Super battery: Durian battery is charged for 30 seconds, diamond battery is super small and long life

According to foreign media reports, Lithium Batteries in mobile phones and other electronic devices will age over time. Degradation of lithium batteries will cause huge environmental costs. Is there a better way to store electrical energy?

The widespread application of portable electronic devices such as mobile phones is one of the characteristics of the current era. People can plug in the power of the mobile phone on the wall and gradually consume the stored electric energy. The Lithium Battery is the core component of the mobile phone. It has changed the traditional ability to store and carry electrical energy, while also revolutionizing our electronic equipment.

The development history of lithium batteries

In 1991, Sony Corporation of Japan commercialized lithium batteries for the first time. At that time, the company was actively seeking to solve the problem of short battery life in handheld video cameras. Currently, lithium batteries have been promoted and applied to many products, such as smart phones, notebook computers, electric toothbrushes and Hand-held vacuum cleaner. At the end of 2019, the three scientists who invented lithium batteries won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this revolutionary technology.

As more and more electric vehicles appear on the road, humans have an increasing demand for longer-lasting and larger batteries.

However, the demand for lithium batteries in modern human life will only increase. Electric vehicles rely on lithium-ion batteries to replace the fossil fuels used in current cars. As renewable energy accounts for an increasing proportion of global electricity supply, it will More battery packs store electrical energy for use when there is no wind or sun exposure. It is reported that more than 7 billion lithium-ion batteries are sold worldwide each year, and it is expected that by 2027, it will exceed 15 billion.

However, as mobile phones are aging and the power is getting less and less, we know that lithium-ion batteries also have limitations. Over time, the charging capacity of the battery will decrease, which means that its stored electrical energy will also decrease. At the same time, in extremely hot or cold weather, the performance of lithium batteries will also decline. In addition, people also have concerns about the safety and sustainability of lithium-ion batteries. Under certain conditions, lithium-ion batteries are easy to catch fire. ,explosion occurs. In addition, mining the metal materials required for lithium-ion batteries will also bring high social and environmental costs.

This has prompted scientists around the world to try to develop new batteries to overcome these problems. They hope to use some new materials, including: diamonds, smelly fruits, etc., to find new ways to power future technologies.

The working principle of the lithium ion battery is to make the charged lithium particles (ions) pass through the liquid electrolyte in the middle, so that the current moves from one end to the other end. The biggest advantage of the lithium ion battery lies in the "energy density"-the battery under its volume. The maximum energy that can be accommodated makes lithium-ion batteries the most expensive among the batteries available on the market. Compared with other battery technologies, lithium-ion batteries can also provide higher voltage.

Essentially, the battery is composed of three key components-the negative electrode, the positive electrode, and the electrolyte between the positive and negative electrodes. The role of the electrode switches between positive and negative, which will determine whether the battery is charging or discharging. In lithium-ion batteries, the negative electrode is usually made of a metal oxide, which includes another metal. When charging, lithium ions and electrons move from the negative electrode to the positive electrode, and electrical energy is "stored" as electrochemical potential. . This occurs through a series of chemical reactions in the electrolyte, which are driven by the electric energy flowing in the charging circuit. During the battery use, lithium ions flow through the electrolyte from the positive electrode to the negative electrode in the opposite direction, and electrons pass through The circuit system of an electronic device with a battery provides kinetic energy for the electronic device.

It is an inevitable trend for new materials to replace lithium-ion batteries

In recent years, researchers have improved the positive and negative materials of batteries to help increase the capacity and energy density of lithium-ion batteries, but the current most need to reduce the cost of lithium-ion batteries.

We hope that the battery functions of some electronic portable devices will be improved in the next few years, which will improve people's quality of life. According to Morrow Pasta, a materials scientist at the University of Oxford, the development of chemical technology was at a standstill 35 years ago. It is reported that Pasta is the project leader of the Faraday Institute of Oxford University, and he is responsible for the development of a new generation of lithium-ion battery technology. His goal is to increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries and at the same time increase their work efficiency, so that the battery does not reduce its functionality due to repeated charging and discharging.

In order to do this, Pasta is committed to using solid materials made of ceramics to replace the extremely flammable electrolyte liquids in lithium-ion batteries. The use of solids can reduce the risk of battery short-circuit or electrolyte burning in unstable conditions. In 2017, after a series of battery failures and fire incidents in Samsung mobile phones, 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7s phones were immediately held. The use of solids to replace traditional electrolytes is essential for the safety of future mobile phones, because most portable electronic products contain polymers. Gel electrolyte is flammable.

