The world is getting warmer and more pronounced, and carbon dioxide is becoming the culprit. We can't just spray all the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but use it more. Scientists are looking to collect it from the air and hide it underground. Storing it in concrete, converting it to carbon nanofibers and even making fuel from it. MIT researchers have now found another way to reuse this unwanted element - making lithium-carbon dioxide battery.
Carbon dioxide may sound very common, but the problem is that converting it to a different form usually requires high voltage and sufficient energy, which offsets the benefits of removing it from the atmosphere from the beginning.
So the MIT team began to study whether it could capture carbon dioxide and use it in batteries. Since carbon dioxide is not very active, previous attempts to use lithium-carbon dioxide batteries required metal catalysts, but researchers have found a use here. The method of carbon electrode.
First, carbon dioxide is preactivated by incorporating carbon dioxide into the amine solution. The aqueous solution is then mixed with another liquid electrolyte and used in batteries having a carbon cathode and a lithium anode.
'This technology can activate carbon dioxide for easier electrochemistry,' said study author Betar Gallant. 'The two chemicals - aqueous amines and non-aqueous battery electrolytes - are usually not used together, but we found them The combination brings new and interesting behaviors that increase the discharge voltage and allow continuous conversion of carbon dioxide.'
This battery not only provides electricity comparable to existing lithium batteries, but also converts the carbon dioxide in the electrolyte to a solid mineral carbonate form when the battery is discharged. Compared to most other technologies, this is the carbon dioxide from the gas. A more efficient way to convert to a solid, then the solid form can be used for other purposes - including the manufacture of carbon cathodes for future batteries.
However, at present, the battery is only in a proof of concept. Researchers say that commercial lithium-carbon dioxide batteries still take several years. At the same time, several other problems need to be solved, such as the number of repetitions of charging - currently, the battery can only Run about 10 charge cycles.
The study was published in the journal Joule.
