National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) professors have made “significant technical breakthroughs” in the development of the next-generation magnesium batteries that could replace lithium batteries, the university said yesterday.
A professor at the university’s department of materials science and engineering, Hung Fei-yi (洪飛義), said he teamed up with colleagues Lui Truan-sheng (呂傳盛) said Chen Li-hui (陳立輝) and instrument center’s Chen Kuan-jen (陳冠仁) on a research project into the next-generation of batteries.
Of all materials, magnesium has the greatest potential, but there are still some issues to overcome, especially as magnesium ionic activity is high, Hung said.
The team has increased the stability of the magnesium battery prototype by controlling the reduction-oxidation effects and by the use of magnesium membrane electrodes and magnesium powder electrodes technology, Hung said.
Magnesium batteries can hold eight to 12 times the capacity of lithium batteries and have five times the efficiency of lithium when charging or using stored energy, Hung said.
Using electric bicycles as an example, Hung said a bicycle would need about three hours to charge completely when using lithium batteries, but would only require 36 minutes of charging if using magnesium batteries.
Devices powered by lithium batteries are usually unable to function properly in temperatures below minus-15 °C, Hung said.
However, the team found that if they coated lithium batteries with magnesium, they still worked at temperatures as low as minus-30°C and as high as 55°C, Hung said.
It is the team’s hope that the next-generation battery would be more environmentally friendly, Hung said, because in the present generation the negative electrode is usually made from graphite, which is made from processed petroleum coke. He added that not only are graphite electrodes less capable of storing energy, the processing of petroleum is less environmentally friendly.
While one of the greatest benefits of magnesium batteries is safety, the most difficult part in normalizing distribution is the difficulty of making electrolyte solvent, Hung said.
The team is currently moving on to the next step of creating such a solvent, Hung said.
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