Researchers from the university of California-Riverside (UCR) have successfully made eco-friendly batteries from the waste glass bottles. The batteries contained silicon as an anode in place of graphite that is commonly used in commercial batteries. The new batteries displayed tremendous potential and able to store 10 times more energy than the currently available batteries. Not only that they can be charged faster and are also more stable than commercial batteries.
Researchers have earlier tried to use the silicon anodes but the major problem they countered is the durability issue. The silicon anodes are not abe to withstand the constant shrinkage and expansion which they are subjected to during charging and hence they are unstable. Making nanosized silicon anodes eliminated the problem of durability.
How are the eco-friendly batteries are made?
-First, the waste glass bottles are crushed into a fine white powder
-Then silicon dioxide is reduced to nanostructured silicon in the presence of hot magnesium
-These nanoparticles are then coated with carbon that gives stability and also enhances the energy storage capacity
The coin cell batteries made using silicon outperformed traditional batteries made of graphite anode in laboratory tests. The batteries made with silicon anodes has a storage capacity of 1,420 mAh/g (milliamp hours per gram). On the other hand, the storage capacity of batteries containing graphite anode was 350 mAh/g. There has been an impressive four times increase of storage capacity of the batteries made with silica than the traditional graphite anodes.
“We started with a waste product that was headed for the landfill and created batteries that stored more energy, charged faster, and were more stable than commercial coin cell batteries. Hence, we have very promising candidates for next-generation lithium-ion batteries,” Li said. According to him, one glass bottle provides enough to provide nano silicon for making hundreds of coin cell batteries. Researchers have filed a patent for the commercial application of the invention
The study is published in the journal scientific reports
No comments:
Post a Comment