Tag: batteries

Packing “peanuts” used for batteries

Posted on March 23, 2015 by - News

alkaline batteryScientists at Purdue University said that they have converted packing peanuts into high performance carbon electrodes for lithium-ion (Li-on) batteries.

Packing peanuts are not peanuts but fill for boxes to protect goods being shipped. They’re made out of starch.

The researchers said the electrodes will outperform conventional graphite electrodes and is a n environmentally friendly approach.

The Purdue scientists have gone one step further because they have also made carbon nanoparticle anodes from polystyrene.

There’s a mystery here though, because a research assistant said “We were getting a lot of packing peanuts while setting up our new lab”. A professor decided to see if it was feasible to use the packing peanuts in a creative way.

Professor Vilas Pol said that while packing peanuts are used worldwide to ship goods, they’re very hard to break down, and only 10 percent are recycled. That means the majority of them end up in landfills.

Pol said that the method for using these packing peanuts as electrodes is cheap, environmentally friendly, and practical for large scale manufacturing.

 

There’s hope for better batteries

Posted on October 17, 2014 by - News

David Prendergast, Berkeley LabScientists at Berkeley Lab think there’s light at the end of the tunnel as people quest to develop better alternatives to lithium ion batteries.

The problem with Li-ion batteries is that they sometimes burst into flames but we need rechargeable batteries with better energy density and cost reductions.

After running a series of simulations on supercomputers, David Prendergast and Liwen Wan (pictured) think a battery based on a multivalent ion, like magnesium (Mg), may well be the answer.

They think that an Mg-ion battery can provide twice the electrical current of Li-ions with the same density.  There have been problems with Mg-ion batteries but the scientists think that the problems aren’t insuperable.

“The catch for multivalent ions is that their increased charge draws more attention to them – they become surrounded in the battery’s electrolyte by other oppositely charged ions and solvent molecules – which can slow down their motion and create energetic penalties to exiting the electrolye for the electrodes. However, we found the problem may be less dire than is widely believed,” said Prendergast.

He said the simulations show that performance bottlenecks in Mg-ion batteries are related to what happens at the interface between the electrolyte and electrodes.

Essentially, Mg-ion based batteries are not as tricky as manufacturers might think as a result of the Berkeley Lab findings.

Plastic promises hope for batteries

Posted on October 10, 2014 by - News

plasticsA University of Stanford team is outlining the future of batteries and solar cells – and it’s plastic that will lead the way.

The university said that there’s an emerging class of electrically conductive plastics called radical polymers that promise low cost solar cells, flexible and lightweight batteries and antistatic coatings for electronics and for aircraft.

Essentially, according to professor Bryan Boudouris, a polymer called PTMA is 10 times more electrically conductive than convential semiconductor based polymers.

Plus, he explained, it’s as easy to manufacture as Plexigas with the difference that it has electronic properties.

Nevertheless, although these polymers are used in new types of batteries, it will be necessary to increase the conductivity by 100s or 1,000s of times.

The polymers are created by replacing a specific hydrogen atom with an oxygen atom.

The research is funded by the US National Science Foundation, the US air force, and DARPA – the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.

We’re all running out of juice!

Posted on October 8, 2014 by - News

alkaline batteryAs we’re soon going to be swamped by even more smartphones, tablets, wearable devices and notebooks there’s an urgent need for better battery technologies real soon now.

That’s according to ABI Research which said that by 2019 there will be eight billion devices on the planet – a billion more than there are people right now.

If you’ve got a smartphone, you probably realise that the smarter they get the more electricity they take and that trend is going nowhere but upwards over the next few years.

ABI Research points out that the holy grail doesn’t lie with lithium and graphite batteries, nor with micro USB chargers.  But it claims that silicon anode batteries from the likes of Leyden Energy and Amprius, as well as germanium based devices may hold out hope for the charging nightmare we even now face, in 2014.

“The opportunity is enormous,” said Nick Spencer, a senior director at ABI Research. “The average advanced market home has over 10 untethered devices with rechargeable batteries today.” Spencer reckons that if wearables take off, along with electric cars and the internet of things, the demand will be even greater.

But, thinks TechEye, we’ve been promised better battery technology for years and thus far no-one has picked up that particular baton. So let’s see how it all pans out.