- within Energy and Natural Resources topic(s)
I'd very recently written an article on an exciting breakthrough in sodium ion batteries, which are deemed a safer and more sustainable alternative to their widespread lithium ion battery 'friends'. It now looks like there might also be some promising advancements being made with calcium ion batteries, another potentially safer, cheaper and more sustainable alternative.
Researchers at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Shanghai Jiao University have developed a new type of calcium ion battery that performs much better than previous versions. Until now, calcium ion batteries have struggled with various technical challenges, particularly with moving the calcium ions efficiently inside the battery and maintaining a stable performance over multiple charging cycles. However, the researchers have designed a new material called a quasi-solid-state electrolyte that helps the calcium ions travel more easily between the battery electrodes. Furthermore, tests showed a strong battery performance, the new calcium ion batteries delivering high energy capacity and maintaining stable operation over 1000 charge-discharge cycles. These results suggest that, in time, calcium ion batteries could be suitable for real world applications such as EV vehicles and renewable energy storage. This is a fantastic result as calcium is one of the Earth's most common elements, which could reduce our reliance on scarce resources and lower environmental impact.
More information on the development can be found here.
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