“The search is ongoing for a battery that will be cheaper and more efficient than a lithium-ion battery, especially for use in electric vehicles,” explains Sustainable Aurelia.
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Sustainable Orillia
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What would we do without batteries?
Throughout the twentieth century, we have come to take them for granted when we use them to operate our various devices: smoke detectors, portable radios, tape decks, our cars and machines, appliances used in more and more areas of modern life – even before that. The now ubiquitous mobile phone arrived in the 1990s.
A battery is essentially a device — a small chemical reactor — that stores chemical energy that is converted into electricity that then flows through the device using the battery. Batteries have been with us for a long time. American scientist and inventor Benjamin Franklin first used the term “battery” in 1749 when he was experimenting with electricity.
The first true battery was invented by Italian physicist Alessandro Volta in 1800. One of the most durable batteries, the lead-acid battery, was invented in 1859 and is still the technology used to start most cars with internal combustion engines and other machinery. today. It is the oldest example of a rechargeable battery.
Then came the lithium-ion battery. Engineer Akira Yoshino, physicist John Goodenough, and chemist Stanley Whittingham were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their development of lithium-ion batteries. Why did this development deserve a Nobel Prize?
“If a small, lightweight secondary battery, such as lithium-ion batteries, had not been put into practical use, the smartphones and computers that everyone uses now might not have become as small as they are now. The distance that electric cars could travel on a single charge would have been shorter, and perhaps The prospect of its practical application was not possible. Moreover, new tools such as drones, which are now expected to play an active role not only in video shooting but also in various fields such as patrolling from the sky and transporting goods, may not have been created.
“With the small size and weight reduction that was very difficult to achieve with previous versions, lithium-ion batteries have opened up a variety of tools to change the structure of society.”
The other notable advantage of a lithium-ion battery, of course, is that it is rechargeable, up to thousands of times, something that all mobile phone users are fully aware of.
The fact that lithium-ion batteries can cause a fire that is difficult to put out sometimes makes the news — for example, an electric bike recently caught fire on a TTC subway car. Here are two important safety notes for owners of any device or vehicle that uses lithium-ion batteries:
- Avoid storing batteries at high temperatures. Don't leave your phone in the car under the hot sun or your laptop under a blanket. Try parking your electric vehicle (EV) in the shade on a very hot day. (It is not as big a problem in our area as it is in the southern United States and other areas with hot climates.)
- Avoid completely draining the battery before recharging and overcharging. Charge your device or electric vehicle before the battery runs out completely and stop charging before it reaches 100 percent. Make it a rule to charge between 20 to 80 percent of capacity.
While lithium-ion fires may be difficult to put out, the actual risk of fires is small, especially considering the millions of batteries now in use daily. If these batteries are properly stored and maintained, they will last for thousands of charges without any risk.
Concerns are often expressed about the disposal of these batteries. However, at least one Ontario company, Li-Cycle, appears to have a process that effectively captures most of the materials in batteries, with minimal impact on air and water.
“Li-Cycle's patented and proven commercial Spoke & Hub Technologies technology enables a recycling efficiency rate of up to 95 percent and returns valuable battery-grade materials found within lithium-ion batteries and battery manufacturing scrap back into the supply chain. Our commitment to sustainability is central to our battery recycling and resource recovery business, which uses technology to ensure our network of Spoke & Hub operations have an efficient environmental footprint. This includes operations with minimal solid waste flows to landfills, and no wastewater discharges , and lower air emissions.
Battery technology is currently a very hot topic, with new types of batteries being researched at a rapid pace. Research is currently underway for a battery that will be cheaper and more efficient than a lithium-ion battery, especially for use in electric vehicles.
Toyota, for example, is one of several companies working on a “solid-state battery” that it claims, when used in electric cars, will deliver a range of up to 1,000 kilometers and charge much more quickly than current electric car batteries.
Additionally, in some jurisdictions, as rooftop solar panels proliferate in subdivisions and communities, a type of community battery storage is also being explored, one that would take rooftop solar-generated electricity during the day and then feed that electricity back into Back to surrounding homes during the dark hours.
Research is ongoing and the race to improve electric vehicle batteries is being called “the next gold rush.” Here's what's being researched: lithium-sulfur batteries, electric vehicle batteries as structural components, carbon nanotube electrodes, cobalt-free batteries, zinc-air batteries, silicon anode batteries, battery extracted from seawater, sand batteries. The future seems almost magical: charge your electric car in five minutes, batteries that never run out – or how about charging electric cars via Wi-Fi or ultrasonic charging through the air?
Where will battery technology be in 2050? Where will our economy be? It seems we can look forward to a world in which electricity completely replaces fossil fuels as an energy source. It won't happen overnight, but it will come faster than anyone expected.
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