Missing out on the important moments, just because your phone battery dies down? Or you might have to end the call five minutes before to save the extra 10%? Forgot to carry your charger with you and all your life is getting upside down! Well, a treat to you this year, Lithium-Sulfur batteries have stepped in, that promise to keep your phone powered for five consecutive days.
Not only this, but these batteries are also designed to make your car run more than 1000km without the need for added fuel. The product is in-line to get commercialized and once landed in the market, the competitors shall definitely face a decrease in their sales. On stats, the loss might hit four times and the batteries shall alone be enough to power Australia.
The team of researchers headed by Dr.Mahdokht Shaibani from Monash University has successfully developed the high-performing Li-S battery and defeated the presently available lithium-ion products. The patent has been filed as PCT/AU 2019/051239, and the credits for the prototypes are owned by German R&D partners.
The batteries have already taken over the market with leading manufacturers showing interest in the product’s batch production. While the study has been published in Science Advances on 4th January 2020. This also marks the first time when research on Lithium-Sulfur batteries has made their way to the prestigious international publication.
Vouching for the significance these batteries have, and the potential they hold in transforming the mobile phone and automotive industry, Professor Mainak Majumder says, “Successful fabrication and implementation of Li-S batteries in cars and grids will capture a more significant part of the estimated $213 billion value chain of Australian lithium, and will revolutionize the Australian vehicle market and provide all Australians with a cleaner and more reliable energy market,”
The majority of the materials are kept the same as in the previous batteries, while a slight configuration in Sulfur cathodes has been made, intending to bear more stress and in return enhance battery life. Extracting the idea from the bridging capabilities observed while processing detergents in the 1970s, the researchers implemented the same to increase the tolerance of stresses.
Overall, considering the design, cost of resources consumed, performance and long-term availability of materials add up to make this project a leading one for the Australian manufacturers. Quoting Assistant Professor Hill, “This approach not only favors high-performance metrics and long cycle life, but is also simple and extremely low-cost to manufacture, using water-based processes, and can lead to significant reductions in environmentally hazardous waste,”
Reference:
“Expansion-tolerant architectures
for stable cycling of ultrahigh-loading sulfur cathodes in lithium-sulfur
batteries” by Mahdokht Shaibani, Meysam Sharifzadeh Mirshekarloo, Ruhani Singh,
Christopher D. Easton, M. C. Dilusha Cooray, Nicolas Eshraghi, Thomas
Abendroth, Susanne Dörfler, Holger Althues, Stefan Kaskel, Anthony F.
Hollenkamp, Matthew R. Hill and Mainak Majumder, 4 January 2020, Science Advances.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay2757