Batteries & Energy Storage news and discussions

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Battery 'dream technology' is a step closer to reality with new discovery

by University of Texas at Austin
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-12-bat ... overy.html

A sodium-sulfur battery created by engineers at The University of Texas at Austin solves one of the biggest hurdles that has held back the technology as a commercially viable alternative to the ubiquitous lithium-ion batteries that power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

Sodium and sulfur stand out as appealing materials for future battery production because they are cheaper and more widely available than materials such as lithium and cobalt, which also have environmental and human rights concerns. Because of this, researchers have worked for the past two decades to make room-temperature, sodium-based batteries viable.

"I call it a dream technology because sodium and sulfur are abundant, environmentally benign, and the lowest cost you think of," said Arumugam Manthiram, director of UT's Texas Materials Institute and professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering. "With expanded electrification and increased need for renewable energy storage going forward, cost and affordability will be the single dominant factor."

In one of two recent sodium battery advances from UT Austin, the researchers tweaked the makeup of the electrolyte, the liquid that facilitates movement of ions back and forth between the cathode and anode to stimulate charging and discharging of the batteries. They attacked the common problem in sodium batteries of the growth of needle-like structures, called dendrites, on the anode that can cause the battery to rapidly degrade, short circuit, and even catch fire or explode.

The researchers published their findings in a recent paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[weatheriscool]

Sodium-based material yields stable alternative to lithium-ion batteries
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-12-sod ... ative.html
by University of Texas at Austin

University of Texas at Austin researchers have created a new sodium-based battery material that is highly stable, capable of recharging as quickly as a traditional lithium-ion battery and able to pave the way toward delivering more energy than current battery technologies.

For about a decade, scientists and engineers have been developing sodium batteries, which replace both lithium and cobalt used in current lithium-ion batteries with cheaper, more environmentally friendly sodium. Unfortunately, in earlier sodium batteries, a component called the anode would tend to grow needle-like filaments called dendrites that can cause the battery to electrically short and even catch fire or explode.

In one of two recent sodium battery advances from UT Austin, the new material solves the dendrite problem and recharges as quickly as a lithium-ion battery. The team published their results in the journal Advanced Materials.

"We're essentially solving two problems at once," said David Mitlin, a professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering's Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Research Laboratory who designed the new material. "Typically, the faster you charge, the more of these dendrites you grow. So if you suppress dendrite growth, you can charge and discharge faster, because all of a sudden it's safe."

[weatheriscool]

A promising anode material for lithium-ion batteries
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-anode-mat ... eries.html
by Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

The proposed stable anode material, made with a bio-based polymers, could unlock extremely fast battery charging for electric vehicles.

With the climate change concerns, an ever-increasing number of researchers are currently focusing on improving electric vehicles (EVs) to make them a more attractive alternative to conventional gas cars. Battery improvement for EVs is therefore a key issue. In addition to safety, autonomy and durability, most people want quickness in charging. Currently, it takes 40 minutes for state-of-the-art EVs to recharge while gas cars can be 'recharged' in no longer than five minutes. The charging time needs to be below 15 minutes to be a viable option.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), which are used everywhere with portable electronic devices, are an option in the field of EVs, and new strategies are always being sought to improve their performance. One way to shorten the charging time of LIBs is to increase the diffusion rate of lithium ions, which in turn can be done by increasing the interlayer distance in the carbon-based materials used in the battery's anode. While this has been achieved with some success by introducing nitrogen impurities (technically referred to as nitrogen doping), there is no method easily available to control interlayer distance or to concentrate the doping element.

Against this backdrop, a team of scientists from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) recently developed an approach for anode fabrication that could lead to extreme fast charging of LIBs. The team, led by Prof. Noriyoshi Matsumi, consists of Prof. Tatsuo Kaneko, Senior Lecturer Rajashekar Badam, JAIST Technical Specialist Koichi Higashimine, JAIST Research Fellow Yueying Peng, and JAIST student Kottisa Sumala Patnaik. Their findings were published online on 24 Nov 2021 in Chemical Communications.

[weatheriscool]

Carbon-air battery as a next-generation energy storage system
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-12-car ... orage.html
by Tokyo Institute of Technology

One of the barriers to generating electricity from wind and solar energy is their intermittent nature. A promising alternative to accommodate the fluctuations in power output during unfavorable environmental conditions are hydrogen storage systems, which use hydrogen produced from water splitting to generate clean electricity. However, these systems suffer from poor efficiency and often need to be large in size to compensate for it. This, in turn, makes for complex thermal management and a lowered energy and power density.

