NanoComputer

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have designed a new type of nanostructured-carbon-based catalyst that could pave the way for reliable, economical next-generation batteries and alkaline fuel cells, providing for practical use of wind- and solar-powered electricity, as well as enhanced hybrid electric vehicles. Los Alamos researchers Hoon T. Chung, Piotr Zelenay and Jong H. Won, the latter now at the Korea Basic Science Institute, describe a new type of nitrogen-doped carbon-nanotube catalyst. The new material has the highest oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity in alkaline media of any non-precious metal catalyst developed to date. This activity is critical for efficient storage of electrical energy. The new catalyst doesn’t use precious metals such as platinum, which is more expensive per ounce than gold, yet it performs under certain conditions as effectively as many well-known and prohibitively expensive precious-metal catalysts developed for battery and fuel-cell use. Moreover, although the catalyst is based on nitrogen-containing carbon nanotubes, it does not require the tedious, toxic and costly processing that is usually required when converting such materials for catalytic use.

“These findings could help forge a path between nanostructured-carbon-based materials and alkaline fuel cells, metal-air batteries and certain electrolyzers,” said Zelenay. “A lithium-air secondary battery, potentially the most-promising metal-air battery known, has an energy storage potential that is 10 times greater than a state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery. Consequently, the new catalyst makes possible the creation of economical lithium-air batteries that could power electric vehicles, or provide efficient, reliable energy storage for intermittent sources of green energy, such as windmills or solar panels.”

The research hax been published in a paper appearing recently in Nature Communications.

Source: http://www.lanl.gov/

More powerful batteries could help electric cars achieve a considerably larger range and thus a breakthrough on the market. Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zurich and Empa -Switzerland – have now developed a nanomaterial which enables considerably more power to be stored in lithium ion batteries. They provide power not only for electric cars, but also for electric bicycles, smartphones and laptops; nowadays, rechargeable lithium ion batteries are the storage media of choice when it comes to supplying a large amount of energy in a small space and light weight.

Monodisperse tin nanodroplets in an electron microscopic

During the development of the nanomaterial, the issue of the ideal size for the nanocrystals arose, which also carries the challenge of producing uniform crystals. “The trick here was to separate the two basic steps in the formation of the crystals – the formation of as small as a crystal nucleus as possible on the one hand and its subsequent growth on the other,” explains Maksym Kovalenko, head of the research team at ETH Zurich. By influencing the time and temperature of the growth phase, the scientists were able to control the size of the crystals. “We are the first to produce such small tin crystals with such precision,” says the scientist.

Source: http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/

The Rice University lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan determined that Hybrid ribbons of vanadium oxide (VO2) and graphene, is a superior cathode for batteries that could supply both high energy density and significant power density. The ribbons created at Rice are thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper, yet have potential that far outweighs current materials for their ability to charge and discharge very quickly. Cathodes built into half-cells for testing at Rice fully charged and discharged in 20 seconds and retained more than 90 percent of their initial capacity after more than 1,000 cycles.

“This is the direction battery research is going, not only for something with high energy density but also high power density,” Ajayan said. “It’s somewhere between a battery and a supercapacitor.”
These new Hybrid ribbons could be decisive to build high-power lithium-ion batteries suitable for electric cars.
The research appears online this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.
Source: http://news.rice.edu/

A research team at the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been developing catalysts that use cheaper metals such as nickel and iron to make fuel cells more economical. The one they report here can split hydrogen as fast as two molecules per second with an efficiency approaching those of commercial catalysts. The center is one of 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers established by the DOE Office of Science across USA to accelerate basic research in energy.
Hyundai ix35 FCEV (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle)

“A drawback with today’s fuel cells is that the platinum they use is more than a thousand times more expensive than iron,” said chemist R. Morris Bullock, who leads the research at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
such a catalyst is the first iron-based catalyst that converts hydrogen directly to electricity. The result moves chemists and engineers one step closer to widely affordable fuel cells.
Source: http://www.pnnl.gov

Researchers at the University of South California – USC - have developed a new lithium-ion battery design that uses porous silicon nanoparticles in place of the traditional graphite anodes to provide superior performance. The new batteries—which could be used in anything from cell phones to hybrid cars—hold three times as much energy as comparable graphite-based designs and recharge within 10 minutes. The design, currently under a provisional patent, could be commercially available within two to three years.

“It’s an exciting research. It opens the door for the design of the next generation lithium-ion batteries,” said Chongwu Zhou, professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, who led the team that developed the battery. Zhou worked with USC graduate students Mingyuan Ge, Jipeng Rong, Xin Fang and Anyi Zhang, as well as Yunhao Lu of Zhejiang University in China. Their research was published in Nano Research in January. “The easy method we use may generate real impact on battery applications in the near future,” Zhou said.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/

Looking toward improved batteries for charging electric cars and storing energy from renewable but intermittent solar and wind, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory -ORNL-have developed the first high-performance, nanostructured solid electrolyte for more energy-dense lithium ion batteries.
Today’s lithium-ion batteries rely on a liquid electrolyte, the material that conducts ions between the negatively charged anode and positive cathode. But liquid electrolytes often entail safety issues because of their flammability, especially as researchers try to pack more energy in a smaller battery volume. Building batteries with a solid electrolyte, as ORNL researchers have demonstrated, could overcome these safety concerns and size constraints.

