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Engineers Produce Long Lasting, Energy Density Battery
August 3, 2017 | The City College of New YorkEstimated reading time: 1 minute
A new generation of manganese dioxide-zinc batteries with unprecedented cycle life and energy density is the latest innovation at The City College of New York-based CUNY Energy Institute. The discovery has made the common household battery suitable for large grid storage applications.
City College Senior Research Associate Gautam G. Yadav and his team applied a new twist to the old chemistry behind batteries. The result is a battery that takes advantage of intercalation and complexation chemistry to make the cathodes rechargeable to a larger extent, greatly extending its life.
“A new layered crystal structure of manganese dioxide is used in this chemistry, which is intercalated with copper ions. This makes it rechargeable to its theoretical capacity for a significant number of cycles,” said Yadav.
According to Yadav, this is the first time a novel calcium hydroxide interlayer is used to block the poisonous zinc ions through complexation. This in turn allows the battery to maintain its high energy density over 900 cycles.
A recent trend in the energy storage field has been to replace unsafe and expensive lithium-ion batteries with zinc-anode versions as zinc is cheap, abundant and much safer. Until now, the only detriment of this version has been the latter’s relatively short cycle life, which has not allowed it to be successfully commercialized as a rechargeable battery.
Team members included Xia Wei, Michael Nyce, Jinchao Huang, Joshua Gallaway, Damon Turney, Jeff Secor and Sanjoy Banerjee, Distinguished Professor and director of the CUNY Energy Institute.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided low-cost, high-quality education for New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. Today more than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight professional schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. Now celebrating its 170th anniversary, CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself.
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