How can iron make lithium batteries more sustainable?
How can iron make lithium batteries more sustainable?
BatteriesLithium today has become an essential part of our lives. In our mobile phones, electrical appliances, and even our cars. But the environmental impact of this industry has made attention turn to methods and technologies that enable us to transform this important product into sustainability.
In this context, researchers at Oregon State University cooperated to research a new technology that convertslithium batteries; To be more sustainable. This is done by using iron, instead of nickel and cobalt, as the cathode in lithium-ion batteries.
The results of the research were published in the journal Science Advances, and they are results that can be described as interesting, as the electrode made of iron can provide a higher energy density than the cathode materials currently used in electric car batteries, for example.
Iron is also a cheap material compared to nickel and cobalt. Which means significantly reducing the cost of manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, as these batteries rely primarily on the elements nickel and cobalt.
Sustainable Alternative
At present, the cathode represents 50% of the cost of making a lithium-ion battery cell; Therefore, relying on iron in the cathode will not only reduce the cost, but will also help increase the safety rates of these batteries and work on their sustainability.
With the manufacture of more and more lithium-ion batteries – to meet the increasing demand for batteries in various sectors – the global demand for nickel and cobalt has increased. Based on the above, it is expected that the shortage of nickel and cobalt within two decades will severely affect battery production rates.
In addition to the above, the energy density of elements such as nickel and cobalt has been developed to the maximum possible extent, and any attempt to raise it more than this will result in undesirable results. Such as the release of oxygen during battery charging operations, which causes the batteries to catch fire. In addition, cobalt is a toxic element, and it can contaminate ecosystems and water sources if these batteries are disposed of unsafely.
Business Idea
The battery stores energy in the form of chemical energy, and through reactions this chemical energy is transformed into electrical energy that can power vehicles, as well as phones, laptops, and many other devices and machines. Although there are many types of batteries, most of them work in much the same basic way and contain largely the same components.
The battery consists of two electrodes: the anode and the cathode, which are usually made of different materials, in addition to an electrolyte – a chemical medium that allows the flow of electrical charges – and a separator membrane. As the battery discharges, electrons flow from the positive electrode to an external circuit, then collect at the cathode.
In a lithium-ion battery, lithium ions carry charges and transfer them through the electrolyte from the positive electrode to the cathode while the battery is discharging. To return again after this in the opposite direction during recharging operations.
When we use an iron cathode, we have avoided the problem of future resource shortages. Because iron is the most common element – by mass – on Earth, it is also the fourth most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. To exploit this great abundance of iron in a vital industry such as batteries, the research team increased the chemical activity of iron in their cathode, by designing a chemical environment based on a mixture of negatively charged fluorine and phosphate ions.
The previous mixture turns into a solid transformer (crystal), and also allows the reverse conversion of the fine mixture of iron powder, lithium fluoride, and lithium phosphate into iron salts. Which means that the battery can be recharged.
Innovative design
The new battery design was able to prove that – by using appropriate negative ions – it is possible to exceed the current ceiling for energy density in batteries, making them more sustainable and less expensive. Also, implementing this new design does not require any radical modifications to the current batteries. All that is needed is that only the cathode is replaced, without the need for new anodes or new production lines.
Of course, with any new technology, there are some defects and things that need improvement. The energy storage efficiency of the new design is not the best, and by this we mean that not all of the electricity that enters the battery during the charging process is available during discharging.
There is no doubt that investing in this emerging technology will not take long before we can avoid its shortcomings and transform it into production on a commercial level, especially when considering the great advantages offered by relying on iron as a cathode in lithium-ion batteries. On the one hand, we will reduce our reliance on toxic and rarer elements, and we will rely on a cheap and available element. Thus reducing the cost of production, in addition to prolonging the life of batteries, we then achieve true environmental and economic sustainability.
The Basic Energy Sciences Program of the US Department of Energy funded this important research, which was co-led by Tongchao Liu of Argonne National Laboratory and Mingliang Yu of Oregon State University, in addition to researchers from Vanderbilt University, Stanford University, the University of Maryland, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. “SLAC”.
In conclusion, we must realize that developing lithium batteries and ensuring their sustainability represents one of the most important technological challenges in the current era. With the increase in efforts in the “energy transition” file, the reliance on these batteries increases more and more. Which means that it is inevitable to develop it, increase its efficiency, and transform it into sustainability.