This kind of solid-state battery can also use dense metal lithium instead of graphite anode, thereby greatly increasing energy storage, which may have a profound impact on future electric vehicles.

At present, each electric vehicle has the equivalent of thousands of iPhone batteries. Expert analysis said that in the next few years, electric vehicles will gradually replace fossil fuel vehicles in most countries. The revolutionary shift to solid-state batteries means longer charging life. .

We hope that batteries will be widely used in electrical equipment and portable electronic devices in the next few years. So, should we look for alternatives to lithium batteries to reduce its environmental impact?

Most of the lithium in the world is mined from large salt marshes in South America, but this process requires a lot of water, which causes damage and pollution to the environment.

The "Lithium Triangle" in the Andes, including parts of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, contains more than 50% of the world's natural resources of lithium metal, but the extraction of lithium from saline-alkali land requires water and a large amount of water. It is reported that in the process of mining lithium metal in the Atacama salt marsh area of Chile, about 1 million liters of water are used for every 900 kilograms of lithium metal extracted. It involves gradually dissolving the metal-rich salt in water, filtering and then evaporating until pure lithium salt is extracted. However, Chilean environmental protection agency warned that the mining of lithium and copper in the region consumes much more water resources than natural precipitation.

In order to solve this problem, researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany are studying how to use different metals in the positive electrode of the battery, such as calcium or magnesium. Calcium is the fifth most abundant element in the earth's crust, and it is unlikely that there will be a supply problem like lithium, but research on improving battery performance with calcium is still in its infancy. Magnesium has also shown encouraging initial results, especially in terms of energy density, and has a good business prospect plan.

In recent years, some scientists are actively looking for more easily available materials to replace lithium metal. Hu Liangbing, director of the Materials Innovation Center at the University of Maryland, used porous wood chips as electrodes to create a battery in which metal ions react to generate electric charges. The wood stock is abundant, low cost, light weight, and shows high performance potential in battery applications. At present, the latest batteries developed for many years can use wood to store electrical energy, including wood fibers coated with tin. Since wood was once used as a woody plant to penetrate and transfer nutrients, the electrodes made of wood have the ability to store metal ions. There is a danger of expansion or contraction like lithium-ion batteries.

"There is a common phenomenon in Congo. Almost every miner takes his children to mine lithium."

Although Hu Liangbing's research team predicts that wood batteries can be used in portable electronic devices and large-scale energy storage in the future, this technology is still unable to charge laptops and is still being tested and verified in the laboratory. At present, the charging speed of wood batteries is relatively fast. An electronic device equipped with wood batteries can only maintain 61% of the initial capacity after 100 recharges.

At present, the width and length of wood materials used in batteries are only a few centimeters, but in the future, batteries can be stacked or connected together to achieve larger-scale applications, which will eventually be used for energy storage in homes or other buildings.

In fact, lithium is not the only metal used in modern batteries. Most batteries still use cobalt and lithium in the negative electrode. However, cobalt mining will produce toxic substances, posing a health threat to residents near the mining area and severely destroying the ecological environment. At present, some countries in Africa use child labor to mine cobalt ore, especially the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has more than 50% of the world's cobalt resources.

"There is a common phenomenon in Congo. Almost every miner takes his children to dig lithium mines." said Jody Rutkenhaus, a chemical engineer at Texas A&M University. This phenomenon inspired her to use protein to develop alternatives to "blood batteries". Proteins are complex molecules made and used by living organisms. The positive electrode of the battery is generally made of graphite, while the negative electrode is made of metal oxides containing cobalt and other elements. , If these two active electrodes can be replaced with organic materials, it means that there is no longer a need for large amounts of cobalt to be mined for the manufacture of batteries in the future.

Currently, of the 1.5 billion lithium-ion battery smartphones sold every year, only about 5% of the lithium-ion batteries of mobile phones are recycled.

It is reported that Jyoti collaborated with colleague Karen Woolley to develop a protein battery, which is the world's first battery that degrades itself in acid, which means it is easy to decompose and reuse.

Although the protein battery is still in the proof-of-concept stage and cannot compete with lithium-ion batteries. The protein battery can be recharged 50 times and provide 1.5 volt power before it becomes obsolete, but this is an exciting design that proves that new batteries will be used in the future. Sustainable application.

Super Fruit Battery: It only takes 30 seconds to charge the durian battery

Currently, an innovative team not only finds a new way to power batteries, but also solves the problem of food waste. Vincent Gomes and Labona Chabnan, chemical engineers at the University of Sydney in Australia, are turning the world’s most stinky fruit durian and the largest fruit jackfruit waste into supercapacitors, which can be used on mobile phones in just a few minutes , Tablet and laptop charging.

