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Lithium ion batteries are the main participants in the field of batteries. This 50 year old technology forms the electronic foundation for billions of mobile devices worldwide and is currently leading the direction of future electric vehicle development.
But this does not mean there is no competition. New battery technology to replace lithium is going on. Other concepts such as iron air batteries (which use oxidation to store energy) may be better choices than more expensive and explosive lithium when storing renewable energy.
This article focuses a specific new battery technology to replace lithium which is the proton based solution in order to update the news in battery industry for your reference.
What’s the new battery technology to replace lithium
Lithium batteries, as the mainstream battery energy storage technology widely used in electronic products and electric vehicles, rely on limited lithium resources and have shortcomings in battery fast charging, safety, and low battery temperature performance.
New choices are constantly being explored. For example, the idea of proton batteries became popular, which used protons released from water and then coupled with carbon electrodes. This is good news because proton batteries do not require rare elements such as lithium.
The reason of choosing proton
Proton (H+), as a non-metallic charge carrier, has advantages such as small radius, light ion mass, and abundant resource reserves, making it highly competitive compared to other metal charge carriers in the application of secondary battery systems.
The process of developing new battery technology to replace lithium
At the beginning of 2024, Professor Chen Wei from the University of Science and Technology of China published an article titled "An All Climate Non aqueous Hydrogen Gas Proton Battery" in the international journal Nano Letters. The article is the first to design a non-aqueous proton electrolyte (NAPE) and apply it to hydrogen batteries. By utilizing the highly reversible hydrogen evolution/hydrogen oxidation reaction (HER/HER) between hydrogen gas (H2) and H+, the H2 electrode is characterized by low overpotential, fast reaction rate, and long cycle life.
And now scientists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney hope to extend it to a wider range of fields. Proton batteries have many advantages, "said Wu Xicheng, a doctoral student at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, in a press statement. But currently, some electrode materials used for proton batteries are made of organic materials, while others are made of metals, which are heavy and still quite expensive. In addition, the voltage range of carbon electrodes is limited, which makes proton batteries unsuitable as a substitute for lithium-ion batteries.
However, scientists from the University of New South Wales in Sydney have developed a novel carbon electrode called Tetraaminobenzoquinone (TABQ) to address this issue. The team first started with a small molecule called tetrachlorobenzoquinone (TCBQ), whose oxidation-reduction potential is not sufficient to act as a cathode, nor is it low enough to act as an anode. Therefore, Wu's team replaced the four chlorine groups in the molecule with amino groups (hence renaming), and found that the lower potential made TCBQ an excellent candidate for the anode and improved the material's ability to store protons.
The great performance of proton battery
When used in conjunction with TCBQ cathodes, this all organic battery can sustain 3500 complete charging cycles, maintain high battery capacity, and a great battery performance in cold conditions - a useful additional advantage, especially in cold and dark regions of the world where lithium loses its efficiency when it is too cold.
Another benefit is that proton batteries will not explode. Professor Zhao Chuan from the University of New South Wales stated in a press statement, "The electrolyte in lithium-ion batteries is composed of lithium salt, which is a highly flammable solvent and therefore deserves serious attention." "In our example, both electrodes are made of organic molecules with an aqueous solution in between, which makes our battery prototype lightweight, safe, and affordable." Although TABQ is an excellent anode, the team recognized that the TCBQ used in the cathode does not have the highest redox potential and needs improvement.
If proton batteries have the potential to replace lithium as the main battery of the green revolution, there may still be a lot of work to be done. We have developed a very good anode material, "Wu said." Further work will shift to the cathode part. We will continue to develop new organic materials with higher oxidation-reduction potential ranges to improve battery voltage output. In order to expand the use of renewable energy, we must develop several more efficient energy integration technologies, and the proton battery we have developed is a promising test
Conclusion
Proton batteries are receiving increasing attention as innovative and sustainable alternatives in the energy sector, and are hailed as one of the potential solutions for the next generation of energy storage devices. The high capacity and long cycle life characteristics make proton batteries a strong competitor for various applications, including grid scale energy storage.
Currently, proton based solutions are still being developed to address lithium-ion challenges, so there is still some time before proton batteries are applied in our daily life.
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