As one of the most abundant metals on earth, manganese can replace expensive cobalt in battery cathodes. At present, lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles rely on cobalt to a certain extent. This blue-gray metal can safely provide more power to the battery, but it also brings a problem that cobalt is expensive and often needs to be Mining in politically unstable areas. With the growth of the energy storage market, researchers have begun to look for battery chemicals that are less dependent on cobalt or not dependent on cobalt at all.
According to foreign media reports, researchers at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory are developing a manganese-centric technology because manganese is one of the most abundant metals on earth. The research is funded by the DOE's Vehicle Technologies Office and can be used not only for electric vehicles, but also for the power grid (variable energy resources such as wind and solar energy also need to use battery storage) and other industries.
The exploration of alternative materials has focused on battery cathode materials. When the battery is in a charged state, lithium ions will flow through the electrolyte from the cathode to the anode, and when discharging, the process will be reversed. Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have developed a lithium-rich nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cathode material, which increases energy storage capacity by 50% to 100% compared to traditional cathode materials. The technology has been licensed to global manufacturers, including GM, and GM uses this cathode material in its Chevrolet Volt and Bolt models.
Now, with the support of a funded technology mature project within Argonne National Laboratory, researchers are improving NMC technology to improve the lithium and manganese content of existing technologies to increase the energy density and safety of the battery while reducing cost.
In the past few years, most of the research on such materials has been carried out at the Argonne National Laboratory’s scientific user facility, the Advanced Photon Source (APS), which allows scientists to analyze what is happening inside the battery from an atomic perspective. The researchers also used X-ray spectroscopy and diffraction techniques to help understand how the material performed during battery operation.
Other strategies to reduce the cobalt content include using a higher ratio of nickel, but this method also has problems. Although nickel reserves are much more abundant than cobalt, the current nickel used in batteries is less than one-fifth of the total reserves. As demand rises, the supply of nickel will be much less than expected, causing nickel prices to soar, because everyone will turn to nickel-rich battery chemicals.
Compared with batteries with high cathode nickel content, batteries with rich cathode manganese are cheaper and safer. As is common in battery research, only improvements to one or two aspects of the battery need to be weighed against the pros and cons. In this case, increasing the content of manganese and lithium will reduce the stability of the cathode, and the battery performance will change over time.
Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are designing and testing new cathode structures, coatings and electrolyte additives to help solve this problem. (Yu Qiuyun)
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