Eco Factor: Core-Shell Silicon Nanowires can improve the capacity of Li-Ion batteries.
Technologies of the future will depend more on portable power sources than on anything else. The performance of these batteries needs to be considerably improved to keep the promise of a better and fossil-fuel free world of tomorrow. Researchers from Stanford University claim to have fixed most of the problems associated with traditional Li-Ion batteries, with the introduction of silicon into these batteries.
Silicon for long has shown its potential in solar cells, but its introduction in Li-Ion batteries was pulled back by one major drawback – silicon expands too much during ion insertion, rendering the battery unstable. Traditional Li-Ion batteries work on the movement of lithium ions from anode, which mostly is made of graphite to the cathode. The graphite material ensures no volume change during ion transfer, but the overall capacity of the battery is limited and it finally limits possibilities of next-gen devices and cars.
This new research overcomes the drawbacks of both graphite and normal silicon with the use of a nanostructured form of silicon dubbed the core-shell structure. The core here is crystalline and the shell is amorphous, a property that changes the qualities of both the materials, making it a successful anode material. Amorphous silicon also performs better over rapid charge-discharge cycles.
The Dark Side:
The cost of Li-Ion batteries is already high and the introduction of silicon would only make things worse. If researchers are seeing the possibilities of a green world in silicon based Li-Ion technology, they should also strive to make the product as cheap as possible to ease its global adoption.
Via: Physorg
