Cost Effective Catalysts For Metal-Air Battery
Source : Indian Express
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Approach “Cost Effective Catalysts For Metal-Air Battery” : Mains
- Zn-Air Batteries
- Bi Functional Catalysts
Why in News ?
A new non-precious metal-based bi-functional electrocatalyst (capable of catalyzing two different types of reactions) can decrease cost and increase the efficiency of metal air batteries.
Key Facts
- With the rise in demand for different energy sources, worldwide efforts are being made to develop different kinds of energy devices, such as lithium-ion batteries, lead-acid batteries, redox flow batteries, lithium-air batteries, zinc-air batteries, etc. sodium-ion batteries, fuel cells, and super capacitors.
- Zn-air Batteries
- Low cost and high energy density.
- Compact power sources for portable electronics and electric vehicles.
- A major challenge for such batteries is catalyst development.
- Bi Functional Catalysts
- A bi-functional catalyst works for oxygen reduction while discharging the battery and the same catalyst helps in oxygen evolution reaction during the charging cycle.
- Most of the conventional catalysts available consist of noble metals in their composition, making the batteries costly.
- Newly developed cost-effective electro-catalyst by anchoring transition metal ions into the sulfur-doped carbon framework via carbonization of a polymer called SPEEK (sulphonated polyether ether ketone).
- This catalyst synthesis method can also be used to recycle used ionomers (polymer composed of both neutral repeating units and ionized units).
- Cost-effectiveness is thus achieved by low loading of transition metal, high activity, and high cycling stability compared to many of the catalysts.
- The catalyst also leads to reduced voltage polarization, enabling higher energy efficiency and a stable charge-discharge characteristic.
- The results obtained were comparable to that of conventionally used noble metal-based catalysts with metal loading of 20% or higher.
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