Resource World Magazine

58 www.resourceworld.com A P R I L / M A Y 2 0 1 9 Developments in Green Technologies by Jane Bratun GREEN TECHNOLOGIES NEW BATTERY CHEMISTRIES IMPROVE SAFETY AND REDUCE COSTS Funded by prominent venture capi- tal firms, Ionic Materials, Inc., based in Woburn, Massachusetts, has created a solid polymer that conducts ions at room temperature. Instead of a liquid electrolyte, Ionic uses a solid polymer (a plastic-like material) to allow lithium ions to flow from anode to cathode and back again. According to Ionic, this type of electrolyte functions as the cathode elec - trolyte, exhibits high conductivity at room temperature, has high voltage stability, is non-flammable, and is conducive to high- volume manufacturing techniques. Ionic Materials CEO, Mike Zimmerman, invented the flame-retardant and electri - cally insulating super-plastic that is also conductive to ions. When he first began investigating the battery electrolyte prob- lem, Zimmerman said two possible solid electrolyte materials being discussed at the time were glasses and ceramics. But at the time, these materials were brittle and frag- ile, hard to scale up, and tended to emit toxic gases when in use. Plastics were already being used as separators between cathodes and anodes, Zimmerman said. So he decided to try making the plastic separator into the solid electrolyte. Because it's basically a piece of plastic, it's almost infinitely malleable and can be manufactured in forms conducive to different uses – long, wide, and flat for powering tablets, or cylindrical to power flashlights, and even molded to fit in a car chassis. Improved cell-level safety may lead to performance improvements and cost reductions at the pack-level, particularly if cooling and battery management systems are eliminated or simplified. Ionic states that their polymer is com - patible with a number of next-generation chemistries that have the potential to sig- nificantly reduce battery costs per kilowatt hour (because they use lower-cost materi- als, or they enable much higher energy densities, or both). In May 2018, Ionic Materials was named the Company of the Year in CleanTech and Energy by the New England Venture Capital Association. The company received this prestigious award for its continued development of the world's first novel polymer electrolyte for solid-state batter - ies that addresses the limitations of today's batteries: safety, energy density and cost. NEW ENERGY STORAGE TECHNOLOGY MERGES SUPER CAPACITORS WITH BATTERIES Zap&Go, founded in 2013 with technol- ogy developed at the University of Oxford in England, is developing batteries that enable mobile phones to charge in seconds, cordless appliances like cleaners, drills and hair straighteners to perform as if they were plugged in, and electric vehicles that charge in the same time it takes to fill a tank with fuel today. They are also enabling the national grid to cope with the increasing demands of fast-charging electric vehicles by buffering the grid by storing off-peak or green electricity. This is a fresh approach to energy stor - age – first removing all the lithium and cobalt – that is 100% safe and low-cost. The company states their carbon-ion cells will not catch fire, no matter how fast they are charged. This also eliminates the memory effect problem that occurs when you have used your phone for a while; the device shows it is 100% charged, but the charge doesn't last as long. Zap&Go cells have none of that electrochemistry that can wear out the battery, so they claim 100,000+ charge/discharge cycles. But when their cells do need replacing, they can be recycled. Zap&Go's new carbon-ion or c-ion bat - tery is in its third generation. According to Stephen Voller, founder and Chief Executive, "It's a supercapacitor that per- forms like a battery. The conventional supercapacitor is great at charging really fast but doesn't hold onto its energy for very long." The breakthrough came when Zap&Go used carbon nanotube technology to combine the fast charging benefits of supercapacitors with the energy storage characteristics of a battery. The result is an extremely fast-charging battery that is built without the need for any rare earth metals or toxic chemicals like the cobalt that underpins many of today's lithium- ion battery chemistries. In Zap&Go's carbon-ion battery, "The principle material is carbon, which is read - ily available in many forms," Voller said. For now, Zap&Go is using carbon sourced from coconut shells, but Voller noted that

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