Experimental Chlorine Batteries

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A team from Standford took a new look at the design of single-use chlorine-based batteries. They were amazing at storing lots of energy but the chlorine was too aggressive. But using electrodes with carbon nanospheres could solve that problem.


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Batteries are a sore spot of our civilization and thus a lot of research is put into them. Scientists at Stanford University are experimenting with an old technology of one-use chlorine batteries. They are attempting to get usable technology out of them and they seem to be successful. They developed a new version of these batteries that are not only rechargeable but can also carry six times more energy than current standard lithium-ion batteries.

The breakthrough lies in stabilizing the chlorine reaction in the battery. The new battery is a technology that uses the alkaline metal chlorine. It is based on chemistry that was first used in the seventies as lithium-thionyl chloride. The original batteries are very good at storing energy in high densities. Their problem was the highly reactive chlorine as it made the batteries usable only once.

In a regular rechargeable battery, the electrons travel into a different type of molecules during discharge. When such a battery is charging the electrons move back into the original molecules. The original chlorine batteries had sodium or lithium chloride change into pure chlorine. But chlorine is so reactive that it wasn’t possible to change it into a chloride with good enough efficiency.

Guanzhou Zhu and his colleagues solved this by developing a new type of electrode made from porous carbon. The carbon works like a sponge that soaks in all the “nasty” chlorine molecules and keeps that safe so they can be turned back into a chloride. So, when the battery is charged the chlorine molecules are captured in the pores of carbon nanospheres. Batteries with this architecture can currently handle up to 200 charge-recharge cycles and there is a lot of space to grow. Compared to lithium-ion batteries that can last anywhere between 500 and 1000 cycles it sounds low but remembers, this battery can store 6 times more energy.

To be more precise, in experiments the scientists proved that their battery stores 1200 mAh per gram of material. If the technology succeeds and gets put into industrial use the applications are very obvious and maybe we could see phones that last a week with a single charge.

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