JOINT TSINGHUA-LIVERPOOL RESEARCH TEAM DEVELOPS NEW CHARGE STORAGE MECHANISM

Lu in Prof Hu’s lab where he set up experiments to cross compare results obtained at NTHU and at UoL.(Photo: National Tsing Hua University)

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 16 (Bernama) -- A joint Tsinghua-Liverpool research team recently developed a new charge storage mechanism that allows rechargeability within calcium-air batteries - a major step forward in battery technology.

According to a statement, this discovery has been published in Chemical Science.

The lead author of the paper, Yi-Ting Lu, is a joint doctoral student at Tsinghua and Liverpool, whose supervisors are Prof Chi-Chang Hu (Department of Chemical Engineering, NTHU) and Prof Laurence Hardwick (Department of Chemistry, UoL).

Prof Hu said conventional lithium-ion batteries have a limited practical capacity. Thereby, many researchers are working on developing alternative battery technologies.

Their focus is on metal-air batteries based on zinc, lithium, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and aluminum. The advantage of the calcium-air battery is its high specific energy — five times that of traditional lithium-ion batteries.

Meanwhile, Lu explained that metal-air batteries are electrochemical cells usually using an active metal as the negative electrode, and a porous carbon material in contact with the air as the positive electrode. When the metal oxidised the oxygen at the positive electrode is reduced, generating electric current.

He found when a single electrode is repeatedly charged and discharged, initially no reversibility can be observed, but after a few dozen cycles it gradually displays some reversibility.

Surprisingly, the result seemed completely different from those in literature. The research team conducted a series of experiments aimed at uncovering the mechanism behind this phenomenon.

Prof Hardwick said the team would focus on designing new battery systems that used this newly discovered charge storage mechanism. He added that it was the cooperative research that made their discovery possible, and there were plans for even closer cooperation between NTHU and UoL in the future.

-- BERNAMA