A new generation of manganese dioxide-zinc batteries with unprecedented cycle life and energy density has now been revealed by scientists. The discovery has made the common household battery suitable for large grid storage applications.
A new generation of manganese dioxide-zinc batteries with unprecedented cycle life and energy density is the latest innovation at The City College of New York-based CUNY Energy Institute. The discovery has made the common household battery suitable for large grid storage applications.
City College Senior Research Associate Gautam G. Yadav and his team applied a new twist to the old chemistry behind batteries. The result is a battery that takes advantage of intercalation and complexation chemistry to make the cathodes rechargeable to a larger extent. greatly extending its life.
`A new layered crystal structure of manganese dioxide is used in this chemistry. which is intercalated with copper ions. This makes it rechargeable to its theoretical capacity for a significant number of cycles.` said Yadav.
According to Yadav. this is the first time a novel calcium hydroxide interlayer is used to block the poisonous zinc ions through complexation. This in turn allows the battery to maintain its high energy density over 900 cycles.
A recent trend in the energy storage field has been to replace unsafe and expensive lithium-ion batteries with zinc-anode versions as zinc is cheap. abundant and much safer. Until now. the only detriment of this version has been the latter`s relatively short cycle life. which has not allowed it to be successfully commercialized as a rechargeable battery.
The Yadav team`s research appears in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.
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