Karlsruhe Institute Of Technology Researchers Create High Specific Capacity Iron Carbon Batteries

Energy storage has always riddled mankind with new problems. In case of large power generating capacities, a steady flow of power cannot be guaranteed easily. The researchers from Institute of Nanotechnology of ‘Karlsruhe Institute of Technology’ (KIT) appear to have solved the energy storage problems. Applying a brilliant approach they have succeeded in increasing the efficiency of the batteries. Researchers have taken a step ahead in the usage of materials used in the battery.

The concept they have thought of is to store maximum energy in smallest available space/material. For this purpose Karlsruhe researchers had sought to increase the specific capacity of materials used in conventional batteries. The problems encountered in existing ones is that their energy storing capacity i.e.; energy capacity declines with time. Hence, instead why not use a material which either increases or has a constant specific capacity? Well, this is something which the present Lithium-Ion batteries require. Currently if we use Lithium ion batteries in vehicles instead of other batteries only a slight improvement is seen in performance. While, in case if we use the newly developed method then the same specific capacity becomes fivefold.

#-Link-Snipped-#

Scientists stumbled upon an Iron-Carbon material. Well actually instead of saying a “new iron-carbon material”, I should rather say that they have found out a “new way to synthesize” those materials. The process which they adopted was heat a mixture of metal organic materials and a lithium salt to obtain a carbon wire consisting of nano-structures. The research team was headed by Dr Maximilian Fichtner, who is also the head of the energy storage group of the KIT Institute of Nanotechnology.

There are actually many resources of energy available literally too many. Right from the conventional ones like coal, fossil fuels, nuclear energy then there are renewable like wind, solar, tidal etc. However the main problem lies in its storage. The difficulty is also experienced in retrieving that stored energy efficiently. The specific capacity of cathodes in case of normal batteries can be made twice. KIT researchers have patented this technology. It is still in its laboratory stages. Its commercial production is awaited. Once it is commercialized, then we can easily have a battery running for a longer duration of time.

Regarding commercial production and general idea Dr. Fichtner feels that the commercial production is very simple and inexpensive and the high capacity of the iron-carbon electrode is also maintained for a long duration. According to him, this was a huge step ahead compared to materials used until now. He said that, “If we succeed in fully exhausting the potential of this new material, we can improve the storage density of lithium-ion batteries by the factor of 5.”

In this way, the batteries would prove their worth in coming times. It will be a very big step ahead in research, production and manufacturing of these commercial batteries. Should this be a reality then the increase in storage capacity would be very good thing in reference to charging of batteries. After all Lithium ion batteries are the future batteries and the new technology would only support it.

Source:#-Link-Snipped-#