The world is mainly using electrified transport. Right now, several automakers are exploring a future with all-electric product lines; some are also looking at things like hydrogen power or synthetic fuels. The second of them, may be a more viable solution if we continue make batteries with precious metals for everything we use every day – from our phone our car. OR, we can use metal that is more abundant and even cheaper to make.
According to the report of Treehugger, Smonists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found a cheaper way to make those batteries that will not deprive Mother Earth of precious lithium, cobalt and nickel. The ingredients to save this metal (for both the precious metal and your money) are aluminum, sulfur, and molten salt. Yes, it’s aluminum like your aluminum foil, and the sulfur you can find in hard water, with a “molten salt electrolyte.”
John F. Elliot, Professor Emeritus of Materials Chemistry told News MIT that researchers looked at the periodic table first to understand which metals could easily substitute for lithium. Iron won’t work because it doesn’t have “the right electrochemical properties for an efficient battery.” But aluminum, one of the most abundant metals on Earth, could be. Aluminum is combined with sulfur, which could be suitable for “carrying ions back and forth during charging and discharging”. It will also be cheap. The molten salts, with their relatively low melting points, can get down to body temperature and still be effective as an electrolyte.
The researchers also found that along with discovering a cheap way to manufacture batteries, they found batteries that don’t burn and don’t require any insulation or special measures to stop them. corrosion.
By no means do some of those solutions come with our unfriendly mining and splitting problems, as Treehugger pointed out. However, it ‘It is possible that the product itself can make up for the battery products already in use today, which still makes for a definite improvement.
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This may not be the solution to the already looming shortages and lack of access to precious metals for our EV-hungry industry, but it is certainly a step that could not only make safer batteries, but for the auto industry, perhaps make electrified vehicles more accessible cost-wise by all.
You can and should read more about how MIT discovered this new battery formula, in this article by clicking here.
