When will the new battery technology make a big breakthrough?

Battery can be said to be a necessity in our lives. Electronic products such as mobile phones and computers are inseparable from batteries. Therefore, the development of the battery field has also received great attention. Scientists are also working on the development of new batteries that have stronger energy storage and longer life. In different fields, scientists are developing batteries that are more suitable for this field, because no one battery can be suitable for all fields.

The world is waiting for a breakthrough in batteries. Almost every part of the electronics industry requires batteries, which are limited by the power output and energy life of the battery.

"Battery development or advancement is much slower than other fields, which is the limitation of the battery itself. "You can't expect to have batteries that power your phone for a week or a month," said Stefano Passerini, editor of Journal of Power. To put it bluntly, the maximum energy stored in the battery is determined by the inherent elements. "

But there has been progress in this area. Researchers are working to increase the energy density(volume-to-capacity ratio), value, safety, environmental impact, and trial life of lithium-ion batteries, and are designing new types of batteries.

Batteries are mainly used in three industries: consumer electronics, automobiles, and grid storage.

"I call these three industries the three major areas where people connect to batteries," said Venkat Srivasan, deputy director of research and development at the Joint Energy 'sJointCentre Energy Research. Each field has different requirements for batteries, so the batteries used may(sometimes) be very different. The phone in your pocket needs a strong, secure battery, weight and cost don't count. For the car battery industry, there are many batteries required, so the cost and weight, as well as the recycling life(if Xintesila needs to replace new batteries every two years, you will go crazy), become very important. Batteries used to store electricity in houses and power grids do not have high weight or size requirements.

Consumer electronics -- mobile phones, computers, cameras, tablets, drones and even watches -- have used lithium-ion batteries for decades because of their ease of charging and high energy density. In these batteries, graphite lattices filled with lithium ions form anodes. Oxides form a cathode and are connected to opposite ports, and the two are separated by liquid electrolytes that allow ions to pass through. When the external ports are connected, lithium oxidation and lithium ions flow to the cathode. The opposite is true when charging. The more lithium ions that can be transferred in this way, the greater the power of the battery. Regardless of battery life and safety, the size and ease of use of lithium batteries are also very popular. However, Passerini stated that there is limited room for further optimization of lithium batteries.

"Lithium batteries are now near their limit," he said. "Although we said the same thing 10 years ago, the improvements over the past 10 years have not been small. "

In the car industry, batteries ultimately determine the life span of cars and the fear and anxiety of electric cars. To solve this problem, engineers and scientists are trying to fill more voltage capacity into the battery. However, the reduction in voltage capacity is usually related to the chemical reactions within the battery. The chemical reactions that occur over time will gradually increase, and the capacity will gradually decrease. A large number of studies have focused on finding new materials and chemicals to assist or replace lithium ion lattices or other parts of the battery.

Srinivasan pointed out some potential innovations that can be used not only in cars: the traditional graphite anode lattice can be replaced with Silicon, which has more than 10 times more lithium ions. But Silicon expands when it absorbs lithium ions, so researchers need to solve this problem. Or lithium can act as an anode instead of a lattice -- but we don't know how to prevent it from short-circuiting during charging. Battery manufacturers have been trying to solve this problem since lithium batteries were introduced decades ago. "We are very hopeful that we may be able to solve this 30-year-old problem now," Srinivasan said.

Maybe lithium can be completely replaced. Researchers are looking to replace it with sodium or magnesium, and the joint energy storage research center is using computer modelling to study the cathode that uses specific oxide materials as magnesium anodes. Magnesium is very advantageous because its structure allows each atom to accept two electrons, which doubles the charge that magnesium can store.

PrashantJain and his colleagues at the University of Illinois are studying another component of lithium batteries: electrolytes. Electrolytes are fluids that fill the space between cations(positively charged ions) and anions(negatively charged ions) and allow charged particles to flow. It has long been known that certain solid materials, such as copper selenide, also allow the flow of ions, but can not operate high-power equipment quickly enough. Jain, an assistant professor of chemistry, and his students developed a superionic solid made of copper selenide nanoparticles with different properties. It allows charged particles to flow at a rate comparable to that in liquid electrolytes.

The potential benefits of this technology are twofold: safety and life cycle. If the current lithium-ion battery is damaged, the battery is short-circuited and heated, and then the liquid evaporates, nothing prevents the rapid release of energy. Solids will prevent short circuits and can use all-metal anodes to provide greater energy capacity. In addition, in repeated cycles, the liquid electrolyte dissolves the cathode and anode, which is the main reason why the battery can not be charged.

"All these incremental improvements have actually made some progress. But there has never been a breakthrough that has shocked the world. Solid electrolytes have the same ability to transmit as liquids, Jain said. "But this brings safety problems. Maybe we need to use solid electrolytes. Open the brain hole. In one stroke, make something that can completely replace the liquid electrolyte. "

Rongyujiaoshouyuehan·gudenuofu, one of the first co-inventors of lithium batteries at the University of Texas, is taking a different approach to solid-state electrolytes by publishing and filing a battery patent with a glass-based electrolyte. By impregnating the glass with lithium or sodium, Goodenough has been able to make the current flow faster, while also using solid anodes to prevent short circuits and increase energy capacity.

All this research will have an impact on the batteries in our pockets and cars. But there is a third use of the battery, and its impact is global.

MelanieSanford uses modelling tools on different types of batteries(large Redox liquid-flow cells) that store electricity from renewable energy plants and release energy when wind and solar power generation is not available. The level of energy production and consumption at night will help renewable energy expand beyond its role as a backup power.

Edison in Southern California is already testing the battery bank with Tesla car batteries, but because the battery is a traditional lithium-based battery, the cost is too high to be widely promoted at the global renewable energy level. In addition, the limitation of grid batteries is very different from that of cars. Weight and size are not problems, but prices and life cycles are issues that need to be considered.

In Redox liquid-flow batteries, the energy storage material is kept in a large container in the form of a liquid, which is then pumped to a smaller battery and reacts with analogues with opposite charges. Computer modeling has allowed Sanford's laboratory to customize organic molecules, increasing their capacity by thousands -- these molecules remain stable for less than a day to a few months.

"The power grid needs ultra-cheap materials because the batteries we're talking about here are very large," Sanford said. "What we're talking about is wind farms and warehouses for batteries of the same size. "

According to Sanford, the innovation direction is mainly to develop new materials that can be used in batteries through materials science. On the other hand, innovation requires engineers to build systems that make these materials more efficient. Both are indispensable, but the process from research to production is bound to be another bottleneck.

"Everyone should realize that no battery can be used in all scenarios," Passerini said. "Obviously, even if you only improve the performance of 10 <UNK> or 20 <UNK>, it is amazing. We must continue our research in this field, and scientists need your support. "

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