In a study published in Journal of Power Sources, researchers from Tokyo Tech have now proposed an alternative electric energy storage system that utilizes carbon (C) as an energy source instead of hydrogen. The new system, called a "carbon/air secondary battery (CASB)," consists of a solid-oxide fuel and electrolysis cell (SOFC/ECs) where carbon generated via electrolysis of carbon dioxide (CO2), is oxidized with air to produce energy. The SOFC/ECs can be supplied with compressed liquefied CO2 to make up the energy storage system.

"Similar to a battery, the CASB is charged using the energy generated by the renewable sources to reduce CO2 to C. During the subsequent discharge phase, the C is oxidized to generate energy," explains Prof. Manabu Ihara from Tokyo Tech.

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Scientists reduce all-solid-state battery resistance by heating
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-01-sci ... tance.html
by Tokyo Institute of Technology

All-solid-state batteries are now one step closer to becoming the powerhouse of next-generation electronics, as researchers from Tokyo Tech, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and Yamagata University introduce a strategy to restore their low electrical resistance. They also explore the underlying reduction mechanism, paving the way for a more fundamental understanding of the workings of all-solid-state lithium batteries.

All-solid-state lithium batteries have become the new craze in materials science and engineering as conventional lithium-ion batteries can no longer meet the standards for advanced technologies, such as electric vehicles, which demand high energy densities, fast charging, and long cycle lives. All-solid-state batteries, which use a solid electrolyte instead of a liquid electrolyte found in traditional batteries, not only meet these standards but are comparatively safer and more convenient as they have the possibility to charge in a short time.

However, the solid electrolyte comes with its own challenge. It turns out that the interface between the positive electrode and solid electrolyte shows a large electrical resistance whose origin is not well understood. Furthermore, the resistance increases when the electrode surface is exposed to air, degrading the battery capacity and performance. While several attempts have been made to lower the resistance, none have managed to bring it down to 10 Ω cm2 (ohm centimeter-squared), the reported interface resistance value when not exposed to air.

Now, in a recent study published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, a research team led by Prof. Taro Hitosugi from Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), Japan, and Shigeru Kobayashi, a doctoral student at Tokyo Tech, may have finally solved this problem. By establishing a strategy for restoring the low interface resistance as well as unraveling the mechanism underlying this reduction, the team has provided valuable insights into the manufacturing of high-performance all-solid-state batteries. The study was the result of a joint research by Tokyo Tech, AIST, and Yamagata University.

[weatheriscool]

1,000-cycle lithium-sulfur battery could quintuple electric vehicle ranges
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-01-cyc ... ctric.html
by University of Michigan

A new biologically inspired battery membrane has enabled a battery with five times the capacity of the industry-standard lithium ion design to run for the thousand-plus cycles needed to power an electric car.

A network of aramid nanofibers, recycled from Kevlar, can enable lithium-sulfur batteries to overcome their Achilles heel of cycle life—the number of times it can be charged and discharged—a University of Michigan team has shown.

"There are a number of reports claiming several hundred cycles for lithium-sulfur batteries, but it is achieved at the expense of other parameters—capacity, charging rate, resilience and safety. The challenge nowadays is to make a battery that increases the cycling rate from the former 10 cycles to hundreds of cycles and satisfies multiple other requirements including cost," said Nicholas Kotov, the Irving Langmuir Distinguished University Professor of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, who led the research.

[weatheriscool]

Rubber material holds key to long-lasting, safer EV batteries
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-01-rub ... safer.html
by Georgia Institute of Technology

For electric vehicles (EVs) to become mainstream, they need cost-effective, safer, longer-lasting batteries that won't explode during use or harm the environment. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology may have found a promising alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries made from a common material: rubber.

Elastomers, or synthetic rubbers, are widely used in consumer products and advanced technologies such as wearable electronics and soft robotics because of their superior mechanical properties. The researchers found that the material, when formulated into a 3D structure, acted as a superhighway for fast lithium-ion transport with superior mechanical toughness, resulting in longer charging batteries that can go farther. The research, conducted in collaboration with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

In conventional lithium-ion batteries, ions are moved by a liquid electrolyte. However, the battery is inherently unstable: even the slightest damage can leak into the electrolyte, leading to explosion or fire. The safety issues have forced the industry to look at solid-state batteries, which can be made using inorganic ceramic material or organic polymers.

