In May 2013, McKinsey’s Global Institute named energy storage devices or physical systems that store energy for later use as one of 12 disruptive technologies that will impact the economy and shape the future. Batteries power our always-on digital lifestyle but seldom get respect. Today, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries power not only CE devices but also electric and hybrid cars. However, there is a downside to Li-ion. It can overheat and burn, as alleged in two fires on board Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner.
Clean-tech company Georelab, based in Singapore, is researching a new technology that promises to control the thermal issues plaguing Li-ion batteries. It is setting its sights on the electric vehicle cooling market. And at the Argonne National Laboratory’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) near Chicago, Dr. Kris Pupek is leading a team to look at making Li-ion batteries five times more powerful and five times less expensive in the next five years. It recently received a $120 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, and has assembled a collaborative team from America’s national laboratories and universities, as well as interested companies.
Dr. Pupek is focused on manipulating the battery’s three essential components in new ways to improve energy delivery and storage and reduce costs. Experimenting within the context of a battery’s components — two electrodes (an anode and a cathode) and an electrolyte that allows positively charged ions to move between the electrodes — may yield new advances.
A challenger to the Li-ion battery is the lithium-air battery, in which metallic lithium is oxidized at the anode and reduced at the cathode. Basically, it uses atmospheric oxygen as the electrolyte. This reduces its weight and means its energy density is theoretically enormous. However, the lithium-air method is hard to recharge, temperamental, highly flammable and requires heavy safety systems to stop them from catching fire.
Microbatteries
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a team of researchers led by William King are developing microbatteries that fit inside a credit-card thin device and can charge 1,000 times faster than normal batteries — powerful enough to jumpstart a dead car battery while powering a cell phone. These new nano-engineered microbatteries out-power even the best supercapacitors and could drive new applications in radio communications and compact electronics.
The new microbatteries offer both power and energy. And by slightly modifying the structure, the researchers can adjust them for a wide range of applications on the power versus energy scale. Researchers are working on integrating microbatteries with otherelectronics components, as well as commercializing them for low-cost manufacturability.
New research is also helping to advance battery offload and energy storage capabilities. Massachusetts Clean Energy, a publicly-funded agency, recently awarded grant money through a competitive program, InnovateMass, intended to spur economic growth and promote development of energy-efficient technologies. One grant recipient, Ambri Inc., aims to commericalize battery technology developed by MIT. Its liquid metal battery technology can store excess energy for later use.
As researchers unlock new functionality in physical materials, size and scalability, advancements in batteries and energy storage could lead to cost-competitive electric vehicles, increased electricity to developing countries, and improved efficiency in the utility grid and portable devices.
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