Evolving Battery Technologies

Batteries are a crucial part of today's technological age, as almost all electronic devices from toys to automobiles house some type of battery it. Batteries are a collection of one or more cells in series or parallel whose chemical reactions create a flow of electrons in a closed circuit. All batteries are made up of three basic components anode, cathode and electrolyte. There are two types of basic batteries Primary batteries are single-use batteries that cannot be recharged, batteries such as Dry cells and alkaline batteries are primary examples of primary batteries. Secondary batteries are the type of batteries that can be recharged and reused. Secondary batteries are the most favourable types of batteries in this day and age as they have an option of reusability which reduces e-waste.

The most common types of batteries used in today’s modern world are Lead Acid Batteries, Lithium-Ion Batteries, Nickel - Metal Hydride Batteries and Nickel - Cadmium Batteries.

Lead - Acid Batteries –

Lead-acid batteries are the most commonly used type of battery in Automotive and photovoltaic systems. Although lead-acid batteries have a low energy density, moderate efficiency and high maintenance, they have a long lifetime and are available in several different configurations with capacities ranging from 1 Ah to 12000 Ah. The lead in a lead-acid battery presents an environmental hazard if it is not properly disposed of. Lead-acid batteries should be recycled so that the lead can be recovered without causing environmental damage. 

Lithium-Ion Batteries –

The emergence of lithium-ion batteries also known as Li-ion batteries in the last decades has been quite significant. More than half of the consumer market consists of lithium-ion batteries. Due to lithium’s small atomic size, Li-ion batteries are capable of having a very high voltage and charge storage per unit mass and unit volume. Li-ion batteries can use several different materials as electrodes, hence there is a large variety of Li-ion battery compositions. Another main advantage of lithium-ion batteries is the slow self-discharge rate. Li-ion batteries tend to overheat and can be damaged at high voltages. In some cases, this can lead to thermal runaway and combustion.

Nickel-Metal Hydride Batteries –

Nickel-metal hydride batteries are essentially an extension of the proven sealed nickel-cadmium battery technology with the substitution of a hydrogen-absorbing negative electrode for the cadmium-based electrode. This substitution increases the battery’s electrical capacity for a given weight and volume and eliminates the cadmium which raises toxicity concerns. These batteries are extensively used in aerospace applications. Sealed Nickel-metal hydride batteries are available commercially as small cylindrical cells and are used in portable electronics. 

These current generation batteries have their flaws such as ageing, robust protection, maintenance, expensive manufacturing process disposability and recyclability. To overcome these disadvantages several strides are made by battery companies and researchers to create efficient and cleaner batteries. Fortunately, these battery technologies are the batteries of our near future.

Lithium - Sulphur Batteries –

In lithium-ion batteries, the lithium ions are stored in active materials acting as stable host structures during charge and discharge. In lithium-sulphur batteries, there are no host structures. While discharging, the lithium anode is consumed and sulphur is transformed into a variety of chemical compounds; during charging, the reverse process takes place. As these batteries use light active materials it has four times more energy density than lithium-ion batteries. Aviation and space industries can benefit from this battery technology. Major technology barriers to full-scale production of these batteries have already been overcome and have been slowly pushed towards mass-scale production.

Solid-State Batteries –

Solid-state batteries are batteries in which the liquid electrolyte is replaced with a solid compound which allows the lithium ions to migrate within it. Due to intensive worldwide research, new families of solid electrolytes have been discovered with very high ionic conductivity, similar to a liquid electrolyte, allowing this particular technological barrier to be overcome. Solid electrolytes are non-flammable when heated, unlike their liquid counterparts which also use high voltage high-capacity materials, enabling denser and lighter batteries with better shell life.

NanoBolt lithium tungsten batteries –

These rechargeable batteries are supposed to improve the existing lithium battery technology. This battery technology allows a layered structure that provides more surface area for ion transfer. Tungsten and carbon multi-layered nanotubes bond to the copper anode substrate and build up a web-like nanostructure. That forms a huge surface for more ions to attach to during recharge and discharge cycles. That makes recharging the NanoBolt lithium tungsten battery faster, and it also stores more energy. This results in the improvement of the recharge rates and overall energy storage due to the increase in the storage area for ions.

Gold nanowire gel electrolyte batteries –

To overcome the problem of deprivation of the lifetime of a battery after every charge, researchers came up with a solution using gold nanowires dipped inside an electrolyte gel. These gold nanowires are coated with a layer of manganese dioxide to increase the resilience of the nanowires. When the researchers charged the resulting electrode, it was discovered that it went through 2,00,000 cycles without losing its ability to hold a charge, compared to 6,000 cycles of a conventional battery.

Graphene Battery Technology –

The major difference between solid-state batteries and graphene-based batteries is the composition of one or both electrodes. Both electrodes can be made up of carbon allotropes. As graphene is a versatile molecule with many unique and desirable properties, it can be adopted in a variety of ways as there is no one-size-fits-all solution for using graphene. Several versions of graphene-based battery technologies are Graphene-metal oxide hybrids, Graphene-Carbon Nanotube Hybrids, Graphene Lithium Sulphur batteries, Graphene Supercapacitors and Graphene fuel cells. Graphene-based batteries are quickly becoming comparable, in terms of efficiency, to older battery technologies.

Sodium-Ion batteries –

These batteries don’t require lithium to operate on instead it uses sodium, one of the most common materials on our planet compared to the rare metal lithium. Sodium-ion batteries have received much academic and commercial interest in the 2010s and 2020s as a possible complementary technology to lithium-ion batteries, largely due to the uneven geographic distribution, high environmental impact and high cost of many of the elements required for lithium-ion batteries. Chief among these are lithium, cobalt, copper and nickel, which are not strictly required for many types of sodium-ion batteries. Commercialising the batteries is expected to begin for smartphones, cars and more in the next five to 10 years.

TankTwo String batteries –

The current problem faced by electric vehicles is the slow recharging process which takes hours. To turn around this problem of charging from hours to minutes, TankTwo engineered a way to modularize a battery. The String Cell batteries contain a collection of independent self-organizing cells. Each string cell consists of a plastic enclosure, covered with a conductive material that allows it to quickly and easily form contact with others. An internal processing unit controls the connections in the electrochemical cell. To facilitate the quick charging of an EV, the little balls contained in the battery are sucked out and swapped for recharged cells at the service station. These discharged cells can later be recharged at off-peak hours.

These future battery technologies will power our smartphones, laptops, satellites, EVs, etc. Although the solutions are within our field of view so is our better battery-powered future.