[weatheriscool]

Light could boost performance of fuel cells, lithium batteries and other devices
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-boost-fue ... eries.html
by Elizabeth A. Thomson, Materials Research Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Engineers from MIT and Kyushu University in Japan have demonstrated for the first time that light can be used to significantly improve the performance of fuel cells, lithium batteries and other devices that are based on the movement of charged atoms, or ions.

Charge can be carried through a material in different ways. We are most familiar with the charge that is carried by the electrons that help make up an atom. Light has long been used to excite electrons to make them more conductive. Common applications include solar cells, and even supermarket doors that automatically open when a customer passes through. The latter rely on sensors in the door activated by the infrared radiation—light—naturally emitted by the customer.

"But there are many devices that depend on the motion of the ions themselves rather than just their constituent electrons," says Harry L. Tuller, the R.P. Simmons Professor of Ceramics and Electronic Materials in MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). Examples include lithium batteries, which depend on the movement of lithium ions during battery charge and discharge. Similarly, fuel cells depend on the movement of hydrogen and oxygen ions to create electricity.

[caltrek]

Batteries Get Hyped, but Pumped Hydro Provides the Vast Majority of Long-term Energy Storage Essential for Renewable Power
by Andrew Blakers, Bin Lu, and Matthew Stocks

https://theconversation.com/batteries-g ... rks-174446

Introduction:

(The Conversation) To cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half within a decade, the Biden administration’s goal, the U.S. is going to need a lot more solar and wind power generation, and lots of cheap energy storage.

Wind and solar power vary over the course of a day, so energy storage is essential to provide a continuous flow of electricity. But today’s batteries are typically quite small and store enough energy for only a few hours of electricity. To rely more on wind and solar power, the U.S. will need more overnight and longer-term storage as well.

While battery innovations get a lot of attention, there’s a simple, proven long-term storage technique that’s been used in the U.S. since the 1920s.

It’s called pumped hydro energy storage. It involves pumping water uphill from one reservoir to another at a higher elevation for storage, then, when power is needed, releasing the water to flow downhill through turbines, generating electricity on its way to the lower reservoir.

Pumped hydro storage is often overlooked in the U.S. because of concern about hydropower’s impact on rivers. But what many people don’t realize is that most of the best hydro storage sites aren’t on rivers at all.

[caltrek]

Recycled Kevlar Battery Could Boost Electric Car Range by Five Times
by Kate McAlpine
January 18, 2022

https://www.futurity.org/electric-vehic ... r-2683002/

Introduction:

(Futurity) A new biologically inspired battery membrane has enabled a battery with five times the capacity of the industry-standard lithium ion design to run for the thousand-plus cycles needed to power an electric car.

A network of aramid nanofibers, recycled from Kevlar, can enable lithium-sulfur batteries to overcome their Achilles heel of cycle life—the number of times they can be charged and discharged—a new study shows.

“There are a number of reports claiming several hundred cycles for lithium-sulfur batteries, but it is achieved at the expense of other parameters—capacity, charging rate, resilience, and safety,” says Nicholas Kotov, professor of chemical sciences and engineering at the University of Michigan.

“The challenge nowadays is to make a battery that increases the cycling rate from the former 10 cycles to hundreds of cycles and satisfies multiple other requirements including cost.

“Biomimetic engineering of these batteries integrated two scales—molecular and nanoscale. For the first time, we integrated ionic selectivity of cell membranes and toughness of cartilage. Our integrated system approach enabled us to address the overarching challenges of lithium-sulfur batteries.”

[weatheriscool]

Evidence that Tesla ALREADY SOLVED Battery Supply Limitation
January 21, 2022 by Brian Wang
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/01/e ... ation.html

[weatheriscool]

Superabsorption Progress Towards Quantum Batteries
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/01/s ... eries.html
January 18, 2022 by Brian Wang

University of Adelaide and their overseas partners have successfully proved the concept of superabsorption, a crucial idea underpinning quantum batteries.