"My wife can't stand this foul smell. She left the durian in the refrigerator overnight and couldn't bear it, and then took out the remaining durian." Gomes quipped.

Supercapacitors are another way to store energy. They are like reservoirs. They can be charged quickly and then release energy during an explosion. They are often made of expensive materials such as graphene. But Gomez's research team has turned the inedible substances in durian and jackfruit into carbon aerogel-a porous ultra-light solid structure with special natural energy storage properties.

Durian is famous for its unpleasant smell, but it can be a material for a new generation of supercapacitors, and the "durian battery" only needs 30 seconds to charge.

Heating durian or jackfruit, freeze-drying, and then baking the inedible sponge core structure in the fruit at a high temperature above 1500 degrees Celsius. Finally, these black, highly porous, ultra-light structures can be made into low-cost super capacitor electrodes.

Supercapacitors only need 30 seconds to charge and are used in many electrical equipment. Chabnan said: “It’s incredible to be able to charge a mobile phone in less than 1 minute! Our goal is to use these sustainable supercapacitors to store renewable energy for cars and homes.”

In addition, the use of durian and jackfruit as supercapacitors also has good environmental protection purposes. Due to the special smell of the fruit, more than 70% of durians worldwide are usually discarded. In 2018, the smell of durian caused the temporary suspension of a passenger plane in Indonesia; in 2019, the library of the University of Canberra in Australia was evacuated due to the presence of leftover durians. In the initial stage of this research, Gomez's wife also disliked the foul smell of durians. The durians were kept in the refrigerator overnight and then discarded.

Other types of plant waste can also be used as power supply materials for electrical equipment in the future. Mikhail Astakhov, a physical chemist at the Moscow State University of Science and Technology, Russia, converted pigweed into a raw material for supercapacitors that can be used to charge mobile phones. In daily life, hogweed does not have much use value. It contains toxic liquids that make human skin foam.

Man-made diamond battery: small size, long service life!

Although overcoming the environmental protection problems of lithium-ion batteries can eventually be solved, some experts are conducting in-depth research in an attempt to break through the limitations of other materials. Tom Scott, a materials scientist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, believes that lithium-ion batteries will still occupy the mainstream status of batteries in the next century, but some special energy storage materials will be used in extreme environments.

In recent years, Scott and his research colleagues have been working on the development of diamond batteries. By planting artificial diamonds containing radioactive carbon-14, they can create "betavoltaic batteries", which can generate constant current and last Used thousands of years. The radioisotopes locked in the crystal lattice of artificial diamonds release ultra-high energy electrons during nuclear decay. Artificial diamonds can produce electrons, which can be used to make electricity. They emphasized that on the external level of the diamond battery, its radiation index remains within a safe level.

Now the research team has built a "diamond battery" prototype, they placed the artificial diamond in the radiation field produced by the isotope nickel-63, triggering electrons to pass through the diamond. They are currently working on how to extract carbon-14 from graphite blocks at nuclear power plants. Scott and his colleagues hope to convert these nuclear wastes into batteries with a longer service life.

Scott colleague Sophie Osborn said: "We have been collecting nuclear waste for a long time, and now we no longer talk about long-term storage, but use them for power generation."

Although chemical batteries like lithium-ion batteries are not suitable for high-temperature environments, diamond batteries can challenge some extreme environments and have certain advantages. For example, they can be used in space environments, the bottom of the ocean, and the top of volcanoes. The best battery for the sensor to function properly.

It is not an easy task to replace batteries for satellites or the International Space Station, so longer-lasting energy storage batteries will be an advantage. In the future, "man-made diamond" batteries will have broad application areas.

"Another major advantage of the man-made diamond battery is its small size. At present, researchers have produced a 1.8-volt diamond battery, which is similar to an AA battery, although its current is much lower. Technically speaking, the man-made diamond battery can be charged. Yes, but it needs to be placed in the reactor core for a few hours to reach the rated power. Although radioactive materials will produce a stable current when they decay, this means they can be used for a long time. The half-life of carbon is 5730 years."

Although this new type of battery is made of "diamonds", they are not expensive, Scott said: "You will be surprised to find that synthetic diamonds are very cheap."

He believes that in the next 10-20 years, we can even see ultra-long-life diamond batteries, which can be used as power sources for smoke alarms or TV remote controls, and may also be used in medical equipment such as hearing aids or heart pacemakers. In the future, we may not have to change the dead battery of the smoke alarm in the middle of the night and feel pain.