Rechargeable Oxide Ion Batteries Based on Mixed Conducting Oxide Electrodes
Country of application:
Austria
Scope of innovation
☐ Office work
☒ Production / Service supply process
Sector-specific
☐ Yes / please, specify sector(s):
☒ No (relevant for all sectors)
Description of the needs
Lithium-ion batteries are ubiquitous today – from electric cars to smartphones. But that does not mean that they are the best solution for all areas of application.
Description of the solution
TU Wien has now succeeded in developing an oxygen-ion battery that has some important advantages. Although it does not allow for quite as high energy densities as the lithium-ion battery, its storage capacity does not decrease irrevocably over time: it can be regenerated and thus may enable an extremely long service life.
In addition, oxygen-ion batteries can be produced without rare elements and are made of incombustible materials. A patent application for the new battery idea has already been filed together with cooperation partners from Spain. The oxygen-ion battery could be an excellent solution for large energy storage systems, for example to store electrical energy from renewable sources.
The ceramic materials that the TU Wien team studied can absorb and release doubly negatively charged oxygen ions. When an electric voltage is applied, the oxygen ions migrate from one ceramic material to another, after which they can be made to migrate back again, thus generating electric current. Ceramics are not flammable – so fire accidents, which occur time and again with lithium-ion batteries, are practically ruled out. In addition, there is no need for rare elements, which are expensive or can only be extracted in an environmentally harmful way.
The prototype of the battery still uses lanthanum – an element that is not exactly rare but not completely common either. But even lanthanum is to be replaced by something cheaper, and research into this is already underway. Cobalt or nickel, which are used in many batteries, are not used at all.
Description of the effect
The oxygen-ion battery, however, can be regenerated without any problems: If oxygen is lost due to side reactions, then the loss can simply be compensated for by oxygen from the ambient air.
The new battery concept is not intended for smartphones or electric cars, because the oxygen-ion battery only achieves about a third of the energy density that one is used to from lithium-ion batteries and runs at temperatures between 200 and 400 °C. The technology is, however, extremely interesting for storing energy.
Company/companies that developed/implemented/offer the innovation
Dr. Alexander Schmid
Institute of Chemical Technologies and Analytics
TU Wien
+43 1 58801 15820
alexander.e164.schmid@tuwien.ac.at