Quantum batteries offer the potential for vastly better thermodynamic efficiency, and ultra-fast charging time, much faster and more efficient than the electrochemical batteries like Nickel Metal Hydride or Lithium Ion, in common use today. By expanding earlier theoretical research into individual, isolated quantum batteries to consider a more realistic, many-body system with intrinsic interactions, the researchers have shown that interacting many-body quantum batteries do charge faster than their non-interacting counterparts.

The bigger the number of quantum batteries, the less time they need to charge. If one quantum battery charge takes an hour, two batteries would take 30 minutes. Increasing the number of quantum batteries to 10,000 and they would pretty much charge instantaneously.

[weatheriscool]

GM to spend nearly $7B on EV, battery plants in Michigan
Source: AP

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — General Motors is making the largest investment in company history in its home state of Michigan, announcing plans to spend nearly $7 billion to convert a factory to make electric pickup trucks and to build a new battery cell plant.

The moves, announced Tuesday in the state capital of Lansing, will create up to 4,000 jobs and keep another 1,000 already employed at an underutilized assembly plant north of Detroit.

The automaker plans to spend up to $4 billion converting and expanding its Orion Township assembly factory to make electric pickups and $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion building a third U.S. battery cell plant with a joint-venture partner in Lansing.

Michigan’s economic development board on Tuesday approved $824 million in incentives and assistance for Detroit-based GM. The package was unveiled and authorized by the Michigan Strategic Fund Board. It includes a $600 million grant to GM and Ultium Cells, the venture between the carmaker and LG Energy Solution, and a $158 million tax break for Ultium. The board also approved $66.1 million to help a local electric utility and township upgrade infrastructure at the battery factory site.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/technology-b ... 2d0a1b564f

[raklian]

[weatheriscool]

Flexible supercapacitors could boost battery life for Internet of Things
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-flexible- ... -life.html
by University of Surrey

Smartwatches, fitness trackers and other Internet of Things devices could get a significant boost to their battery life thanks to new, environmentally friendly energy research from the University of Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) and the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), Brazil.

In a paper published in the journal Nanoscale, the research team shows how a supercapacitor can be efficiently manufactured into a high-performance and low-cost power storage device that can be easily integrated into footwear, clothing, and accessories.

Professor Ravi Silva, director of the ATI and Head of the Nano-Electronics Centre at the University of Surrey, said: "Supercapacitors are key to ensuring that 5G and 6G technologies reach their full potential. While supercapacitors can certainly boost the lifespan of wearable consumer technologies, they have the potential to be revolutionary when you think about their role in autonomous vehicles and AI-assisted smart sensors that could help us all conserve energy. This is why it's important that we create a low cost and environmentally friendly way to produce this incredibly promising energy storage technology. The future is certainly bright for supercapacitors."

A supercapacitor is a means to store and release electricity, like a typical battery, but it does so with far quicker recharging and discharging times. In the paper, the research team describe a new procedure for the development of flexible supercapacitors based on carbon nanomaterials. This method, which is cheaper and less time-consuming to fabricate, involves transferring aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays from a silicon wafer to a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix. This is then coated in a material called polyaniline (PANI), which stores energy through a mechanism known as "pseudocapacitance,"offering outstanding energy storage properties with exceptional mechanical integrity.

[weatheriscool]

Safer, more powerful batteries for electric cars, power grid
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-03-saf ... -cars.html
by Sandia National Laboratories

Solid-state batteries, currently used in small electronic devices like smart watches, have the potential to be safer and more powerful than lithium-ion batteries for things such as electric cars and storing energy from solar panels for later use. However, several technical challenges remain before solid-state batteries can become widespread.

A Sandia National Laboratories-led study, published on March 7 in the scientific journal Joule, tackled one of these challenges—a long-held assumption that adding some liquid electrolyte to improve performance would make solid-state batteries unsafe. Instead, the research team found that in many cases solid-state batteries with a little liquid electrolyte were safer than their lithium-ion counterparts. They also found, if the battery were to short-circuit, releasing all its stored energy, the theoretically super-safe, all-solid-state battery could put out a dangerous amount of heat.

"Solid-state batteries have the potential to be safer, and they have the potential for higher energy density," said Alex Bates, a Sandia postdoctoral researcher who led the study for the paper. "This means, for electric vehicles, you could go farther in between charges, or need fewer batteries for grid-scale energy storage. The addition of liquid electrolyte may help bridge the gap to commercialization, without sacrificing safety."

