New battery technologies
There are quite a lof of new technologies for creating better batteries. Some of them promise to charge super fast, others promise to last longer.
This is a list of the most interesting and promising technologies. It’s a lot to read, so I made a brief summary for each one.
Silicon nanotube anode
They promise to increase battery life 10 times by absorbing higher levels of lithium when the battery is charged. There is also a downside, the volume of silicon batteries can increase 4 times.
gizmag - silicon-nanotubes
gizmag - silicon-based-lithium-ion-battery-anode
3M Invests in Silicon Anode for Lithium Ion Batteries: Businesswire article
Carbon nanotube anode
Specially treated thin layers of carbon nanotubes in batteries can boost the amount of power delivered per unit of weight by up to 10 times.
gizmag - carbon-nanotube-electrodes-increase-lithium-battery-capacity
Graphene based
Researchers have discovered that adding graphene to titanium dioxide for use as electrodes in batteries improves performance over standard titanium oxide 3 times. gizmag - adding-graphene-to-titanium-dioxide
Battery that stores nearly as much energy as a normal one, but can recharge in seconds or minutes. gizmag - graphene-supercapacitor-energy-density-record
Scientists tried to replace the carbon anodes with silicon, as silicon can accommodate much more lithium, but silicon expands and contracts rapidly during the charging causing the battery to lose its recharge capabilities relatively quickly. So the scientists are sandwiching silicon between the graphene sheets. This should make the batteries last 5 to 10 times loger. gizmag - lithium-batteries-charge-faster-hold-longer
Gel batteries
Lithium-ion batteries are rigid, heavy, and potentially dangerous due to the materials they contain. Scientists are creating an alternative, a very safe jelly-like battery by combining rubber-like polymer with a conductive, liquid electrolyte. The new batteries are very flexible and can easily be produced on a massive scale.
geek - jelly-like-polymer-gel-battery-promises-safe-flexible-lithium-ion-replacement and gizmag - lithium-battery-electrolyte-gel
Lithium air (lithium-oxygen)
They provide 3-4 times the density of the conventional lithium-ion batteries due to the coupling of a lithium anode to atmospheric oxygen through a porous carbon-based air cathode, instead of the heavy conventional compounds found in lithium-ion.
gizmag - lithium-air-battery and gizmag - boosting-energy-density-of-lithium-air-batteries
PolyZion (zinc + plastic)
The resulting battery device should be low cost, have low environmental impact and have the energy and power density necessary to compete with alternative battery technologies. This project has a lot of funding in Europa, there are a lot of universities involved.
gizmag article - polyzion-zinc-plastic-battery
official site - www.polyzion.eu
Transparent and flexible batteries
The transparency is tuneable, but the more transparent, the less energy density. A reasonable transparency is 50-80 %. Such batteries store between 1/3 to 1/2 of the energy of an ordinary battery of the same size, but increasing the thickness would provide comparable levels.
newscientist - transparent-battery-makes-seethrough-phones-possible
engadget - stanford-researchers-create-transparent-battery
I hope you enjoy this article and I’m looking forward to hear your opinions.
