Research paves way for eco-friendly, efficient Zinc-ion batteries to replace Lithium ones

Indian scientists have unveiled a breakthrough that could power the next generation of eco-friendly batteries. Moving beyond lithium batteries, researchers have designed a cathode material suitable for the more environment friendly Zinc batteries. These can enhance the energy density and stability of the materials resulting in more efficient batteries.

Significant advances in energy storage over the past few decades have been focused largely around lithium batteries because of their desirable performance, mainly high energy density, although they come with several environmental and safety risks.

As an alternative, aqueous zinc-ion-based battery (ZIB) systems have recently started attracting attention due to their high energy storage capacity, safety and environmental friendliness, according to information shared by the Ministry of Science and Technology on Friday.

Researchers around the world are developing various cathode materials that can be suitable for zinc-ion-based electrolyte systems and can last for a long time with high energy storage capacity. Several oxide materials are already being investigated in this regard, but have failed to demonstrate the required performance in zinc-ion-based systems due to many limitations.

A team led by Dr Ashutosh Kumar Singh at the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), have come up with a new simple strategy to activate the cathode material by thermo-electrochemical treatment to modify its structure.

This could help the batteries gain high energy storage performance, representing a straightforward and efficient approach to enhancing the overall energy density and stability of the usual cathode materials.

The innovation, according to the study published in Advanced Energy Materials, a peer reviewed journal, lies in a simple "activation" process for a common battery material, vanadium oxide by treating it with a special combination of heat and electricity. The activated material enables the ZIB to achieve a dramatically higher energy density and incredible longevity. It can also store much more energy and be recharged thousands of times without significant degradation.

“By realising the difficulty involved in stabilizing the cathode material as well as structurally modifying to gain the enhanced performance, we opted for an oversimplified but novel strategy to activate the usual cathode materials used for Zn-ion battery,” Rahuldeb Roy, a member of the research team said.

He added that this study not only advances the field of ZIBs but also this particular technique can also be applied to other cathode materials to enhance storage performance. It could lead to greater efforts to develop sustainable and efficient energy storage technologies for a greener future.