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Recharge Cycle Record For Manganese Dioxide Zinc Batteries
August 3, 2017 | 1 Comment
The battle to replace the lithium ion battery is on. The latest innovation is a new generation of manganese dioxide-zinc batteries with unprecedented cycle life and energy density.
The market battle 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.
A look inside the manganese dioxide-zinc battery developed at CCNY. Image Credit: City College of New York. Click image for the largest view.
City College of New York 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.
Yadav said, “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.”
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.
The Yadav team’s research appears in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.
This is a full cell result using both an anode and cathode for the lab experiment. Its a battery technology that should be scalable. 900 cycles is a very impressive record.
Yet this is just the discovery stage. Earlier this team presented a cathode test cell running over 6000 cycles. That’s not a mistake, their cathode got to more than 6000 cycles.
With lithium being comparatively expensive and zinc comparatively cheap with charge / discharge cycles looking to go into the thousands, the battle looks like its going to go on.
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With lithium being comparatively expensive and zinc comparatively cheap with charge / discharge cycles looking to go into the thousands, the battle looks like its going to go on. It is so great. I like.