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Lithium-ion batteries are ubiquitous today - from electric cars to smartphones. But that does not mean that they are the best solution for all areas of application. TU Wien has now succeeded in developing an oxygen-ion battery that has some important advantages. Although it does not allow for quite as high energy densities as the lithium-ion battery, its storage capacity does not decrease irrevocably over time: it can be regenerated and thus may enable an extremely long service life.
In addition, oxygen-ion batteries can be produced without rare elements and are made of incombustible materials. A patent application for the new battery idea has already been filed together with cooperation partners from Spain. The oxygen-ion battery could be an excellent solution for large energy storage systems, for example to store electrical energy from renewable sources.
"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.
"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.
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."
A. Schmid, M. Krammer, Jürgen Fleig Rechargeable Oxide Ion Batteries Based on Mixed Conducting Oxide Electrodes, to be published in: Advanced Energy Materials (2023)., opens an external URL in a new window
Ceramic materials as a new solution
"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.
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.
Materials provided by Vienna University of Technology. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
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Researchers from the Vienna University of Technology have discovered an interesting new battery technology: the oxygen-ion battery (OIB) based on ceramic materials. Its most attractive feature is an ability to regenerate itself with ambient oxygen, which provides the potential for an extremely long service life.
Detailed in a January 2023 paper in Advanced Energy Materials, the novel battery concept has already been patented, paving the way for an appearance in the real industry sector. However, oxygen-ion technology will probably not beat the current kingpin, lithium-ion, in all applications. It does not have as high an energy density as Li-ion batteries, but it does have numerous advantages, especially for one important application: large energy storage systems (ESSs) such as renewable energy sources, power grids, microgrids and more.
Ceramic is the key to the new oxygen-ion batteries. The Vienna University of Technology researchers developed ceramic materials that can absorb and release doubly negatively charged oxygen ions, so the oxygen ions can migrate from one to another ceramic material. Ceramic materials are the key components in OIBs and provide ionic conductivity, stability and durability for the battery.
The battery prototype uses lanthanum, which is not widely available and is still expensive. However, lanthanum can be easily replaced with cheaper and more widely available materials, and the researchers are already working on doing so. Better yet, the expensive elements cobalt and nickel, common in today’s lithium-ion batteries, are not used at all.
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