It's a paradox, but despite the tremendous path that electronics has done over the past 30 years, all mobile devices are still equipped with lithium-ion batteries, which entered the market as early as 1991, when the usual CD player was the pinnacle of engineering in portable technology.
Many useful properties of new samples in electronics and gadgets are leveled by the scanty time of power supply of these devices from a mobile battery. Scientific soap and inventors would have stepped forward long ago, but they are kept by the "anchor" of the battery.
Let's take a look at what technologies can transform the electronics world in the future.
First, a little history
Most often, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are used in mobile devices (laptops, mobile phones, PDAs and others). This is due to their advantages over the previously widely used nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) and nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries.
Li-ion batteries have much better parameters. However, it should be borne in mind that Ni-Cd batteries have one important advantage: the ability to provide high discharge currents. This property is not critically important when powering laptops or cell phones (where the share of Li-ion reaches 80% and their share is becoming more and more), but there are many devices that consume high currents, for example, all kinds of power tools, electric shavers, etc. P. Until now, these devices have been almost exclusively the domain of Ni-Cd batteries. However, at present, especially in connection with the restriction of the use of cadmium in accordance with the RoHS directive, research on the creation of cadmium-free batteries with a high discharge current has intensified.
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Primary cells ("batteries") with a lithium anode appeared in the early 70s of the 20th century and quickly found application due to their high specific energy and other advantages. Thus, the long-standing desire to create a chemical current source with the most active reducing agent, an alkali metal, was realized, which made it possible to dramatically increase both the operating voltage of the battery and its specific energy. If the development of primary cells with a lithium anode was crowned with relatively rapid success and such cells firmly took their place as power sources for portable equipment, then the creation of lithium batteries ran into fundamental difficulties, which took more than 20 years to overcome.
After a lot of testing throughout the 1980s, it turned out that the problem of lithium batteries is twisted around lithium electrodes. More precisely, around the activity of lithium: the processes that took place during operation, in the end, led to a violent reaction, called "ventilation with the emission of a flame." In 1991, a large number of lithium batteries were recalled to the manufacturing plants, which were used for the first time as a power source for mobile phones. The reason - during a conversation, when the current consumption is maximum, a flame was emitted from the battery, burning the face of the mobile phone user.
Due to the instability inherent in metallic lithium, especially during charging, research has moved to the field of creating a battery without the use of Li, but using its ions. Although lithium-ion batteries provide a slightly lower energy density than lithium batteries, Li-ion batteries are safe when provided with the correct charge and discharge conditions. However, they are not immune to explosions.
In this direction, too, while everything is trying to develop and not stand still. For example, scientists from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) have developed a new type of lithium-ion battery that has record-breaking performance. First, it charges in 2 minutes to 70% of its maximum capacity. Secondly, the battery has been working almost without degradation for more than 20 years.
What can we expect next?
Sodium
According to many researchers, it is this alkali metal that should replace the expensive and rare lithium, which, moreover, is chemically active and fire hazardous. The principle of operation of sodium batteries is similar to that of lithium - they use metal ions to transfer charge.
For years, scientists from various laboratories and institutes have struggled with the disadvantages of sodium technology, such as slow charging and low currents. Some of them managed to solve the problem. For example, the pre-production samples of BroadBit batteries charge in five minutes and have one and a half to two times the capacity. After receiving several awards in Europe, such as the Innovation Radar Prize, the Eureka Innovest Award and a number of others, the company moved on to certification, factory building and obtaining patents.
Graphene
Graphene is a flat crystal lattice of carbon atoms one atom thick. Thanks to its huge surface area in a compact volume, capable of storing charge, graphene is an ideal solution for creating compact supercapacitors.
There are already experimental models with a capacity of up to 10,000 Farads! Such a supercapacitor was created by Sunvault Energy in cooperation with Edison Power. The developers claim that in the future they will present a model, the energy of which will be enough to power the whole house.
Such supercapacitors have many advantages: the possibility of an almost instant charge, environmental friendliness, safety, compactness, and also low cost. Thanks to the new technology for producing graphene, akin to printing on a 3D printer, Sunvault promises the cost of batteries almost ten times less than that of lithium-ion technologies. However, industrial production is still a long way off.
Sanvault also has competitors. A group of scientists from the University of Swinburn, Australia, also presented a graphene supercapacitor, which has a capacity comparable to lithium-ion batteries. It can be charged in a few seconds. In addition, it is flexible, which will allow it to be used in devices of various form factors, and even in smart clothes.
Atomic batteries
Nuclear batteries are still very expensive. In the near future they will not be able to compete with the familiar lithium-ion batteries, but we cannot fail to mention them, because sources that have been continuously generating energy for 50 years are much more interesting than rechargeable batteries.
Their principle of operation, in a sense, is similar to the operation of solar cells, only instead of the sun, the source of energy in them is isotopes with beta radiation, which is then absorbed by semiconductor elements.
Unlike gamma radiation, beta radiation is practically harmless. It is a stream of charged particles and is easily shielded by thin layers of special materials. It is also actively absorbed by the air.
Today, the development of such batteries is carried out in many institutes. In Russia, NUST MISIS, MIPT and NPO Luch announced their joint work in this direction. Earlier, a similar project was launched by the Tomsk Polytechnic University. In both projects, the main substance is nickel-63, obtained by neutron irradiation of the nickel-62 isotope in a nuclear reactor with further radiochemical processing and separation in gas centrifuges. The first prototype of the battery should be ready in 2017.
However, these beta-voltaic power supplies are low power and extremely expensive. In the case of a Russian development, the estimated cost of a miniature power source can be up to 4.5 million rubles.
Atomic power supply based on tritium NanoTritium from City Labs.
Nickel-63 also has competitors. For example, the University of Missouri has been experimenting with strontium-90 for a long time, and miniature beta-voltaic batteries based on tritium can be found commercially. At a price in the region of a thousand dollars, they are able to power various pacemakers, sensors or compensate for the self-discharge of lithium-ion batteries.
Luminous keychain with tritium.
Experts are calm for now
Despite the approach to mass production of the first sodium batteries and active work on graphene power supplies, experts in the industry do not predict any revolutions for the next few years.
The company Liteko, which operates under the wing of Rusnano and produces lithium-ion batteries in Russia, believes that there are no reasons for a slowdown in market growth yet. “The steady demand for lithium-ion batteries is primarily due to their high specific energy (stored per unit of mass or volume). According to this parameter, they have no competitors among the rechargeable chemical power sources produced in series at the moment,”the company comments.
However, in the case of commercial success of the same BroadBit sodium batteries, the market can reformat in a matter of years. Unless the owners and shareholders want to make a lot of money on the new technology.
