Home > Press > Chloride ions from seawater eyed as possible lithium replacement in batteries of the future
Xiaowei Teng |
Abstract:
Sodium, Potassium and zinc have all been promising contenders for lithium’s place in rechargeable batteries of the future, but researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have added an unusual and more abundant competitor to the mix: chloride, the richest negatively charged ions in seawater.
Xiaowei Teng, the James H. Manning professor of Chemical Engineering at WPI, has discovered a new redox chemistry empowered by chloride ions for the development of seawater green batteries.
Modern lithium-ion batteries used in various applications, including electric vehicles, can be problematic for grid storage, given their high cost and reliance on critical materials, such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium, as well as their limited geographical availability. For example, six countries own over 85% of lithium reserves on the land.
Teng and his research collaborators--Heath Turner, professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Alabama, and Lihua Zhang, Milinda Abeykoon, Gihan Kwon, Daniel Olds, all research scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York--went beyond the limits of current green battery technology by leveraging chloride ions to empower redox chemistry of iron oxide battery materials.
Teng and his colleagues reported on the new battery chemistry in “Chloride-Insertion Enhances the Electrochemical Oxidation of Iron Hydroxide Double Layer Hydroxide into Oxyhydroxide in Alkaline Iron Batteries”, a paper published in the American Chemical Society journal Chemistry of Materials and highlighted in the supplementary front cover.
This study revealed that chloride ion insertion into Fe(OH)2 layered double hydroxide formed a Green Rust intermediate crystalline material, which assisted a one-charge transfer Fe(OH)2/FeOOH conversion reaction and improved cycling stability. This new iron redox chemistry was discovered and examined in the WPI lab. Teng and his graduate student Sathya Narayanan Jagadeesan, who is the leading author of the article, further traveled to Department of Energy User Facilities at Brookhaven National Laboratory to conduct experiments to validate the results using operandosynchrotron X-ray diffraction and high-resolution elementary mapping.
Teng and his WPI team made an aqueous battery, a small lab-scale prototype that operated in the water-based electrolyte, using electrodes made mostly from abundant elements such as iron oxides and hydroxides. While the team hasn’t calculated the cost, the use of earth-abundant materials should tip the scale in their favor, Teng says. The U.S. produces over 15 million tons of scrap iron wastes that are not recycled each year, many of which exist in the form of rust. Therefore, the reported rechargeable alkaline iron battery chemistry helps repurpose the iron rust waste materials for modern energy storage.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy (DOE).
####
For more information, please click here
Contacts:
Steven Foskett
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Cell: 5088689413
Copyright © Worcester Polytechnic Institute
If you have a comment, please Contact us.Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.
Related Links |
Related News Press |
News and information
Simulating magnetization in a Heisenberg quantum spin chain April 5th, 2024
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Govt.-Legislation/Regulation/Funding/Policy
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Chemical reactions can scramble quantum information as well as black holes April 5th, 2024
Possible Futures
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
With VECSELs towards the quantum internet Fraunhofer: IAF achieves record output power with VECSEL for quantum frequency converters April 5th, 2024
Discoveries
Chemical reactions can scramble quantum information as well as black holes April 5th, 2024
New micromaterial releases nanoparticles that selectively destroy cancer cells April 5th, 2024
Utilizing palladium for addressing contact issues of buried oxide thin film transistors April 5th, 2024
Announcements
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Interviews/Book Reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers/Posters
Simulating magnetization in a Heisenberg quantum spin chain April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Battery Technology/Capacitors/Generators/Piezoelectrics/Thermoelectrics/Energy storage
What heat can tell us about battery chemistry: using the Peltier effect to study lithium-ion cells March 8th, 2024
A battery’s hopping ions remember where they’ve been: Seen in atomic detail, the seemingly smooth flow of ions through a battery’s electrolyte is surprisingly complicated February 16th, 2024
The latest news from around the world, FREE | ||
Premium Products | ||
Only the news you want to read!
Learn More |
||
Full-service, expert consulting
Learn More |
||