A University of Texas at Dallas researcher has made a discovery that could open the door to cellphone and car batteries that last five times longer than current ones.
Dr. Kyeongjae Cho, professor of materials science and engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, has discovered new catalyst materials for lithium-air batteries that jumpstart efforts at expanding battery capacity. The research was published in Nature Energy.
"There's huge promise in lithium-air batteries. However, despite the aggressive research being done by groups all over the world, those promises are not being delivered in real life," Cho said. "So this is very exciting progress. (UT Dallas graduate student) Yongping Zheng and our collaboration team have demonstrated that this problem can be solved. Hopefully, this discovery will revitalize research in this area and create momentum for further development."
Lithium-air (or lithium-oxygen) batteries "breathe" oxygen from the air to power the chemical reactions that release electricity, rather than storing an oxidizer internally like lithium-ion batteries do. Because of this, lithium-air batteries boast an energy density comparable to gasoline -- with theoretical energy densities as much as 10 times that of current lithium-ion batteries, giving them tremendous potential for storage of renewable energy, particularly in applications such as mobile devices and electric cars.
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