[caltrek]

Ionic Liquids Make a Splash in Next-gen Solid-state Lithium Metal Batteries
March 19, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/946554

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have developed a new quasi-solid-state cathode for solid-state lithium metal batteries, with significantly reduced interfacial resistance between the cathode and a solid electrolyte. By adding an ionic liquid, their modified cathode could maintain excellent contact with the electrolyte. Their prototype battery also showed good retention of capacity. Though finding the best ionic liquid remains challenging, the idea promises new directions in solid lithium battery development for practical applications.

Lithium-ion batteries have become ubiquitous, finding a place in our smartphones, laptops, power tools, and electric vehicles. But as we look for better solutions with higher energy density, scientists have been turning to solid-state lithium metal batteries. Li metal batteries potentially have much higher energy density than their Li-ion counterparts. They are seen as the future of batteries, powering vehicles and grids on massive scales.

However, technical issues keep solid-state lithium metal batteries from making their way into demanding applications. A major one is the design of the interface between electrodes and solid electrolytes. Electrolytes in Li-ion batteries are usually liquid and highly flammable, posing a safety hazard. That’s why people have been trying to use a solid-state electrolyte instead. However, it is difficult to achieve good contact between electrodes and solid electrolytes. Any surface roughness on either side leads to high interfacial resistance, which plagues battery performance. There has been some work looking at the design of the solid electrolyte, but cathode design remains an open issue.

A team led by Prof. Kiyoshi Kanamura of Tokyo Metropolitan University have been developing new ways of improving the contact between the cathode and solid-state electrolyte in solid-state lithium metal batteries. Now, they have succeeded in creating a quasi-solid-state lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) cathode which contains a room-temperature ionic liquid. Ionic liquids consist of positive and negative ions; they can also transport ions. Importantly, they can fill any tiny voids at the cathode/solid electrolyte interface. With the voids filled, the interfacial resistance was significantly decreased.

[caltrek]

Pivotal Battery Discovery Could Impact Transportation and the Grid
March 24, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/947595

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Researchers uncover new avenue for overcoming the performance decline that occurs with repeated charge-discharge cycling in the cathodes of next generation batteries.

Battery-powered vehicles have made a significant dent in the transportation market. But that market still needs lower cost batteries that can power vehicles for greater ranges. Also desirable are low-cost batteries able to store on the grid the intermittent clean energy from solar and wind technologies and power hundreds of thousands of homes.

To meet those needs, researchers around the world are racing to develop batteries beyond the current standard of lithium-ion materials. One of the more promising candidates is the sodium-ion battery. It is particularly attractive because of the greater abundance and lower cost of sodium compared with lithium. What’s more, when cycled at high voltage (4.5 volts), a sodium-ion battery can greatly increase the amount of energy that can be stored in a given weight or volume. However, its fairly rapid performance decline with charge-discharge cycling has stymied commercialization.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a key reason for the performance degradation: the occurrence of defects in the atomic structure that form during the steps involved in preparing the cathode material. These defects eventually lead to a structural earthquake in the cathode, resulting in catastrophic performance decline during battery cycling. Armed with this knowledge, battery developers will now be able to adjust synthesis conditions to fabricate far superior sodium-ion cathodes.

[caltrek]

How a Few Geothermal Plants Could Solve America’s Lithium Supply Crunch and Boost the EV Battery Industry
by Bryant Jones and Michael McKibben
March 21, 2022

https://theconversation.com/how-a-few-g ... try-179465

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Geothermal energy has long been the forgotten member of the clean energy family, overshadowed by relatively cheap solar and wind power, despite its proven potential. But that may soon change – for an unexpected reason.

Geothermal technologies are on the verge of unlocking vast quantities of lithium from naturally occurring hot brines beneath places like California’s Salton Sea, a two-hour drive from San Diego.

Lithium is essential for lithium-ion batteries, which power electric vehicles and energy storage. Demand for these batteries is quickly rising, but the U.S. is currently heavily reliant on lithium imports from other countries – most of the nation’s lithium supply comes from Argentina, Chile, Russia and China. The ability to recover critical minerals from geothermal brines in the U.S. could have important implications for energy and mineral security, as well as global supply chains, workforce transitions and geopolitics.

As a geologist who works with geothermal brines and an energy policy scholar, we believe this technology can bolster the nation’s critical minerals supply chain at a time when concerns about the supply chain’s security are rising.