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Lithium-Sulphur Battery Tuesday, June 02, 2009 - Anuradha Menon Home >> Picture Of The Day >> General Technology   
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| Researchers from the University of Waterloo have developed a lithium-sulphur battery that can store and deliver three times more power than regular lithium ion batteries. By enhancing the electrochemical performance of a lithium-sulphur battery, the team at Waterloo’s Department of Chemistry was successful in creating a higher powered battery that could soon be commercialized. | ||||||||||
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Professor Linda Nazar, lead researcher on the project, explains that lithium-sulphur batteries have long been attractive to scientists due to the higher energy densities that sulphur provides when paired with lithium. Additionally, sulphur is relatively inexpensive in comparison with other materials used in lithium batteries and allows for a safe, low cost, long lasting rechargeable battery with low carbon emission energy. “The difficult challenge was always the cathode, the part of the battery that stores and releases electrons in the charge and recharge cycles,” said Dr. Nazar. “To enable a reversible electrochemical reaction at high current rates, the electrically-active sulphur needs to remain in the most intimate contact with a conductor, such as carbon.” The team developed solutions to increase performance at a nanoscale level. A mesoporous carbon was used to start off the process. This carbon is highly structured, porous and at a nanoscale has a much uniformed pore diameter and volume. A nano-casting technique was employed to assemble carbon rods that have a diameter of 6.5 nanometers into channels three nanometers wide. To keep the empty channels and carbon rods in position and contain the structure, carbon microfibres were inserted. To fill the nanoscale voids, the team bonded heated and melted sulphur on top of the carbon nanorods. The sulphur flows and is imbibed into the channels by capillary forces as it shrinks to form sulphur nanofibres. The research team continues to study the material to work out remaining challenges and refine the cathode’s architecture and performance. “This composite material can supply up to nearly 80 percent of the theoretical capacity of sulphur, which is three times the energy density of lithium transition metal oxide cathodes, at reasonable rates with good cycling stability,” said Dr. Nazar. A patent has been filed for the process and commercialization is already being planned. TFOT has previously written about Toshiba’s speedy recharge battery that can be recharged to 90 percent of its capacity with a current of 50 amperes (A) in less than five minutes. We have also written about nanowire batteries, able to produce ten times the amount of electricity of a comparable Li-ion battery. Additional information on the Sulphur-Lithium batteries can be obtained here and more can be found at Dr. Nazar’s project website. Icon image: A schematic diagram of the sulfur (yellow) confined in the interconnected pore structure of mesoporous carbon, formed from carbon tubes propped apart by carbon nanofibres. (Credit: Nature Materials) |
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Nice Post! Lithium batteries are all the rage now, and they have certainly unseated the good old alkaline battery for some very good reason. The thing which I like most in this blog that a nano-casting technique was employed to assemble carbon rods that have a diameter of 6.5 nanometers into channels three nanometers wide. http://www.battery4sale.com/ |
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Review by T.S for Rating: My Nokia cell phone is 5 years old and still works good, but the battery life has been etasdily getting worse, so I decided to go with a new battery instead of a much more expensive new phone. So here is what I know about trying to make sure you get a new battery and not some old used piece of crap.1)If you dont want to spend around $10 for a new battery you dont have to continue to read this review.2)there are 3 listings for this battery on amazon. one has about 30 reviews, the next has about 16 reviews and the third has about 5 reviews. the first listing with 30 reviews has a battery failure rate at about 33 percent. the second listing with 16 reviews has a battery failure rate at about 50 percent, and the third listing has only one 2 star rating out of 5 reveiews.3) now the prices, the listing with 30 reciews has a price range between $5.53 and $9.19, the second listing with 16 reviews has a price range between $6.67 and $9.19 and the third listing with 5 reviews has a price range between $7.98 to $14.08.4) I paid $10.68 for my battery when the retail price in stores ranges from $18 to $30, so its still a better deal on amazon, and my battery was listed as brand new in retail package (sold by CCM ACCESSORIES)and when i received the battery, it was UN-OPENED in a Nokia Original accessories package. besides the original nokia package, how else do i know this battery is new? If you look at the pictures of the batteries listed, they all say made in japan, my original battery says made in china and the brand new battery i received is also made in china, i cant get any original than that 5)so once again the old saying that says, you only get what you pay for works out again, you maybe able to order a cheaper battery, and it may work great, but you run the risk of having it fail, like all those bad reviews you can read about So far my battery is working really good .. |
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