The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series takes its inspiration from trees. It describes the development of a battery made from a sliver of wood coated with tin that shows promise for becoming a tiny, long-lasting, efficient and environmentally friendly energy source.
Based on a report by Liangbing Hu, Ph.D., and Teng Li, Ph.D., in ACS' journal Nano Letters, the new podcast is available without charge at iTunes and from http://www.acs.org/globalchallenges.
The device is 1,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper, according to the report. Hu explains that today's batteries often use stiff, non-flexible components. These are too rigid to release the stress that occurs as ions flow through the battery. The scientists knew that wood fibers from trees are supple and naturally designed to hold mineral-rich water, similar to the electrolyte used in batteries.
They decided to explore use of wood as the base of an experimental sodium-ion battery. Using sodium rather than lithium would make the device environmentally friendly.
He describes lab experiments in which the device performed successfully though 400 charge-discharge cycles, putting it among the longest-lasting of all sodium-ion nanobatteries. Batteries using the new technology would be best suited for large-scale energy storage applications, such as wind farms or solar energy installations, he says.
Source: American Chemical Society