Lithium-ion batteries are the rage of the tech world. They go into all kinds of devices, from smartphones to tablets to other niftier gadgets. Given the explosive growth of the mobile platform, the demand for these batteries has risen exponentially over recent times. But this increased demand also comes with many problems.
The primary problem is that the increasingly larger volumes of lithium have to provided for these batteries which, in turn, exist naturally in regions such as China, Bolivia and Chile. The origin of the element causes a lot of political questions for the manufacturers of the batteries. And so, researchers have been trying to find an alternative way of juicing up the batteries, which would be at least as cheap as lithium.
Researchers have been considering the use of sodium-ion batteries as an apt alternative which can be cheaper than lithium-ion batteries and long lasting. To that end, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Shinichi Komaba has been exploring the possibility of using sucrose as a fuel for these batteries.
Much to the delight of the researchers, sucrose can be easily converted into a material that can then be used as an anode in the sodium-ion battery. The experiments, done so far, to gauge the efficacy of sucrose as a sodium-ion material have been very promising so far. And the researchers are hopeful that this may eventually translate to the possibility of large-scale productions of sucrose-using sodium-ion batteries.
Image Courtesy: Digi Info
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