Aluminum-ion batteries: safer, more powerful, and less expensive

The demand for new batteries is constantly increasing, and there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of research projects around the world trying to improve them in many different ways. At Flinders University (Adelaide, Australia), in collaboration with a Chinese team, we are working on a Non-toxic battery with many outstanding qualities.

Project A describes Non-toxic aqueous aluminum radical battery. They use aqueous electrolytes, and offer fire resistance, air stability and higher energy density than current lithium-ion batteries. It was research published From the American Chemistry Journal.

The team has developed the first radical aluminum battery design They use water electrolytes Flame retardant and stable in air, it delivers a constant voltage of 1.25V and a capacity of 110 mAh g-1 for 800 cycles with only 0.028% loss per cycle.

Professor Zhong Fan Jia, from Flinders University’s School of Science and Engineering, hopes to use it in the future Biodegradable materials To develop soft batteries, in order to make the product safe and sustainable.

“the Aluminum ion batteries AIB attracts great interest because aluminum is the third most abundant element (8.1%), making AIB a low-cost and sustainable energy storage system,” comments Professor Jia.

Below is a translated summary of the research

Nitoxide radicals, such as 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidyl-1-oxy (TEMPO), are typical organic electrode materials that feature high redox potentials and fast electrochemical kinetics and have been widely used as cathode materials in multivalent acid batteries. ions. However, TEMPOs and their derivatives have not been used in emerging rechargeable aluminum ion batteries (AIBs) due to known disproportionality and potential degradation of nitroxide radicals under acidic conditions. In this study, the (electrochemical) behavior of TEMPO in organic and aqueous Lewis acid electrolytes was investigated. Through in situ (electrochemical) characterizations and theoretical calculations, we reveal for the first time an irreversible TEMPO disproportionality in Al(OTf)3 organic electrolytes that can be directed toward a reversible process upon transfer to an aqueous medium. In the latter case, rapid hydrolysis and exchange of bonds between the anions [Al(OTf)3TEMPO]-And water allows the reversible electrochemical redox reaction of TEMPO. These results led to the first design of aqueous radical polymer AIBs, which are flame retardant and stable in air, providing a constant output voltage of 1.25 V and a capacity of 110 mA h g-1 for 800 cycles with a loss of 0.028% per cycle. This work demonstrates the promise of using non-conjugated electroactive organic materials to make cost-effective and safe AIBs that currently rely on conjugated organic molecules.

Cover Photo: com. zhengjun