Tech Briefs Magazine - May 2022 - BET-22

tery in an electrically powered product,
the battery life can be extended many
times - up to four times for commercial
electric vehicles. And whether for personal
electronic devices or industrial
technologies, the benefits for the end
consumer could be huge.
But in practice, today's supercapacitors
are too large for many applications
where they could be useful. They need
to be about the same size as the battery
they are connected to, which is an obstacle
to integrating them in mobile
phones or electric
cars. Therefore, a
large part of today's research and development
of supercapacitors is about
making them smaller.
Agin Vyas, doctoral student at the
Department of Microtechnology
Nanoscience at Chalmers University of
and
Technology, and his colleagues have been
working with developing 'micro' supercapacitors.
These are so small that they can
fit on the system circuits which control
various functions in mobile phones, computers,
electric motors, and almost all
electronics we use today. This solution is
also called 'system-on-a-chip'.
One of the most important challenges
is that the minimal units need to be
manufactured in such a way that they
become compatible with other components
in a system circuit and can easily
be tailored for different areas of use.
The new paper published by Vyas
demonstrates a manufacturing process
in which micro-supercapacitors are integrated
with the most common way of
manufacturing system circuits (known
as CMOS).
coating, a
" We used a method known as spin
cornerstone technique in
many manufacturing processes. This allows
us to choose different electrode
materials. We also use
alkylamine
chains in reduced graphene oxide, to
show how that leads to a higher
charging and storage capacity, " said
Vyas.
" Our method is scalable and would
involve reduced costs for the manufacturing
process. It represents a great
step forward in production technology
and an important step toward the practical
application of micro-supercapacitors
in both everyday electronics and
industrial applications. "
For more information, contact Agin
Vyas at agin@chalmers.se; +46 31-772
1000.
A High-Energy Density Lithium-Ion Battery
The battery could be used in a wide range of technologies including drones, electric vehicles, and household
electricity storage systems.
National Institute for Materials Science, Japan
N
ational
Institute
for Materials
Science (NIMS) and Softbank Corp.
have developed a lithium-air battery
with an energy density over 500Wh/
kg - significantly higher than currently
lithium-ion batteries. The research team
also confirmed that this battery can be
charged and discharged at room temperature.
In addition, the team found that
the battery developed by the team shows
the highest energy densities and best
cycle life performances. These results
signify a major step toward the practical
use of lithium-air batteries.
This research team had previously developed
original battery materials that
significantly increase the performance of
lithium-air batteries in ALCA-SPRINGsupported
research. The team then developed
a technique to fabricate high-energy-density
lithium-air cells at the NIMSSoftBank
Advanced Technologies Development
Center. Finally, the team created
a new lithium-air battery by combining
these new materials and the fabrication
techniques.
22
ab
Seperator
Metallic lithium
Porous carbon electrode
Wire mesh current collector
Electrolyte injection and electrode
stacking techniques
c
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
Electrolyte containing
a redox mediator
01
23
Areal capacity (mAh/cm2)
Gas diffusion and current
collector layer
Porous carbon
electrode
Figure. (a) New materials for lithium-air batteries developed by ALCA-SPRING project. (b) Cell
fabrication technique developed by the NIMS-SoftBank Advanced Technologies Development
Center. (c) Demonstration of stable discharge/charge cycles of lithium-air batteries with energy
density over 500Wh/kg operated at the room temperature. (Photo: NIMS)
Battery & Electrification Technology, May 2022
BET Tech Briefs 0522_1.indd 22
Cov
ToC
4/19/22 2:22 PM
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Tech Briefs Magazine - May 2022

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