The Technion registered a patent for the development, which was published in the world's leading electrochemistry journal
The Technion researchers succeeded in developing a silicon-air battery capable of working for thousands of hours non-stop. The development was published in the leading scientific journal Electrochemistry Communications.
Professor Yair Ein Eli, from the Faculty of Materials Engineering at the Technion, has been researching metal-air batteries for many years. In the batteries we know, there is a positive electrode (+) called the cathode and a negative electrode (-) called the anode. They are separated by a buffer and inside it a liquid that contains ions (electrolyte). "In metal-air batteries there is a considerable saving in weight and costs, because they actually do not have a built-in cathode," he explains. "In this battery, the cathode is the oxygen that comes from the environment through a membrane (this is the battery used, for example, by the hearing impaired, because it is light and long-lasting). There have been attempts in the past to upgrade such a battery also for electric vehicles and portable electronic devices, and now this has received a renewed impetus when the companies 'Toyota' and 'Panasonic' are cooperating in implementing a zinc-air battery in future electric cars." The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT together with other commercial companies, such as IBM and Tesla, and with the encouragement of the American government, are trying to develop rechargeable lithium-air batteries, which can reach up to ten times the energy density of the existing technologies today (will work ten times longer time, or ten times more travel distance).
Professor Ein Eli suggests using a silicon-air battery. "Silicon (iron) is a very common material, it is not dangerous and extremely stable, lightweight and has a high energy content (four electrons are transferred during the oxidation of a single silicon atom) and we actually turn it into sand (iron dioxide) during the discharge of the battery. It will be a non-rechargeable battery, like the batteries we know today," he explains.
Such a battery, with an unlimited shelf life, would be good for use in the medical field (such as in pumps for diabetics or in hearing aids) and in the field of electronics, as a built-in part of the device built entirely of silicon. The innovative battery will be able to provide energy for up to thousands of working hours, without replacement.
The development work of the silicon-air battery was done with the funding of the Binational Research Fund, with the participation of the doctoral student Gil Cohen and Dr. David Strosbetsky from the Technion and Prof. Digby MacDonald from the University of Pennsylvania in the USA.
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Their patent from 1999 as seen here:
http://www.lutec.com.au/patents.htm
The patent was received in the USA in 2003
What they describe as "the theory behind the device" is nothing more than a short text that hides more than it reveals:
http://www.lutec.com.au/other/lutec0711.pdf
To this day (with all the investors who jumped on the matter) they haven't sold anything.
Draw your own conclusions.
An article by Sky News Australia:
An electronics engineer claims to have invented a household electromagnetic generator, capable of producing 5 times more energy than it consumes - and all without pollution. Sounds like clean and renewable energy for every home, and only for $5,000. what do you think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efCelx7qe_M
the hatter:
Michael is right. You look for things left unsaid.
Besides that, silicon is indeed one of the most common materials in the ball, even if it is not a mineral per se.
Lithium for example, or zinc, or silver and even nickel, are much less common, and they are not necessarily minerals.
The contamination that exists according to you when charging the battery also exists in this one. But when you throw this battery out of your car window, it will pollute the environment much less. And yet this was not emphasized in the article as much as the fact that it is simply enough for more time was emphasized. that's it.
the hatter:
It seems to me that you are looking for justifications underground (and sand).
Is any claim among those you quoted incorrect?
Where does it say anything about a non-polluting magic solution?
It follows from here:
"Silicon (nitrogen) is a very common material, it is not dangerous and extremely stable, lightweight and has a high energy content (four electrons are transferred during the oxidation of a single silicon atom) and we actually turn it into sand (nitrogen dioxide) during the discharge of the battery"
And also the presentation of Zorn as a common substance is as accurate as the presentation of hydrogen as a common substance. On Earth, the substance appears as a compound
the hatter:
Can you point me to one sentence in the article from which you draw this conclusion?
Michael - for trying to present the battery as a non-polluting magic solution
the hatter:
It may be that your words are true and it may not be - I don't know from which materials and in which processes the form will be produced, but none of this is really important: a battery is by nature a device for storing energy that was put into it and not a device for creating energy, so what are you actually complaining about?
To Eyal:
The carbon dioxide that is now created as a result of burning fuel in the car that you complain about so much is of course not created from nothing - it is a compound of carbon and... oxygen. So in the meantime there is a double process - creation of carbon dioxide and consumption of oxygen. If they switch to the aforementioned batteries in terms of oxygen nothing will change, but instead of carbon dioxide we will now get sand. Isn't it better?
And since there is (almost) no pure zoron in nature, it has to be produced, a process that of course requires energy and is also polluting. I also assume (unless it's a leading manufacturer) that the energy needed to produce nitrogen and separate it from oxygen is the same as that obtained when the battery generates electricity and regenerates nitrogen dioxide.
Roy, thanks for your answer.
But it still doesn't feel good that there is another factor that the more it spreads and succeeds, the more it will damage the composition of the air we breathe. The question is quantitative: what will happen if this idea is so successful that every battery will be based on it? So the composition of the air inside the cities will surely change. There was more oxygen anyway, but less?
Reminds me of the case of recently introduced hydrogen powered cars. Come to solve an important problem, but the exhaust products are water vapor. And then the quantitative problem arises again: think of a reality where most if not all cars are like that. As if the whole city is networked with moisture producers! Instead of having a sweaty 70% humidity in the Tel Aviv summer you will have an impossible 90% humidity... same weight.
You forgot the issue of ground water and soil contamination by batteries, this problem will also disappear.
To Eyal
1. The battery will not be rechargeable = primary battery, what is called in the professional parlance, meaning it can be used and finally thrown away.
Unlimited shelf life = you can put it in a vacuum or in a place without oxygen and it will not lose its capacity. That means it will be able to work for another 100 years, unlike most primary batteries today (ordinary carbon zinc, except for thermal batteries) where the capacity is lost over time as a result of the electric field and the breakdown of materials in the battery.
2. There is no problem with oxygen in the air, the oxygen is created almost all the time mainly from the sea, but also from plants according to the earth. If you are already complaining about wasting resources, you have all the fresh water reservoirs that are wasted on nonsense. They are rarer and produced much more dear.
The matter is interesting. And now for two questions:
1. I don't understand that in the second paragraph before the end it says "...this will be a non-rechargeable battery...", and in the paragraph after it it says: "...such a battery, with an unlimited shelf life...". After all, silicon is used, which oxidizes and turns into sand. In the end it has to end doesn't it?
2. How appropriate is it to use an energy source that relies on the oxygen we breathe? It's not enough that the carbon dioxide is taking a bigger share than it deserves with our kind help, so that the oxygen is now being pushed out as well? Not suitable..
It's a genius thing: so let's market it in the market to create mass!!!!
Lami Bachar,
Read the penultimate paragraph again. Many will benefit from this product.
The considerations of the industry are financial viability
Sand sand and nothing to eat.
meanwhile what? Not sand and not at all...
Burning like crazy.
Why, in addition to all these knowledge-rich studies, are there no publications about working applications that know how to take advantage of the great science that the academy issues to us? As Ariel Sharon said at the time about the separation fence: "Start building"