Posted on 09/20/2018 8:32:44 PM PDT by Red Badger
Most of today's batteries are made up of rare lithium mined from the mountains of South America. If the world depletes this source, then battery production could stagnate.
Sodium is a very cheap and earth-abundant alternative to using lithium-ion batteries that is also known to turn purple and combust if exposed to water—even just water in the air.
Worldwide efforts to make sodium-ion batteries just as functional as lithium-ion batteries have long since controlled sodium's tendency to explode, but not yet resolved how to prevent sodium-ions from "getting lost" during the first few times a battery charges and discharges. Now, Purdue University researchers made a sodium powder version that fixes this problem and holds a charge properly.
"Adding fabricated sodium powder during electrode processing requires only slight modifications to the battery production process," said Vilas Pol, Purdue associate professor of chemical engineering. "This is one potential way to progress sodium-ion battery technology to the industry."
The study was made available online in June 2018 ahead of print on August 31, 2018 in the Journal of Power Sources.
This work aligns with Purdue's giant leaps celebration, acknowledging the university's global advancements made in health, space, artificial intelligence and sustainability as part of Purdue's 150th anniversary. Those are the four themes of the yearlong celebration's Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues.
Super cheap earth element to advance new battery tech to the industry Purdue researcher Jialiang Tang helped resolve charging issues in sodium-ion batteries that have prevented the technology from advancing to industry testing and use. Credit: Purdue University Marketing and Media Even though sodium-ion batteries would be physically heavier than lithium-ion technology, researchers have been investigating sodium-ion batteries because they could store energy for large solar and wind power facilities at lower cost.
The problem is that sodium ions stick to the hard carbon end of a battery, called an anode, during the initial charging cycles and not travel over to the cathode end. The ions build up into a structure called a "solid electrolyte interface."
"Normally the solid electrolyte interface is good because it protects carbon particles from a battery's acidic electrolyte, where electricity is conducted," Pol said. "But too much of the interface consumes the sodium ions that we need for charging the battery."
Purdue researchers proposed using sodium as a powder, which provides the required amount of sodium for the solid electrolyte interface to protect carbon, but doesn't build up in a way that it consumes sodium ions.
They minimized sodium's exposure to the moisture that would make it combust by making the sodium powder in a glovebox filled with the gas argon. To make the powder, they used an ultrasound—the same tool used for monitoring the development a fetus—to melt sodium chunks into a milky purple liquid. The liquid then cooled into a powder, and was suspended in a hexane solution to evenly disperse the powder particles.
Just a few drops of the sodium suspension onto the anode or cathode electrodes during their fabrication allows a sodium-ion battery cell to charge and discharge with more stability and at higher capacity—the minimum requirements for a functional battery.
Tech ping!.......
If it really worked, they’d start a company rather than doing press releases.
Lithium will also catch on fire when exposed to moisture.
Which seems rather odd, when you think about it.
These battery tech articles always claim major breakthroughs but they never make it to the market. I just want a cell phone battery that lasts all day and has a lifespan of at least a few years.
We used to have sticks of sodium metal in our lab at school. It came packed in oil. It was a soft material we could shave pieces from and throw in a tub of water, which erupted really greatly depending on the size of the sodium metal piece.
Cold fusion and ceramic engines are right around the corner.
Sodium is some very dangerous stuff.
Salt, sodium and chlorine, is bizarre in it’s innocuousness .
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Nothing new here.
Pie in the Sky.
Musk already wasted millions up this dark alley a couple of years ago.
Even tried Francium too.
Thanks Red Badger. Oh, no! Now we're going to deplete the salt in the oceans!!!
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The Day of Trumpets is right around the corner too; 6 years away.
Then the bowl judgements, then Yom Kippur, then Sukkot, and nobody will give a hoot about batteries.
“Cold fusion and ceramic engines are right around the corner.”
Well, maybe a commercial engine block made of ceramic (More likely some high-temperature version of carbon fiber). Cold Fusion? I doubt it.
I remember a teacher telling us all about them in the mid 70's. Complete combustion. Emissions, little more than water vapor and co2 I believe (before co2 was bad).
Any day now...
Saw a PBS explanation of lithium and scared the hell out me.
A car loaded with batteries would erupt into a fiery furnace if the batteries were compromised.
My flashlights are lithium powered and could be road flares under the right conditions
Scary stuff...
Still, love the power and longevity of the batteries in my flashlights...
kerrrr Boooom waiting to happen.
Press releases; kinda like that “graphene” hoax?
But it’s ALWAYS six years away.
In the meantime, a longer lasting battery would be nice.
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