Making Batteries From Waste Glass Bottles
https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/46307[font face=Serif][font size=5]Making Batteries From Waste Glass Bottles[/font]
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UCR researchers are turning glass bottles into high performance lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and personal electronics[/font]
By Sarah Nightingale on April 19, 2017
[font size=3]RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) Researchers at the University of California, Riversides Bourns College of Engineering have used waste glass bottles and a low-cost chemical process to create nanosilicon anodes for high-performance lithium-ion batteries. The batteries will extend the range of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and provide more power with fewer charges to personal electronics like cell phones and laptops.
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Silicon Derived from Glass Bottles as Anode Materials for Lithium Ion Full Cell Batteries, an article describing the research was published today in the Nature journal
Scientific Reports. Cengiz Ozkan, professor of mechanical engineering, and Mihri Ozkan, professor of electrical engineering, led the project.
Silicon anodes can store up to 10 times more energy than conventional graphite anodes, but expansion and shrinkage during charge and discharge make them unstable. Downsizing silicon to the nanoscale has been shown to reduce this problem, and by combining an abundant and relatively pure form of silicon dioxide and a low-cost chemical reaction, the researchers created lithium-ion half-cell batteries that store almost four times more energy than conventional graphite anodes.
To create the anodes, the team used a three-step process that involved crushing and grinding the glass bottles into a fine white power, a magnesiothermic reduction to transform the silicon dioxide into nanostructured silicon, and coating the silicon nanoparticles with carbon to improve their stability and energy storage properties.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01086-8