A team led by the University of Bristol used nanomaterials made from seaweed to make a strong battery separator. This opens the door to cleaner and more effective ways to store energy.
One of the most promising high-energy and affordable energy storage systems for the upcoming wave of large-scale applications is sodium-metal batteries (SMBs). However, uncontrolled dendrite growth, which penetrates the battery’s separator and causes short-circuiting, is one of the main barriers to the development of SMBs.
The team was able to make a separator out of cellulose nanomaterials made from brown seaweed by building on work done at the University of Bristol and collaborating with Imperial College and University College London.
The study, which was published in Advanced Materials, explains how fibers containing these seaweed-derived nanomaterials not only prevent sodium electrode crystals from penetrating the separator but also enhance battery performance.
The purpose of a separator is to keep the plus and minus ends of a battery apart so that the charge can be transported freely. We have demonstrated that the separator can be made extremely strong using materials derived from seaweed, preventing it from being pierced by sodium-based metal structures. According to Jing Wang, the first author and a PhD student at the Bristol Composites Institute, “It also enables greater storage capacity and efficiency, increasing the lifetime of the batteries—something which is key to powering devices like mobile phones for much longer (BCI).” The study’s co-authors include Dr. Amaka Onyianta from the BCI, who developed the cellulose nanomaterials.
I was excited to learn that these nanomaterials can strengthen separator materials, which will make it easier for us to transition to sodium-based batteries. This would eliminate the need for scarce materials such as lithium, which is frequently mined unethically and necessitates the extraction of significant natural resources such as water.
Professor Steve Eichhorn is in charge of the research at the Bristol Composites Institute, which “really shows that greener ways to store energy are possible without harming the environment in the process.”
Upgrading production of these materials and replacing current lithium-based technology presents the next challenge.
