Sometimes, battery research involves MacGyver-like ingenuity.
That's the case for experts at South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. The team made a successful power pack prototype using seawater, wood waste, and even a substance found in urine, according to a school news release. It calls to mind the popular TV character, who often engineered outrageous solutions using rubber bands, paperclips, and other everyday items.
Seawater batteries use an abundant — oceans cover 70% of Earth — source for the cathode material, providing an alternative to costly metals. But they suffer from slow kinetics and other problems that limit efficiency, according to the study's abstract.
In answer, the team needed to develop an affordable catalyst that could improve the salty electrode. For reference, when batteries operate, ions move between the anode and cathode through the electrolyte, per a U.S. Department of Energy description.
This is where wood waste and urine enter the lab, replacing platinum as a catalyst. The UNIST creation facilitates effective electrochemical reactions and quick discharges. The experts used lignin, abundant in wood and used to make paper and biofuels, in combination with urea. Urea is a nitrogen-rich substance found in wastewater, UNIST reported.
"Conventional electrocatalysts, primarily noble metals, are scarce and expensive. In this context, carbon materials derived from biowaste have garnered considerable attention," according to the abstract.
To make the catalyst, the team "reacted" the lignin with urea at 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit, doping "every part of the lignin structure" with nitrogen. This process created a high-performing catalyst. The innovation performed as well as — and in some cases even better than — platinum, all according to UNIST.
"We have proposed a carbon-neutral approach that not only replaces expensive precious metal catalysts but also maximizes the value of biomass and industrial waste," professor Dong Woog Lee said in the release.
Battery innovation is crucial to electric vehicle and renewable energy storage advancements. Other odd ingredients being studied in labs elsewhere include cow hair and potassium. The tech is part of global efforts to curb and eliminate heat-trapping air pollution production, fumes that are linked by medical experts from multiple countries to increased dementia risks, among other health problems.
It's a big concern with many solutions. Some can be implemented in nearly any home. By switching out your old light bulbs for energy-efficient LEDs, for example, you can save hundreds of bucks a year, depending on how many you change. What's more, the old illuminators produce five times the air pollution as the latest versions.
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Absolutely 📈 For UNIST's part, the experts said their process could be applied to "various energy storage systems" and battery types. Someday, wood waste, seawater, and a substance found in urine could be helping to store the energy to power your home.
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