“Given the high energy and power density demonstrated, this innovative cell could be potentially implemented for both smart grid and wearable electronics.” “We are excited to see that liquid metal could provide a promising alternative to replace conventional electrodes,” Professor Yu said. That flexibility allows these batteries to potentially power everything from smartphones and watches to the infrastructure underpinning the movement toward renewable energy. The bigger the battery, the more power it can deliver. It can charge and deliver energy several times faster, the researchers said.īecause of the liquid components, the battery can be scaled up or down easily, depending on the power needed. The room-temperature battery promises more power than today’s lithium-ion batteries, which are the backbone of most personal electronics. In the paper, the researchers note that it may be possible to create a battery with even lower melting points using different materials. The battery includes a sodium-potassium alloy as the anode and a gallium-based alloy as the cathode. Ding is the lead author of a paper on the room-temperature battery the team published recently in Advanced Materials. “This battery can provide all the benefits of both solid- and liquid-state - including more energy, increased stability and flexibility - without the respective drawbacks, while also saving energy,” said Yu Ding, a postdoctoral researcher in associate professor Guihua Yu’s research group in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering. This represents a major change, because current liquid-metal batteries must be kept at temperatures above 240 degrees Celsius. The metallic electrodes in the team’s battery can remain liquefied at a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit), the lowest operating temperature ever recorded for a liquid-metal battery, according to the researchers. Liquid-state batteries can deliver energy more efficiently, without the long-term decay of sold-state devices, but they either fall short on high energy demands or require significant resources to constantly heat the electrodes and keep them molten. Solid-state batteries feature significant capacity for energy storage, but they typically encounter numerous problems that cause them to degrade over time and become less efficient. The UT researchers have created what they call a “room-temperature all-liquid-metal battery,” which includes the best of both worlds of liquid- and solid-state batteries. Most batteries are composed of either solid-state electrodes, such as lithium-ion batteries for portable electronics, or liquid-state electrodes, including flow batteries for smart grids. AUSTIN, Texas - Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have built a new type of battery that combines the many benefits of existing options while eliminating their key shortcomings and saving energy.
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