The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust awarded the Technion a five million dollar grant to continue developing a light, friendly, long-life electric battery
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust gave the Technion a five million dollar grant to continue developing a light, friendly, long-life electric battery.
The grant was obtained through cooperation with Professor Gidi Greider, head of the Technical Energy Program (GTEP), and will be used for the establishment of the "Energy Storage System" of the Hemzli Foundation and to support the "Leaders in Energy Science" program.
"The Lucky Foundation is proud of the contract with the Technion in this important project," said Sandor Frankel, a trustee of the foundation.
"The grant from the Helmazley Foundation comes at an excellent time," said Professor Greider. "Two patents are expected to be approved in the US regarding the silicon-air battery - a new type of battery developed as part of a study headed by Professor Yair Ein Eli from the Faculty of Materials Engineering and the Technion's Energy Program. Now it is very important to create prototypes to protect the battery in terms of intellectual property, and develop it towards commercial production."
The "Energy Storage Complex" will consist of three separate laboratories where research in the field of batteries will be conducted. "These are a new type of batteries, which eliminate the need for the use of heavy metals. In this way, batteries can be produced that are lighter (relative to conventional batteries) and biodegradable," said the professor Ein Eli. "The friendly battery is very resistant to extreme dryness and extreme humidity. It has a high capacity and a potentially infinite shelf life."
The "Energy Storage System" will also include highly innovative equipment, which does not currently exist in Israel - for example, a multi-purpose X-ray diffraction system.
The technical energy program aims to attract new and excellent faculty members in the fields of energy. The "Leaders in Energy Science" program will provide salaries and funding (for equipment) to two new researchers for three years. Through a competitive compensation package and excellent research infrastructure, the Technion will be able to bring home excellent Israeli doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers who studied at leading universities abroad. "This is a major goal of the energy program, and we plan to recruit six new faculty members within six years," said Professor Greider.
In view of the rapid decrease in the sources of cheap hydrocarbons, and the need to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, the development of clean energies is an ever-burning need. The Technion's silicon-air battery, which Technion researchers developed over the past three years, can provide uninterrupted power for thousands of hours without the need for replacement. The battery is based on silicon nano-powder and atmospheric oxygen, and guarantees significant environmental benefits due to its tiny dimensions, long shelf life, and most importantly - the clean return of the silicon to its original state: sand.
This research has future implications in the fields of transportation, healthcare and electronics, as well as military applications. Possible uses are in medical devices, for example pumps for diabetics and hearing aids. Today, hearing aid batteries last between 7 and 10 days, and are sensitive to humidity and the environment. This means changing them at least once a week. The Technion researchers believe that within a year or two they will be able to significantly increase the power of the battery, and within three to four years to enable a power five times greater than the most powerful lithium-ion battery today.
"We are trying to create batteries that will last for months before needing to be replaced," said Professor Ein Eli. "And the dream is that they will also be rechargeable. We are in the race to the battery of the future - will it be a metal-air battery, a lithium battery or a silicon-air battery. I believe that silicone has significant advantages in aspects of environment, cost and safety. Lithium, for example, is an explosive and environmentally sensitive material."
In addition, lithium is a depleting resource, and half of the world's lithium supply originates in Bolivia. Under these circumstances - an expected shortage of lithium - Professor Ein Eli entered the picture with the promising silicon option.
A new study by Meridian International Research states that "the production of lithium (lithium carbonate) will only be sufficient to a very limited extent for the needs of the future global market of electric transportation" and that, "commercial production of lithium is harmful to the environment".
Professor Ein Eli and the battery he developed. Photo: Technion spokespeople.
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At the time, the Toyota company said that they were working on improving batteries for electric vehicles and that they had technology that would increase the charge density 10 times, meaning the capacity of the battery, and keep it at the same weight. But they talked about a development that would take 10 years... (XNUMX years have already passed)
Here in the article we only talk about small batteries, I wonder if this method is also suitable for large batteries.
The question is over:
Does anyone know anything about or have experience with nickel-iron batteries?
Their data looks phenomenal
The link originally provided has been deleted to avoid advertising for a specific company
indeed. But still, you need to quantify the oxygen consumption. There is reason to believe that the batteries in question consume more oxygen. That's why I say someone should do the math, because believe it or not it's just nice.
All existing fuel-based engines consume oxygen.
What is true is that regarding the oxygen compounds created by these engines there are natural processes that can eventually return the oxygen to the atmosphere, but I assume that if the silicon of the batteries is extracted from sand (which is implied by the expression "the clean return of the silicon to its original state: sand") then also a process Its production releases oxygen. If the production is based on solar energy then the result will be completely clean
The battery consumes oxygen from the air. Someone needs to do a calculation regarding the degree of risk in using such batteries. Looking to the future, a world that will switch to the use of batteries that consume oxygen, will be affected by the lack of oxygen for breathing. (?)