. | . |
Sodium could replace lithium for more cost-efficient battery storage by Brooks Hays Washington (UPI) Oct 10, 2017 Researchers at Stanford University have built a sodium-based battery that can store just as much energy as a lithium-ion battery, but at a significantly reduced cost. Lithium-ion batteries have been the standard bearer for the last 25 years. But lithium is becoming increasingly scarce and mining costs are steep. Sodium -- which also hosts ions that can be moved from a cathode to an anode across an electrolyte to create a current -- is more abundant and cheaper to process. The new sodium-based battery may never meet the needs of electric car makers, but researchers believe it could help store the energy harvested by sustainable sources, like solar cells and wind turbines. "Nothing may ever surpass lithium in performance," Zhenan Bao, a chemical engineer at Stanford, said in a news release. "But lithium is so rare and costly that we need to develop high-performance but low-cost batteries based on abundant elements like sodium." It costs roughly $15,000 a ton to mine lithium. Harvesting sodium costs just $150 per ton. In the newly designed sodium-ion battery, the sodium ions are attached to myo-inositol, a common chemical compound that can be derived from rice bran or the liquid byproduct leftover by the corn milling process. The new pairing of sodium ions and myo-inositol significantly improved the latest iteration of their sodium-based battery, more efficiently moving ions from the cathode cross the electrolyte to the phosphorous anode. In addition to making cost-performance comparisons between lithium and sodium, Bao and her colleagues made sure to analyze how sodium ions attach and detach from the cathode during the charging and discharging process. Their insights helped improve the battery's design. But researchers say they need to do more tests to determine how the battery system's volumetric energy density compares to a lithium-ion battery. Scientists want to know how big the sodium-ion battery needs to be to store as much energy as a lithium-ion battery. Bao and her colleagues also plan to improve upon the design of their battery's phosphorous anode. The scientists detailed their early success in a new paper published this week in the journal Nature Energy.
Houston YX (SPX) Oct 05, 2017 A touch of asphalt may be the secret to high-capacity lithium metal batteries that charge 10 to 20 times faster than commercial lithium-ion batteries, according to Rice University scientists. The Rice lab of chemist James Tour developed anodes comprising porous carbon made from asphalt that showed exceptional stability after more than 500 charge-discharge cycles. A high-current density of ... read more Related Links Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
|
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us. |