Imagine a world where your smartphone won’t die for days at a stretch, electric vehicles travel hundreds of miles at a time without the need to recharge, and all of this comes with no risk of battery fires. Sounds a lot like a fairy tale, right? Recent breakthroughs in battery technology are going to make this dream a reality rather sooner than expected.
A group of scientists from China has engineered a “quasi-solid-state” battery that drastically brings down the serious risk of fire compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries we use today. Lithium-ion batteries are found in almost everything, from our phones to EVs; however, they come at some risks as well. According to Tech Xplore, in these batteries a liquid electrolyte is used, and under certain conditions, it can be flammable.
In this regard, researchers have designed a mixture of materials that are not flammable, including succinonitrile, along with advanced additives like triethyl phosphate and fluoroethylene carbonate to carry out their operations with higher stability and efficiency in the battery. According to Professor Cai-Zhen Zhu, one of the chiefs in the research team, “Our aim was not just to make lithium-ion batteries safer, but also more efficient. With our new non-flammable electrolyte, which functions well at high voltage, we really set the ground for the next generation of batteries.”
The potential implications are huge. First, safer batteries will bring down the price for a vast array of technologies, from smartphones to EVs, by reducing the amount of safety measures and materials required. With more technologically advanced batteries, EVs can travel farther distances without as many charges, making them more practical and reasonable. Already presently EVs hold roughly 20% of new car sales, per the International Energy Agency, with this percentage to continually rise as the technology of batteries improves.
Another game-changing innovation hails from the University of Chicago and the University of California San Diego: a fast, cheap, and eco-friendly sodium battery. This new architecture does without an anode and uses sodium, which is rarer, as well as less environmentally damaging, than lithium.
According to Grayson Deysher, a PhD candidate who worked on the research, “Though people have done sodium, solid-state, and anode-free batteries separately, nobody so far has been able to combine those three ideas.” This design could help bring down production costs and make high-capacity batteries more available.
In this regard, sodium is far more abundant than lithium and is, therefore, a more sustainable choice. More than 75% of the world’s lithium supply is found in the “Lithium Triangle”: Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia, hence geopolitically sensitive and very scarce. Sodium exists in ocean water and soda ash mining, which, in comparison with the other processes advocated, is much less harmful to the environment.
Here, researchers had to really quite literally think differently in order to design a sodium battery with energy density near that of a lithium one. Conventional batteries rely on a liquid electrolyte allowing the flow of ions, but over time, this builds up and makes the battery ever less efficient. They engineered a current collector from aluminum powder that flows like a liquid but forms a solid structure under high pressure. Such an approach solves both the efficiency and cost issues, thus enabling mass production.
These new battery technologies have potential far beyond their applications in consumer electronics and EVs. Besides their great potential for consumer electronics and EVs, advanced batteries can transform the renewable energy sector with more efficient and reliable energy storage. This helps to stabilize the grid and makes renewable energy sources wind and solar more viable.
Imagine a future where the problem of storing renewable energy no longer persists. Improved battery technologies will alight the idea in the near future—the concept of storing extra energy produced off-peak so that one can harness it during periods of high demand. This basic shift may ensure reduced reliance on fossil fuel-rich emissions if we value curbing climate change and setting sail towards a sustainable future.
The research community is abuzz with enthusiasm. According to Professor Zhu, these developments only foreshadow the emergence of next-generation batteries much safer, more efficient, cost-effective, and environment-friendly. Coupled with relentless innovations and investments, the prospects for a bright and full-of-promise future for battery technology become very vivid indeed.
Next time you charge your phone or drive to work in your EV, remember that the batteries behind all of that are on the brink of a revolution. Safer, more efficient, and greener batteries are just around the bend and promise to make all of our everyday devices even that much more amazing, and our world just a little bit greener.
