New Battery Made From Cheap Materials Can Ease Storage Of Renewable Energy

The world is quickly embracing renewable energy but there is a growing need for large-scale backup mechanisms to continue providing power when the Sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.

An international team of researchers from institutions like MIT has developed a new type of battery that is made from ordinary and cheap materials.

In a statement, MIT said that the new battery architecture relies on "aluminum and sulfur as its two electrode materials, with a molten salt electrolyte in between." The battery was described in a paper published in journal Nature by 16 researchers from MIT in the US and many others from China and Canada.

Three ingredients used in the battery. Credit: MIT/Rebecca Miller

How powerful is this battery?

Lithium-ion batteries cannot be used as a viable backup because they're expensive and contain a flammable electrolyte, making it difficult for transportation.

Researchers looked at the periodic table to find cheaper, abundant materials that may be able to replace lithium. Aluminum is easily available, while sulfur is found as a waste product from chemical processes, and widely available salts. "The ingredients are cheap, and the thing is safe — it cannot burn," MIT Professor Donald Sadoway says.

Also read:?IIT Dhanbad Alumnus Develops AI Tech To Improve Phone Battery Performance

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The battery's creators say that this battery will be ideal to power a single home or small to medium businesses, producing a few tens of killowatt-hours of storage capacity.

Besides being transportation friendly, the battery requires no external heat source to maintain its operating temperature. The press release says that the heat it naturally produced electrochemically by the charging and discharging of the battery.

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Also read:?This Electric Car Battery Can Perform In Freezing Temperatures Of -35° Celsius

Researchers from Peking University, Yunnan University and the Wuhan University of Technology, in China; the University of Louisville, in Kentucky; the University of Waterloo, in Canada; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee; and MIT contributed to the battery's development.

What do you think about this new type of battery? Let us know in the comments below.?For?more in the world of?technology?and?science, keep reading?Indiatimes.com.

References

A new concept for low-cost batteries. (2022, August 24). MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology.?