Posted on 05/15/2023 11:15:27 AM PDT by Red Badger
Oxygen Ion Battery - A prototype of the battery at TU Wien. Credit: TU Wien
Researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) have developed a groundbreaking oxygen-ion battery, which boasts exceptional durability, eliminates the need for rare elements, and solves the problem of fire hazards.
Lithium-ion batteries, while commonplace in today’s world – powering everything from electric vehicles to smartphones – aren’t necessarily the optimal solution for all applications. Researchers at TU Wien have made a breakthrough by creating an oxygen-ion battery that offers several significant advantages. While it may not match the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, its storage capacity doesn’t diminish irreversibly over time, making it capable of an exceptionally long lifespan as it can be regenerated.
Moreover, the fabrication of oxygen-ion batteries doesn’t require scarce elements and involves non-combustible materials. The innovative battery concept has already led to a patent application, filed in collaboration with partners in Spain. These oxygen-ion batteries could provide an outstanding solution for large-scale energy storage systems, such as those required to hold electrical energy from renewable sources.
Ceramic materials as a new solution
“We have had a lot of experience with ceramic materials that can be used for fuel cells for quite some time,” says Alexander Schmid from the Institute for Chemical Technologies and Analytics at TU Wien. “That gave us the idea of investigating whether such materials might also be suitable for making a battery.”
The ceramic materials that the TU Wien team studied can absorb and release doubly negatively charged oxygen ions. When an electric voltage is applied, the oxygen ions migrate from one ceramic material to another, after which they can be made to migrate back again, thus generating electric current. 
Prof. Jürgen Fleig, Tobias Huber, and Alexander Schmid (left to right). Credit: TU Wien
“The basic principle is actually very similar to the lithium-ion battery,” says Prof. Jürgen Fleig. “But our materials have some important advantages.” Ceramics are not flammable – so fire accidents, which occur time and again with lithium-ion batteries, are practically ruled out. In addition, there is no need for rare elements, which are expensive or can only be extracted in an environmentally harmful way.
“In this respect, the use of ceramic materials is a great advantage because they can be adapted very well,” says Tobias Huber. “You can replace certain elements that are difficult to obtain with others relatively easily.” The prototype of the battery still uses lanthanum – an element that is not exactly rare but not completely common either. But even lanthanum is to be replaced by something cheaper, and research into this is already underway. Cobalt or nickel, which are used in many batteries, are not used at all.
High life span
But perhaps the most important advantage of the new battery technology is its potential longevity: “In many batteries, you have the problem that at some point the charge carriers can no longer move,” says Alexander Schmid. “Then they can no longer be used to generate electricity, the capacity of the battery decreases. After many charging cycles, that can become a serious problem.”
The oxygen-ion battery, however, can be regenerated without any problems: If oxygen is lost due to side reactions, then the loss can simply be compensated for by oxygen from the ambient air.
The new battery concept is not intended for smartphones or electric cars, because the oxygen-ion battery only achieves about a third of the energy density that one is used to from lithium-ion batteries and runs at temperatures between 200 and 400 °C. The technology is, however, extremely interesting for storing energy.
“If you need a large energy storage unit to temporarily store solar or wind energy, for example, the oxygen-ion battery could be an excellent solution,” says Alexander Schmid. “If you construct an entire building full of energy storage modules, the lower energy density and increased operating temperature do not play a decisive role. But the strengths of our battery would be particularly important there: the long service life, the possibility of producing large quantities of these materials without rare elements, and the fact that there is no fire hazard with these batteries.”
Reference: “Rechargeable Oxide Ion Batteries Based on Mixed Conducting Oxide Electrodes” by Alexander Schmid, Martin Krammer and Jürgen Fleig, 25 January 2023, Advanced Energy Materials. DOI: 10.1002/aenm.202203789
So it's not for a laptop.
Don’t miss this:
“The new battery concept is not intended for smartphones or electric cars, because the oxygen-ion battery only achieves about a third of the energy density that one is used to from lithium-ion batteries and runs at temperatures between 200 and 400 °C.”
I’m thinking vibrator.
“the lower energy density and increased operating temperature do not play a decisive role.”
ya because there are tons of energy problems demanding a lower energy density, higher operating temperature solution.
This is mostly a novelty of science, neat little piece of physics but not real practical in application.
Even the postulated battery use for solar or wind sound silly. The idea is make this huge warehouse to TEMPORARY store energy at a MUCH higher temperature.
Really? Who wants to maintain a large warehouse of batteries at temperatures of 200-400 degrees, and at that only as temporary storage.
But will they use up all the oxygen on earth to build them? Someone should invent a battery that uses carbon dioxide instead.
While it may not match the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, its storage capacity doesn’t diminish irreversibly over time, making it capable of an exceptionally long lifespan as it can be regenerated.
~~~
That’s big, all by itself.
Having to throw away (er.... recycle) lithium batteries after 5 years or so is lame. So these batters may be a little bulkier, which could be annoying for smaller devices or hand power tools, but would be awesome if they lasted.
Oh my ,but it’s still a battery ,BLAH
Others have already pointed out these limitations, but my question is do the batteries require an outside heat source to maintain these operating temperatures, and if so then were will the energy for the heating come from?
There is no energy in CO2. That’s why we breathe it out.
Much more than a little bulkier, the current device batteries you are thinking of like smart phones literally are the reason for the size limitations of the devices, most of the device size is battery dependent.
So literally your device would end up over 3 times bigger since the energy density is 3 times less.
Plus how in the hell will you handle a smart phone or laptop that is 200 to 400 Celsius required to maintain the battery.. LMAO, sorry but mostly useless at this time for any real world applications!
Didn’t Musk recently inkle that he’s nearing completion of batteries wherein salt is the key element?
They first worked on a helium-ion battery, but the prototypes kept floating away.
Oh my ,but it’s still a battery
———
It is obvious battery technology is limited, expensive ,heavy and really just an old technology using century old technology ( but with different anodes cathodes) - a dead end.
Hydrogen generators, fuel cells that can produce hydrogen on demand is the technology that should be developed and is. Batteries are a dead end.
A bunch of white, western European males? It can’t be any good. Where’s the diversity on their team. Their team just isn’t as strong as it could be with diversity enhancements.
Besides, who would buy an Oxy-Ion battery? That’s a laundry detergent.
There goes the current EV’s.
“So it’s not for a laptop. “
The article says that twice. It says the market would be utility-scale storage.
A building full of batteries operating at 200 - 400 °C would have quite a cooling load. Moving that heat to the outdoors would consume a LOT of power. The cooling systems in large data centers would be nothing compared to the cooling systems for these battery plants.
It’s the same old conundrum with wind and solar. You need to build TWO complete power plants — the primary wind or solar plant, then the huge battery plant to run for DAYS when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
The economics of wind and solar make zero sense. You have to be a true-believer in climate apocalypse to think that an electricity system that is going to cost 2X to 3X what we have today is going to be successful and demanded by people.
I think it’s a race for the eco kooks. They have to get us so pregnant with wind and solar that, by the time we find out it’s an expensive joke, we can’t abort it.
We’ll probably waste a trillion dollars before the whole thing collapses like a house of cards and we scramble to build new nuclear and coal plants.
Every few weeks I see a story about a revolutionary new technology that will greatly increase EV range while charging up in a few minutes. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for the 100 mpg carburetor I read about 60 years ago.
Buffalo stampedes on treadmills, with fat people barely keeping ahead of them. It’s the future.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.