China's research and development of new environmentally friendly batteries has broad application prospects

A few days ago, a research team from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences reported that a new type of aluminum-graphite binary ion battery developed by them has the characteristics of environmental friendliness and low cost, which can overcome some limitations of traditional lithium-ion batteries and has broad application prospects
in electronic equipment and electric vehicles.

The study said that the electrode materials of the new aluminum-graphite binary ion battery are low-cost, environmentally pollution-free aluminum and graphite, and the electrolyte is composed of
traditional lithium salts and carbonate solvents.
Compared with traditional lithium-ion batteries, the weight, volume and material cost of this new battery are significantly reduced, but the energy density (i.
e.
the energy contained in the volume) is much
higher.

In recent years, driven by electronics, electric vehicles and other industries, global battery demand has continued to rise
.
According to data from the US market research institute Freedonia Group, global battery demand will continue to grow at an annual rate of 7.
7% in the future, and its total market size will reach $120 billion
by 2019.

Lithium-ion batteries are currently the most mainstream type of batteries, because their electrodes generally contain nickel, cobalt and other heavy metal elements, and waste lithium batteries will cause heavy metal pollution
when entering the environment.
In addition, the development of lithium batteries is also facing technical bottlenecks
such as specific power (that is, the ratio of battery output power to the mass of the battery), energy density and other parameters that are about to reach the limit.

Tang Yongbing, a researcher at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led the study, said that compared with traditional lithium batteries, the product cost of this new battery can be reduced by about 50%, the specific power can be increased to 1.
3 to 2.
0 times of traditional lithium batteries, and the energy density can be increased to 1.
6 to 2.
8 times of traditional lithium batteries, which has obvious advantages
.

Tang Yongbing said that the working mechanism of the new aluminum-graphite binary ion battery is a binary process
of "ion embedding" and "alloy formation" occurring at the same time.
When charging, the anions in the electrolyte are embedded in the cathode made of graphite, and lithium ions as cations are deposited on the anode made of aluminum to form an aluminum-lithium alloy
.
The discharge process is the opposite
.
Since the aluminum electrode in the battery acts as both an anode and a current collector (a base metal that pools the current generated by the active material in the battery), the specific power and energy density
of the battery can be significantly improved.

Researchers said that this new battery has broad application prospects in electronic products, electric vehicles and other devices, and will help improve the performance of
the above devices after entering commercial production.