Scientists have found that there are few new ingredients. We found that we can improve the lithium battery used in electric vehicles and renewable energy systems (corn).
They found that proteins found in corn can dramatically improve the performance of lithium-sulfi batteries, the next-generation alternative to today’s lithium-ion battery, from electric vehicles to smartphones.
Lithium-Sulpi batteries have long been considered promising options for future technology, because they are lighter, cheaper and environmentally friendly than the battery we use today.
The biggest task to use is that this battery does not last long.
However, researchers at Washington State University have shown that protective barriers prepared using corn proteins can expand the life of the battery into hundreds of hundreds of charging and can potentially help to enter real products such as electric vehicles or photovoltaic power generation systems.
Katie Zhong, a professor of machinery and materials engineering at the university and the author of the study, said, “This work showed a simple and efficient approach to preparing a functional separator to improve battery performance.”
Corn protein works with two of the biggest technical problems that retake lithium-sulfine batteries.
In lithium-sulfide batteries, energy is stored using sulfur, a cheap non-toxic substance. However, some of this sulfur during charging can drift around the liquid center and react with the lithium side, which can wear the battery much faster than the existing one.
The lithium itself can grow a small metal spike known as a water protrusion, which can lead to paragraphs through the barriers inside the battery.
To solve this problem, the researchers added a thin coating of the corn protein called Zein to a layer between the two sides of the battery to the separator. The coating has helped to form the barriers they found to prevent the leakage of sulfur and to prevent the formation of water protrusions.
Because the protein is naturally folded, researchers have added a small amount of flexible plastics to open the structure. This allows it to interact directly with the rest of the battery in the amino acids (the highest reactive part) of the protein.
If you leave this structure in place, the researchers have built a small test battery that maintains charging through more than 500 cycles.
Their research All journalLaboratory experiments and simulation models support the results to show the improvement of stability and performance.
Dr. JIN LIU, the author of Mechanical and Materials Engineering Professor Inzai papers, said, “Corn protein is rich, natural and sustainable, making the battery material excellent.
The team is now investigating that some of the protein structure contributes to performance. ZEIN is composed of amino acids and can help to further improve the design by identifying that it helps to block sulfur movement and prevent water protrusions.
Dr. LIU said, “The first thing to think about is how to open protein, so you can use these interactions and manipulate protein.
“Protein is a very complex structure,” said Dr. Zhong.
If this study is still in the early stages, but can be made stably for actual use of lithium-sulfa batteries, many major sectors, especially lithium ion batteries of large-scale regenerative energy stores, can be replaced.
So far, this approach has been tested only on a coin -sized battery, but the team hopes to work with an industry partner to evaluate whether it can expand its breakthrough.
Global demand for lithium ion batteries is expected to surge in the next 10 years. In 2023 alone, battery deployment in the power sector increased by more than 130 %.
Lithium-Sulpi batteries can be cheaper and clean alternatives to lithium ion technology used in most electric vehicles and consumer electronics today.
Lithium ion batteries rely on metals such as cobalt and nickel, which are extracted through environmentally damaged mining under harsh labor conditions.
Sulfur is a by -product of oil and gas purification, but it does not require new extraction and uses existing waste streams.
Since the sulfur is also lighter than the metal oxide used in the existing battery cathode, the lithium-sulfid design is also provided with the promise of higher energy density, so the light battery, electric cars, aircraft and even grid-scale regenerative storage are lighter.
And if sulfur and corn protein is widely used, this technology can reduce production costs, which makes it easier to access as demand for clean energy storage increases.
