Scientists manage to create the first iron-ion battery without using lithium

A research team in India is working to replace the scarce and rather harmful lithium in batteries with a much more common and safer material, iron. The experimental battery has already passed the first laboratory tests.

The main problem of green energy is the collection and storage of generated electricity. Nowadays, rechargeable batteries made with lithium are coping with this task.

This material (lithium) is quite rare, and its extraction is far from being environmentally friendly (it requires a large water consumption and often leaks of toxic materials).

So scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras decided to replace lithium with iron. Indeed, its oxidation-reduction potential is practically not inferior to lithium, and the production price and environmental friendliness are much more preferable.

With a goal in mind, the engineers created a battery where the anode is made of mild steel, and the electrolyte is made of ether with iron perchlorator dissolved in it.

At the same time, the created battery withstood about 150 charge-discharge cycles. In this case, after 50 cycles, the capacity of the battery under test remained above 54% of the initial value. What is considered a sign of product stability.

At this stage, the capacity of such a battery is only 60% of the capacity of a lithium-ion battery of the same size. But the scientific group plans to bring this figure to an acceptable level by selecting a more optimal material for the cathode.

This development is very promising because, according to Bloomberg, by 2040 there will be literally explosive growth in the need for cheap energy storage systems. And their total capacity will increase 122 times.

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