![]() ![]() Compared to lithium ion batteries, they’re safer, more environmentally friendly and can be more cost effective. The anion-hosting cathode works with a zinc metal anode in a full-cell dual-ion battery with an aqueous electrolyte.”ĭual-ion batteries have both cations and anions involved in the battery’s electrochemical reduction-oxidation, or redox, reaction.īatteries of the dual-ion variety that use aqueous electrolytes – electrolytes containing water – have “remarkable potential for low-cost energy storage,” Ji said. “The zinc and chloride are counter-ions to each other, which causes favorable interactions leading to unprecedented properties in capacity, operation potential and cycling life. “The trapped cations transform Mn 3O 4 such that the reversible storage of the chloride becomes much more viable,” Ji said. In this study, the Mn 3O 4 cathode reversibly stored chloride with great effectiveness after zinc cations (Zn 2+) were trapped within the cathode’s chemical structure. “Chloride is relatively light and small compared to other kinds of anions that have been tried, bulky polyatomic ions like nitrate, sulfate and hexafluorophosphate, which tend to gradually warp the electrode structures,” Ji said. ![]() Iodine, bromine, chlorine, and fluorine are the halogens, and their anions are known as iodide, bromide, chloride and fluoride. For anion storage, the desirable anions are halides – a single halogen atom with one extra electron. Lithium ion batteries work well because the cation being stored is small and light. Reversible means the battery can be recharged, like the one in a cellphone. “As an example for cation storage, the reversible insertion of lithium ions led to the technology of lithium ion batteries.” “There are fewer known materials that can store anions reversibly than for storing cations,” Ji said. An anion, which can also be used to store electricity, is an element or molecule that has one or more extra electrons and is negatively charged. A cation is an element or a molecule that is missing one or more electrons and is positively charged. Most batteries, Ji explains, store electricity via cations. There are many different types of batteries but they all work the same basic way and contain the same basic components: Two electrodes – the anode, from which electrons flow out into an external circuit, and the cathode, which acquires electrons from the external circuit – and the electrolyte, the chemical medium that separates the electrodes and allows the flow of ions between them. “Battery discharge or charge processes can be powerful synthesis tools, and the process where an electrode fails to deliver desirable properties in one type of battery can be the exact electrosynthesis needed for creating an excellent electrode for another type of battery.” “We expect this marks the inauguration of counter-ion insertion as a generic electrosynthesis methodology for materials design,” Ji said. The test of hosting zinc ions was unsuccessful but instead delivered an unprecedented chloride battery electrode, showing that anion-hosting batteries work better after cations are trapped in the electrodes. ![]() student Heng Jiang tested the manganese oxide Mn 3O 4 as an electrode in a zinc ion battery. ![]() Researching ion-storage chemistry in solids – specifically, looking at anions rather than cations to store energy – Ji and Ph.D. Compared to the lithium ion batteries used to power cellphones, laptops, medical equipment, power tools, vehicles and more, they’re safer and more environmentally friendly and can be more cost effective.įindings were just published in Carbon Energy. “This is the beginning point of a whole new field.”įor example, batteries designed using this construction show remarkable potential for low-cost energy storage, Ji said. Many of science’s most significant challenges trace to the limits of known available materials, but a phenomenon named “counter-ion insertion” by OSU College of Science researchers opens the door to “a great number of new solids with values transcending different disciplines well beyond battery chemistries,” said Xiulei (David) Ji, associate professor of chemistry. (Remember from our conventions for writing formulas that we do not write a 1 subscript if there is only one atom of a particular element present.A serendipitous discovery during research into batteries at Oregon State University holds major implications for inventing new materials with a vast range of scientific and commercial applications, the study’s corresponding author says. The formula Na 2Cl 2 also has balanced charges, but the convention is to use the lowest ratio of ions, which would be one of each. ![]()
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