“To make a safer, lightweight battery, we need the design at the beginning to have safety in mind,” said ORNL‘s Chengdu Liang, who led the newly published study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. “We started with a conventional material that is highly stable in a battery system – in particular one that is compatible with a lithium metal anode.”

Source: http://www.ornl.gov/

Researchers at Rice University have refined silicon-based lithium-ion technology by literally crushing their previous work to make a high-capacity, long-lived and low-cost anode material with serious commercial potential for rechargeable lithium batteries. The team led by Rice engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal and research scientist Madhuri Thakur reported in Nature’s open access journal Scientific Reports on the creation of a silicon-based anode, the negative electrode of a battery, that easily achieves 600 charge-discharge cycles at 1,000 milliamp hours per gram (mAh/g). This is a significant improvement over the 350 mAh/g capacity of current graphite anodes. That puts it squarely in the realm of next-generation battery technology competing to lower the cost and extend the range of electric vehicles.

“We previously reported on making porous silicon films,” said Biswal. “We have been looking to move away from the film geometry to something that can be easily transferred into the current battery manufacturing process. Madhuri crushed the porous silicon film to form porous silicon particulates, a powder that can be easily adopted by battery manufacturers.”

Source: http://news.rice.edu/

Sometimes even batteries can use a boost of energy, according to the focus of a Kansas State University graduate student’s research. Steven Arnold Klankowski, a doctoral candidate in chemistry, La Crescent, Minn., is working under Jun Li, professor of chemistry, to develop new materials that could be used in future lithium-ion batteries. The materials look to improve the energy storage capacity of batteries so that laptops, cellphones, electric cars and other mobile devices will last longer between charges. Additionally, lithium-ion batteries that can store energy and deliver power more rapidly will be a more viable alternative power source for vehicles and machines powered by alternative energy, Klankowski said. For example, solar- and wind-powered technologies could switch to the battery in the evening when there is a lack of wind or sunlight to produce energy.

"The battery market is moving very fast these days as everyone is trying to get an advantage for their electric vehicles and cellphones," said Klankowski, who also has a background in materials engineering. "As our devices get smarter, so must our methods to supply greater amounts of portable electrical energy to power these devices."

Source: http://www.k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/
sept12/lithiumbattery92712.html

Nanometer-scale structures consisting of cheap metal and oxide spheres were recently demonstrated as an excellent catalyst for a hydrogen-production reaction powered only by sunlight. The study was completed by Ming-Yong Han and his colleagues of the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Singapore, working in collaboration with a team of researchers from Singapore and France. Hydrogen is crucial for the oil-refining industry and the production of essential chemicals such as the ammonia used in fertilizers. It may be also the future of the electric car. Since producing hydrogen is costly, scientists have long searched for alternative, energy-efficient methods to separate hydrogen atoms from abundant sources such as water.

“Our work provides insight into mechanisms that will be useful for the future development of high-performance photocatalysts,” says Han. Indeed, Han and his co-workers were able to improve the efficiency of the hydrogen production even further: they increased the area of the metal-oxide interface by using larger gold nanoparticles.
The Janus particles were 100 times more efficient as a catalyst for hydrogen production than bare gold nanoparticles. Moreover, they were over one-and-a-half times better than another common type of plasmonic nanoparticle, core-shell particles, in which the oxide material forms a coating around the metal nanoparticle.
Source: http://www.research.a-star.edu.sg/research/6552

Rechargeable Li-ion batteries are the industry standard for mobile phones, laptop and tablet computers, electric cars, and a range of other devices. While Li-ion batteries have a high energy density and can store large amounts of energy, they suffer from a low power density and are unable to quickly accept or discharge energy. This low power density is why it takes about an hour to charge your mobile phone or laptop battery, and why electric automobile engines cannot rely on batteries alone and require a supercapacitor for high-power functions such as acceleration and braking. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute -Troy, NY-research team, led by nanomaterials expert Nikhil Koratkar, sought to solve this problem and create a new battery that could hold large amounts of energy but also quickly accept and release this energy. Such an innovation could alleviate the need for the complex pairing of Li-ion batteries and supercapacitors in electric cars, and lead to simpler, better-performing automotive engines based solely on high-energy, high-power Li-ion batteries.

