The Evolution Of Battery Technology And Requirement Of Battery Materials
Batteries have come a long way from being a composite of zinc and copper electrodes and brine solution to the lithium ion batteries of today. However, the basic of battery technology has remained the same – electron flow from anode plate to cathode plate aided by the electrolyte. Battery materials needed in these batteries are zinc, copper and sodium chloride solution. However, these are not rechargeable and are expensive. They also have a low charge density and were beset with a problem of hydrogen accumulation at the bottom of zinc electrodes.
Battery Materials In Later Batteries
The requirement of materials underwent a change with the evolution of technology. Daniel cells came up with a different design and required copper and copper sulphate along with zinc and zinc sulphate as electrodes and sulphuric acid as electrolyte. So the requirement of battery materials basically increased requiring the addition of copper sulphate, zinc sulphate and sulphuric acid. However, charge density of the battery did not increase much, and further research on battery was continued.
Materials for Rechargeable Batteries
The need for rechargeable batteries gave rise to lead acid batteries. These batteries are composed of plates made of an alloy of lead and antimony, lead peroxide, sponge lead, sulphuric acid etc. The benefit of these batteries is that they can produce high voltage. This is used in a large number of industrial applications and in vehicles to provide the starting charge.
However, these batteries need a number of materials. The container itself needs a number of materials to build. It contains glass, ebonite, lead lined wood, hard rubber, ceramic or plastic. Other materials for batteries of this type are lead peroxide acts and sponge lead. Lead peroxide acts as anode and sponge lead acts as cathode when the battery is charging. However, when the battery is discharging the anode and cathode plates get reversed.
Nickel Cadmium Battery
This too is a rechargeable battery, but it uses metallic cadmium and nickel oxide hydroxide as two electrodes. They are not very useful in high voltage applications. So they cannot replace lead acid batteries. However, they do have some advantages too. You really don’t need too many materials for batteries of this technology. These batteries are quite cheap and can be used with different devices, but can supply upto 1.2 volts. You can store these batteries easily, charge them fast, and can undergo around 100 cycles of charging and discharging.
Lithium Ion Batteries
Lithium Ion Batteries
However, it is the lithium ion batteries that have brought a revolution in the field of battery technology. It has also made battery technology simple and storage easy. However, you do need a completely different set of materials for this new generation battery. You need cobalt, vanadium, aluminium, lithium salts etc to make such batteries function. These are rechargeable batteries that can undergo thousands of charge-discharge cycles. They also have a high charge density. Moreover, they discharge very slowly if left on their own. In fact, they discharge fast for the first 4 hours at a rate of around 5%. But after that the self-discharge rate goes down to about 1-2% per month.
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