Another chemical reaction at the cathode, allows it to attract these electrons, creating a flow of electrons – in other words, electricity. When a lithium-ion battery powers up, the graphite anode reacts with the lithium in the electrolyte, producing electrons that accumulate around the anode. Lithium-ion batteries, for example, use a graphite anode, a metal-oxide cathode (usually cobalt, nickel, manganese, iron, or aluminium), and a lithium salt in an organic solvent as an electrolyte. To understand why changing the chemistry of batteries is so difficult, consider that batteries generate energy through a series of chemical reactions. "Often solving one problem exacerbates another," he says. He compares changing one element in a battery to changing a chemical in a pharmaceutical.
The other is batteries comprised of more abundant materials such as sodium-ion batteries, aluminium-ion, and magnesium-ion batteries.īut changing the chemistry of batteries is easier said than done, says Professor Jacek Jasieniak, a professor of material sciences and engineering at Monash University. First, batteries that are trying to surpass the energy densities that lithium offers, such as solid-state batteries, lithium-sulphur, and lithium-air. Better living through chemistryīattery boffins have proposed a periodic table's worth of alternative compounds that could surpass lithium-ion batteries. So, if you want a breakthrough, it must come from a fundamental change in the chemistry," Maschmeyer says. All batteries, Maschmeyer explains, consist of three main building blocks: a positive electrode a negative electrode and an electrolyte that acts as a catalyst between the two sides. "The basic concept of what a battery is hasn't shifted since the 18th century," says Professor Thomas Maschmeyer, a chemist at the University of Sydney and founding chairman of Gelion Technology, a battery developer. If you want a breakthrough, it must come from a fundamental change in the chemistry. Why has the industry stalled? The short answer is that chemistry hasn't found a way to build a better battery.
But to do so he'll have to buck a 30-year trend that has seen lithium-ion reign supreme. Singh might disprove Edison's aphorism and deliver the better batteries the world will so clearly appreciate.