“Li-ion battery technology is magnificent, but truly hampered by its limited power density and its inability to quickly accept or discharge large amounts of energy. By using our defect-engineered graphene paper in the battery architecture, I think we can help overcome this limitation,” said Koratkar, the John A. Clark and Edward T. Crossan Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer. “We believe this discovery is ripe for commercialization, and can make a significant impact on the development of new batteries and electrical systems for electric automobiles and portable electronics applications.”
Source: http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=3071&setappvar=page(1)

Considered a major a fuel of the future, hydrogen could be used to power buildings, portable electronics and vehicles – but this application hinges on practical storage technology. But for the first time, engineers at the University of New South Wales in Australia have demonstrated that hydrogen can be released and reabsorbed from a promising storage material, overcoming a major hurdle to its use as an alternative fuel source. The researchers from the Materials Energy Research Laboratory in nanoscale (MERLin) at UNSW have synthesised nanoparticles of a commonly overlooked chemical compound called sodium borohydride and encased these inside nickel shells. Their unique “core-shell” nanostructure has demonstrated remarkable hydrogen storage properties, including the release of energy at much lower temperatures than previously observed.
“No one has ever tried to synthesise these particles at the nanoscale because they thought it was too difficult, and couldn’t be done. We’re the first to do so, and demonstrate that energy in the form of hydrogen can be stored with sodium borohydride at practical temperatures and pressures,” says Dr Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou from the School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW.

Source: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-technology/nano-structures-realise-hydrogen%E2%80%99s-energy-potential

Researching for clean energy generation,  scientists at Harvard University have demonstrated  that  a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC) that converts hydrogen into electricity,  can also store electrochemical energy like a battery. This fuel cell can continue to produce power for a short time after its fuel has run out.

“Unmanned aerial vehicles, for instance, would really benefit from this,” says lead author Quentin Van Overmeere, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). “When it’s impossible to refuel in the field, an extra boost of stored energy could extend the device’s life span significantly.” The finding, which appeared online in the journal Nano Letters, will be most important for small-scale, portable energy applications, where a very compact and lightweight power supply is essential and the fuel supply may be interrupted.

Source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/06/fuel-cell-keeps-going-after-hydrogen-runs-out/

Chemical reactions on the surface of metal oxides, such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, are important for applications such as solar cells that convert the sun's energy to electricity. Now University of Washington scientists have found that a previously unappreciated aspect of those reactions could be key in developing more efficient energy systems.

New systems could include cells that would produce more electricity from the sun's rays, or hydrogen fuel cells efficient enough for use in automobiles, said James Mayer, a UW chemistry professor. "As we think about building a better energy future, we have to develop more efficient ways to convert chemical energy into electrical energy and vice versa," said Mayer.

Chemical reactions that change the oxidation state of molecules on the surface of metal oxides historically have been seen as a transfer solely of electrons. The new research shows that, at least in some reactions, the transfer process includes coupled electrons and protons.
Source: http://www.newswise.com/articles/new-twist-on-old-chemical-process-could-boost-energy-efficiency

 Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators have developed a new catalyst that reversibly converts hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide to a liquid under very mild conditions. The work — described in a paper published online March 18, 2012, in Nature Chemistry — could lead to efficient ways to safely store and transport hydrogen for use as an alternative fuel.

“This is not the first catalyst capable of carrying out this reaction, but it is the first to work at room temperature, in an aqueous (water) solution, under atmospheric pressure — and that is capable of running the reaction in forward or reverse directions depending on the acidity of the solution,” said Brookhaven chemist Etsuko Fujita, who oversaw Brookhaven’s contributions to this research. “When the release of hydrogen is desired for use in fuel cells or other applications, one can simply flip the ‘pH switch’ on the catalyst to run the reaction in reverse,” said Brookhaven chemist James Muckerman, a co-author on the study. He noted that the liquid formic acid might also be used directly in a formic-acid fuel cell.

Source: http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=1400&template=Today

Engineers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, known as PNNL, in Richland, WA – USA,, are conducting research that could go a long way toward making the cars more affordable — not necessarily to buy, but to operate. And that could ultimately make the cars more popular with the public. While internal-combustion engines generate a lot of heat, making it easy to heat the passenger cabin in winter, electric vehicles produce very little excess heat. As a result, providing electricity for the same amount of cabin heat can reduce their driving range by up to 40 percent. The researchers want to create a new, 5-pound molecular heat pump, the size of a 2-liter bottle, that would handle both heating and cooling and allow the cars to travel longer distances before they'd need to be plugged in again.

 Instead of using a conventional heat pump to control heating and air conditioning, the cars would be heated and cooled with a new class of nanomaterial — or an "electrical metal organic framework" 

"We're really just barely under way," said Pete McGrail, of Pasco, a laboratory fellow and engineer who has worked at PNNL for 29 years. "The vehicle is going to be more attractive because it's going to be able to travel longer distances on the same charge you're putting in overnight," McGrail said. "So it's going to make it more marketable, more attractive, and it's going to take less energy."
Source: http://energytech.pnnl.gov/research_areas/research_area_description.asp?id=202

Dreamweaver International Inc, an US company based  in Greenville, South Carolina, has developed a new non woven battery separator made from a combination of nanofibers that provides 300% higher power. The technology allows  higher transmission of electricity in the battery, improving the power available in electric vehicles, power tools and other high power applications. 

The job of a battery separator is to be a perfect barrier between the electrodes, while also acting as a perfect window to the electrolyte. Because of the above attributes, the technology allows for thinner, lighter and smaller batteries.

Source: http://www.dreamweaverintl.com/