New Delhi, Nov 21 A research team in a government institute in Bengaluru designed a cathode material suitable for the more environmentally friendly Zinc batteries, which can store more energy, the government said on Friday.
The scientists developed a simple 'activation process' for a common battery material, vanadium oxide, which could significantly boost the energy density and longevity of zinc‑ion batteries, resulting in more efficient batteries, according to an official statement by the Ministry of Science & Technology.
The activated material enables the zinc-ion battery (ZIB) to achieve a dramatically higher energy density and incredible longevity. It can store much more energy and be recharged thousands of times without significant degradation.
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 during use.
As an alternative, recently, aqueous zinc-ion-based battery (ZIB) systems have been attracting attention due to their high energy storage capacity, safety, and environmental friendliness.
Led by Dr. Ashutosh Kumar Singh at the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology, the team used a thermo‑electrochemical treatment to deliberately introduce useful defects into vanadium oxide, producing a zinc‑vanadium oxide, or Zn‑V2O5.
Zinc-vanadium oxide (Zn-V2O5) has tiny spaces and pathways that allow it to store and release far more energy efficiently compared to V2O5, the statement said.
This new, imperfect structure, called the Zn-V2O5 structure, improved structural stability and lowered the barrier for zinc ion movement during battery charging/discharging processes.
The statement noted that the innovation helps batteries gain high energy storage performance. This represents a straightforward and efficient approach to enhancing the overall energy density and stability of the usual cathode materials, it said.
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