500 cycles: new catalyst moves rechargeable zinc-air batteries forward
TU Darmstadt chemists built a catalyst that let a zinc-air battery charge and discharge up to 500 times in lab tests.
Scientists made a new part that helps a special battery recharge many times. This kind of battery could one day hold much more power. It is still only a lab test, so it will not be in devices soon.
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Why it matters
Zinc-air batteries could store much more energy than lithium-ion, but they are hard to recharge.
Worth a look: it shows where future batteries may come from.
The details
- A team led by Prof. Jörg J. Schneider at TU Darmstadt published the work in Advanced Science.
- The catalyst is tiny nickel-iron spinel particles on carbon nanohorns doped with nitrogen and phosphorus.
- In experiments it supported up to 500 charge-discharge cycles.
- Zinc-air batteries could in theory hold up to five times more energy than today's lithium-ion batteries.
- It is early basic research; no product date or cost figures are given. Single-use zinc-air cells already exist, such as hearing aid batteries.
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