A new US-developed lithium air battery can actually travel more than 1,000 kilometers on a single charge and one day it will power domestic planes and long-haul trucks. The main component of this lithium air battery a solid electrolyte instead of the usual liquid. Solid electrolyte batteries are not subject to the safety concern of liquid electrolytes used in lithium-ion batteries and other types of batteries that can overheat and catch fire.
And more importantly, the equipment’s battery chemistry with solid electrolytes can increase energy density up to four times over lithium-ion batterieswhich translates into greater autonomy.
“For over a decade, scientists at the Argonne and elsewhere have been working overtime to develop it. a lithium battery that uses oxygen from the airLarry Curtiss, a scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, who participated in the research, said in a statement.
“The lithium-air battery has the highest estimated energy density of all battery technologies being considered for next-generation batteries beyond lithium-ion,” he said.
In earlier lithium air designs, lithium at a lithium metal anode passes through a liquid electrolyte, combining with oxygen during discharge to produce either lithium peroxide (Li2O2) or superoxide (LiO2) at the cathode. Lithium peroxide or superoxide decomposes to lithium and oxygen components during charging. This chemical sequence stores and releases energy on demand.
New solid electrolyte Much of the equipment consists of a ceramic polymeric material made with relatively inexpensive elements in the form of nanoparticles. This new solid allows for chemical reactions that produce lithium oxide (Li2O) when discharged.
“Chemical reaction of superoxide or lithium peroxide contains only one or two electrons per molecule of oxygen, lithium oxide means four electrons,” explains Argonne chemist Rachid Amine. More stored electrons means higher energy density.”
The team’s lithium-air design is the first lithium-air battery to achieve a four-electron reaction at room temperature. Moreover, works with oxygen supplied by the surrounding air. The ability to operate with air eliminates the need to operate oxygen tanks, which was a problem with earlier designs.
The team used many different techniques to determine when a four-electron reaction really took place. One key technique was transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of discharge products at the cathode surface, performed at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials. TEM images provided valuable information on the four-electron discharge mechanism.
Previous test lithium air batteries, very short life cycles. By building and running a test cell for 1,000 cycles, the team demonstrated that the new battery designs do not have this drawback, proving their stability under repeated charging and discharging.
“With further development, we expect our new lithium-air battery design to achieve a record energy density of 1,200 watt-hours per kilogram,” says Curtiss. “This is almost four times better than lithium-ion batteries.”
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