The battery of the future might run on sugar

 

 Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science have found pyrolyzed sucrose to be a surprisingly effective material for the anode of sodium-ion batteries

Researchers at the Tokyo University of Science have turned to sugar as part of a continuous effort to control Japan's growing import costs associated with building lithium-ion batteries. It seems that sugar may be the missing ingredient for building rechargeable batteries that are more robust, cheaper, and capable of storing more energy.
Lithium-ion batteries are ubiquitous in portable electronics, but concerns over rapidly growing demands for lithium – a metal that is mainly found in politically sensitive regions such as Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and China – have pushed countries like Japan to try and develop viable alternatives for a cheap, high-performance rechargeable battery.
Sodium-ion batteries have been put forward as one of the possible successors to lithium-ion technology. Among their advantages, they promise to be more durable and cheaper to manufacture. However, being in an early developmental phase, their performance isn't currently quite up to par.
Associate Professor Shinichi Komaba and his team have been working on narrowing this performance gap and recently discovered that sucrose – the main constituent of sugar – can be easily made into a cheap and effective material for the anode of a sodium-ion battery.
The team heated sucrose to temperatures of up to 1,500 °C (2,700 °F) in a controlled oxygen-free atmosphere, a process known as pyrolysis. The result is a hard carbon powder that, when embedded in a sodium-ion battery, can achieve a storage capacity of 300mAh, 20% higher than conventional hard carbon.
While this is just one more step toward developing an effective sodium-ion battery, Komaba predicts that his group could achieve their final objective of a commercially competitive battery in around five years.
The video below, provided by Diginfo, is a short recap of the findings.
Sources: Diginfo, Stanford University

New low-cost material could help bolster carbon capture

A new material called NOTT-300 could help reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants, such as this one in central Utah

Researchers at the University of Nottingham have developed another weapon in the ongoing war to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from fossil fuel-burning power plants. The researchers have created a new porous material called NOTT-300 that they claim is cheaper and more efficient than existing materials at capturing polluting gases, such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, from flue gas.
While a wholesale switch from the burning of fossil fuels to greener alternatives such as solar, wind and wave power technologies would be the most environmentally friendly way to meet our ever-increasing demand for electricity, the simple fact is that the move will only be made incrementally. Carbon capture and sequestration is seen by many as one of the necessary steps on the road to a greener future, but current methods are expensive and consume large amounts of energy themselves.
The University of Nottingham researchers claim their NOTT-300 material offers a marked improvement over existing carbon capture methods that use a solvent that adsorbs CO₂ and then releases water vapor to leave a concentrated stream of CO₂ when heated. In comparison, NOTT-300 boasts a high uptake of CO₂ and SO₂ and releases the adsorbed gas chemicals through a simple reduction of pressure.
The material is also highly selective, with little or no adsorption into its pores of other gases, such as hydrogen, methane, nitrogen or oxygen. It also boasts high chemical stability to all common organic solvents and is stable in water at temperatures of up to 400° C (752° F). Additionally, as it is synthesized from cheap organic materials with water as the only solvent, it is cheap to produce.
“Our novel material has potential for applications in carbon capture technologies to reduce CO₂ emissions and therefore contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” says Professor Martin Schröder, Dean of the Faculty of Science at The University of Nottingham. “It offers the opportunity for the development of an ‘easy on/easy off’ capture system that carries fewer economic and environmental penalties than existing technologies. It could also find application in gas separation processes where the removal of CO₂ or acidic gases such as SO₂ is required.”
The team’s research is published in the journal Nature Chemistry.
Source: University of Nottingham