According to University researchers, the elusive solution for storing energy in electric vehicles may have been discovered in an unlikely place: bubbles.
Porous graphene membranes for lithium-air batteries have been found to store more energy than conventional graphene sheets, according to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Princeton.
These lithium-air batteries could make possible the practical development of electric vehicles that can travel long distances, allowing electric cars to travel up to 300 miles per charge.
The researchers discovered that their permeable structure can store over 15,000 milliamp hours per gram of graphene — one of the greatest capacities measured.
The new material is also less costly and more efficient. While traditional lithium-air batteries frequently clog up, the black, coral-like cover on the new lithium-air batteries resolves this issue — and these batteries are made without any reliance on precious metals.
Many other energy applications may also benefit from this ordered graphene structure, study author and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory materials scientist Jie Xiao said in a statement.
For example, lithium-air batteries are comparatively light and environmentally sound. Jun Liu, director of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Transformational Materials Science Initiative, called the team’s findings “critical for applications.”
The scientists began their work by separating out graphene with a binding agent and then recombining it in a way that formed tiny bubbles within the battery sheets.
Using both microscopy and modeling, the scientists analyzed the performance of the resultant material and calculated data on computers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. They also examined the particles with electron microscopes at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory.
But while the results of the scientists’ study revealed that this new, porous graphene membrane has a much higher energy capacity than conventional battery structures, many issues of lithium-air batteries have yet to be hammered out.
Lithium-air batteries in general remain limited in their practical capacity: They have inadequate cycle lives and currently cannot be fully recharged.
The scientists attained maximum energy capacity when the battery was placed in environments of pure oxygen, they said. In normal air, the battery’s capacity drops because water vapor in the air interferes with the lithium metal in the batteries.
The team is working to develop a membrane that will block this water vapor while still enabling oxygen flow. They said they are trying to find an even more efficient catalyst and electrolyte that will allow the battery to be recharged multiple times.
This project was funded by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Transformational Materials Science Initiative.
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