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The Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN), in collaboration with the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), has invented a new anode material that enables lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) to be recharged within minutes. This means one will soon be able to charge your battery-based gadgets or even electric vehicles at ultra-fast speed.
Currently, Graphite and Lithium Titanate are among the most widely used anode materials in the commercially available lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) that power laptops, mobile phones, and electric vehicles. LIBs with Graphite anode, which is extremely energy dense, can power an electric vehicle for hundreds of kilometres in one charge cycle. However, it has its own share of challenges on the safety front as they are prone to fire hazards. Lithium Titanate anodes are safer and more preferred alternatives, and they also facilitate fast charging. But, they have a lower energy density, which means that they would need more frequent recharging, says the IIT.
The new two-dimensional (2D) anode material has been developed using nanosheets derived from Titanium Diboride (TiB2), a material that resembles a multi-stacked sandwich, where metal atoms are present in-between layers of Boron. Among thek ey features enabled by nanosheets-based anode material an edge include:
– Ultra-fast charging time (full charge within minutes)
– Long life cycle (10,000 cycles at high charge currents)
– The nanosheets that are used to prepare anode have a high density of pores. While the planar nature and chemistry of nanosheets provide a high surface area for catching hold of Li ions, the pores enable a better diffusion of ions
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The research teams at IITGN and JAIST aimed to develop a material for anode that not only enables fast charging of the battery but should also facilitate a long life. The team also had another important consideration that the material should be such that it can be synthesised in a simple scalable way so that it can transform existing technology.
The research team also found that this anode had an ultra-fast charging capacity with a considerable discharge capacity at high-capacity retention (up to 80 per cent even after 10,000 cycles of operation), which means that batteries made with this material would give almost the same high performance even after more than 10,000 cycles of charging.
Moreover, there was no degradation or corrosion of THNS due to redox reactions, the porosity is also retained very well, and it demonstrates structural stability with very less volumetric expansion (less than 40 per cent) over thousands of charge−discharge cycles.
Explaining the high efficiency of the newly innovated battery material, Akash Varma, an MTech student, who is also the first author of this work, says, “It is the presence of titanium and boron atoms arranged in a carpet-like interweaved porous structure within the nanosheets that are helping in an efficient charge transport and storage.”
Prof Kabeer Jasuja, Dr Dinesh O Shah Chair Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, IITGN, says, “What makes this work especially useful is the fact that the method to synthesise TiB2 nanosheets is inherently scalable. It only requires mixing the TiB2 particles in an aqueous solution of dilute hydrogen peroxide and allowing it to recrystallise. For any nanomaterial to translate into a tangible technology, scalability is the limiting factor. Our method to synthesise these TiB2 nanosheets only requires stirring and no sophisticated equipment, making it highly adoptable.”
Throwing more light on the need for this innovation, Prof Noriyoshi Matsumi, Professor of Materials Chemistry, JAIST, says, “Nowadays, the requirement for high-rate charge-discharge technology is tremendously increasing in order to enable widespread commercialisation of various kinds of electric vehicles in future. Our findings can stimulate related research fields to invite more researchers to work on application of the unique 2D materials.”
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