There’s an emerging consensus that decarbonizing the world’s electrical systems rely on scarce rare Earth minerals in unstable countries that are equally as harmful to the environment as the materials they aim to replace.. Water-based car batteryWater based batteries could replace the need for rare Earth minerals in EVs. .But now a new water-based cell with 1,000 times more capacity than comparable metal-based power cells could transform how batteries are both used and produced, according to researchers at Texas A&M University..Writing in the scientific journal Nature Materials, Texas A&M chemical engineering professor Dr. Jodie Lutkenhaus and assistant professor Dr. Daniel Tabor wrote metal-free aqueous batteries can potentially address the projected shortages of strategic metals such as lithium and cobalt and address safety issues found in lithium-ion batteries — namely, fire..“There would be no battery fires anymore because it's water-based,” Lutkenhaus said..Aqueous batteries consist of a cathode, electrolyte and an anode, with the former and latter storing energy, while the electrolyte — a special organic salt water solution — is responsible for energy storage through kinetic interactions with a polymer-based electrode..The study found the amount of energy stored via complex redox reactions can vary as much as 1,000% depending on the concentrations of water and salt in the electrolyte and the types of materials — which don’t require rare Earth metals — used in the electrode..Researchers macroscopically observed if the battery cathode was working better in the presence of certain kinds of salts through measuring exactly how much water and salt is going into the battery as it's operating..“If an electrode swells too much during cycling, then it can't conduct electrons very well, and you lose all the performance. I believe there is a 1,000% difference in energy storage capacity, depending on the electrolyte choice because of swelling effects,” Lutkenhaus wrote..The use of a lithium-free alternative also provides greater control over the supply chain with materials available in the US, they said. China presently controls about 44% of global lithium production, 78% of cathode production and 70% of battery manufacturing for the electric vehicle market. In all, it controls about 70% of the lithium supply chain due to its own domestic lithium battery producers, six of which are the world’s largest..With Western nations such as the US and Canada relying on rare Earth minerals such as lithium to decarbonize their electrical and transportation systems, China invested considerable time and effort — not to mention dollars — to control the entire lithium supply chain, from mines in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile to the finished product and raising alarm bells in both the US and the EU..“In the future, if materials shortages are projected, the price of lithium-ion batteries will go way up. If we have this alternative battery, we can turn to this chemistry, where the supply is much more stable because we can manufacture them here in the United States and materials to make them are here,” they wrote..At this point the technology is theoretical, there are no immediate plans for commercialization of the technology..“We would like to expand our simulations to future systems. We needed to have our theory confirmed of what are the forces that are driving that kind of injection of water and solvent,” Tabor said..“With this new energy storage technology, this is a push forward to lithium-free batteries. We have a better molecular level picture of what makes some battery electrodes work better than others, and this gives us strong evidence of where to go forward in materials design.” .The project is funded by the US Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation through the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.
