Design developed for aluminium-ion batteries


Friday, 07 December, 2018

Design developed for aluminium-ion batteries

Scientists from the US, Australia and South Korea have demonstrated a strategy for designing active materials for rechargeable aluminium-ion batteries, bringing us one step closer to making the science behind the technology work.

While lithium-ion batteries have enjoyed remarkable success powering mobile electronic devices, in renewable energy applications they are fraught by limited cycle life, safety concerns and relatively high costs. Aluminium-ion batteries have thus been seen as ideal contenders for this space, given aluminium is the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust behind oxygen and silicon. It also has the one of the highest theoretical volumetric capacities on account of its multiple redox states.

“Developing batteries using aluminium has received a lot of expectation for delivering high energy to price ratios,” said Dr Dong Jun Kim, formerly of Northwestern University and now based at UNSW. But up until now, finding appropriate host electrodes for insertion of complex aluminium ions had been a fundamental challenge.

“We found a novel way to design rechargeable aluminium batteries by employing a redox-active macrocyclic compound as the active material,” Dr Kim said. In other words, he and his team managed to use a large organic chemical compound as the part of the battery that stores energy, something that previously had researchers stumped.

“We believe the research discussed in the article opens up a new approach to designing aluminium-ion batteries that could be of interest to scientists investigating next-generation electrochemical energy storage,” Dr Kim said.

Dr Kim said the results of the study, published in the journal Nature Energy, showed “promising battery performances”; however, he stressed that it is early days and improvement will be required in every aspect of the technology. He will therefore continue to research aluminium-ion batteries while examining the potential of using other elements.

“I look forward to further research on utilising redox-active organic molecules for multivalent-ion intercalation batteries such as aluminium, magnesium, zinc and calcium,” Dr Kim said.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/malp

Please follow us and share on Twitter and Facebook. You can also subscribe for FREE to our weekly newsletter and bimonthly magazine.

Originally published here.

Related News

CSIRO launches printed flexible solar cells into space

CSIRO has launched its printed flexible solar cell technology into space, in a test to evaluate...

FIDO tech boosts stability of perovskite solar cells

Researchers have created a material based on fullerene indanones (FIDO) that could improve the...

Researchers develop high efficiency quantum dot solar cells

Researchers have achieved 18.1% efficiency with a quantum dot solar cell, paving the way for the...


  • All content Copyright © 2024 Westwick-Farrow Pty Ltd