fig. 2: History of usable energy density in aviation.
Fig. 3: Translating battery cell performance to aircraft range.
Fig. 4: Illustration of various losses in practically achieved specific energy at the cell level.
Fig. 5: Differences in mechanism of current Li-ion batteries based on insertion and possible future batteries based on conversion.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Venkatasubramanian Viswanathan

  2. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Alan H. Epstein

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Yet-Ming Chiang

  4. Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    Esther Takeuchi

  5. Interdisciplinary Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA

    Esther Takeuchi

  6. Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Marty Bradley

  7. Electra.aero, Falls Church, VA, USA

    John Langford

  8. Pratt & Whitney, Hartford, CT, USA

    Michael Winter

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Contributions

input from M.W., M.B. and J.L. V.V. coordinated the battery portion with input from Y.-M.C. and E.T. All authors reviewed and edited the entire manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Venkatasubramanian Viswanathan or Alan H. Epstein.

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Competing interests

V.V. is a technical consultant at QuantumScape Corporation and Chief Scientist at Aionics Inc. Y.-M.C. is co-founder and Chief Scientist at 24M Technologies Inc. M.B. is a technical consultant to Electra.aero and Ampaire.

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Nature thanks Marca Doeff and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Viswanathan, V., Epstein, A.H., Chiang, YM. et al. The challenges and opportunities of battery-powered flight. Nature 601, 519–525 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04139-1

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