History of Chemistry: Improvement in Battery Technology

Benjamin Franklin did not manufacture batteries, but he used the term "battery" for the first time and used his capacitor for power experiments. This is the first real battery invented by Alessandro Volta in 1800. (3) The battery is called Volta Mountain, and a pair of copper and zinc disks separated by a layer of cardboard dipped in cloth or salt water are on top of each other. The volcano pile creates a continuous and stable flow and never loses a lot of electric charge even if it is not used even after a long time.

Battery technology enables energy storage for a short period of time (4 hours). The current lithium-ion battery (lithium ion) chemistry is ideal for high-power and short-time applications. However, the lifetime of new chemicals such as air flow and metals is long. Indeed, the best place for Fulidic Energy's zinc-air battery technology is 4 to 24 hours and it is used in various island communities all over the world. The price of a conventional lithium-ion battery drops along a learning curve similar to solar energy, and the price decreases by about 20% each time it doubles.

From the current battery research situation, lithium ion technology is very likely to be approaching optimization, the actual improvement of the battery involves a completely new chemical reaction, which will make today's batteries obsolete. But according to Less, this is only half. "Now we may be approaching basic scientific limits, but there are still plenty of engineering space." A simple example is part of a battery design that has not been mentioned yet. Together, it could cause an explosive reaction. To prevent this, the battery includes a separator that allows only lithium ions to pass through. Thinning the diaphragm can increase the space for energy storage, but instead the risk of explosion of the battery increases.