In today's world of technology, every portable device runs on Lithium-ion batteries, however, this sky-rocketing demand comes at a cost, as mining of lithium-ion causes the release of toxic chemicals in nature, causing irreversible damage.
However, researchers have found a cleaner way to produce batteries, using the trusty aluminium.
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There have been various attempts made in the past involving aluminium, however, they included graphite for the cathode and aluminium for the anode and graphite wasn't efficient enough.?
To tackle this, Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden as well as the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia have replaced the graphite cathode with an organic carbon-based molecule dubbed anthraquinone. This enables the storage of positive carriers from the electrolyte carried by the battery, resulting in a higher energy density.?
Chalmers University
According to Niklas Lindahl, one of the researchers on this project, "Because the new cathode material makes it possible to use a more appropriate charge-carrier, the batteries can make better usage of aluminium's potential."
He further added, "Now, we are continuing the work by looking for an even better electrolyte. The current version contains chlorine-we want to get rid of that."
What's really amazing is the fact that the batteries are cost-effective to mass-produce as compared to lithium-ion ones currently surrounding the market as of now.
According to Patrik Johansson, Professor at the Department of Physics at Chalmers."The material costs and environmental impacts that we envisage from our new concept are much lower than what we see today, making them feasible for large scale usage, such as solar cell parks, or storage of wind energy, for example,"?
NASA
He further added, "Additionally, our new battery concept has twice the energy density compared with the aluminium batteries that are 'state of the art' today."
Aluminium is abundantly available and its mining doesn't damage Earth. While the research is still in an early stage and far from going into the mass-production phase, it is a crucial advancement in the field of battery tech nonetheless.?