{"id":30946,"date":"2023-03-14T10:44:47","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T10:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=30946"},"modified":"2023-03-14T10:44:47","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T10:44:47","slug":"innovating-rechargeable-battery-design-crab-shells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/innovating-rechargeable-battery-design-crab-shells\/30946\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovating rechargeable battery design with crab shells"},"content":{"rendered":"
Instead of throwing away the tough shells of crabs and lobsters, researchers are upcycling them into porous, carbon-filled materials with various uses. One team has used this crab carbon to innovate rechargeable battery design. From this, the team was able to create anode materials for sodium-ion batteries, an emerging competitor for lithium-ion chemistries.<\/p>\n
The work, \u2018Crab Shell-Derived SnS2\/C and FeS2\/C Carbon Composites as Anodes for High-Performance Sodium-Ion Batteries<\/a>,\u2019 is published in the journal ACS Omega. <\/em><\/p>\n Currently, lithium-ion batteries are the most common rechargeable battery technology, being used to power everyday technologies like phones, cars, and toothbrushes. It is estimated that they are the most popular battery storage option, dominating over 90% of the global grid market.<\/p>\n Although lithium has a variety of advantages, including high energy density and the ability to be combined with renewable technologies, there are concerns with the amount of raw material available to satisfy the continually rising demand. Thus, many researchers have begun to explore chemically similar rechargeable battery alternatives.<\/p>\n The researchers explored creating a biodegradable zinc-ion battery using the chitin in crab shells, however, ultimately decided that the wastes could be turned into hard carbon \u2013 a material that has been explored as a potential anode for sodium-ion batteries<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sodium-ion batteries are an emerging rechargeable battery technology that has critical advantages over lithium-ion batteries, including cost and performance. Researchers have argued that sodium-ion batteries should become less expensive than lithium-ion batteries, due to sodium\u2019s abundance in the ground.<\/p>\n As a major concern around lithium-ion batteries is the availability of the metal which causes unpredictable pricing, sodium\u2019s abundance would ensure price stability.<\/p>\n However, sodium ions are larger than lithium ions and are therefore incompatible with the anode of a lithium-ion battery, which is usually made of graphite. The researchers found that when hard carbon, derived from the crab shells, is combined with metallic semiconductor materials, such as the transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), the material can be used as a battery anode.<\/p>\nWhy is finding an alternative to lithium-ion batteries important?<\/h3>\n
Exploring emerging rechargeable battery technology<\/h3>\n