Affordable zinc-ion battery built using office laminator can replace lithium cells

Researchers at Australia’s Flinders University have developed a safe and low-cost aqueous zinc-ion battery (AZIB) using a modified polymer.

Their new study reveals the process of making the battery and also suggests that AZIBs could emerge as a budget-friendly alternative to Li-ion batteries in the future. This is because zinc is more abundant, and is less expensive than Lithium.

For instance, while the concentration of Lithium in Earth’s crust is only 0.002 percent, Zinc, on the other side, stands at 0.02 percent — 10 times more than that of lithium.

“The demand and consumption of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have led to resource shortages and supply-chain issues of strategic metals including lithium and cobalt,” the study’s authors said .

“AZIBs stand out because of the much higher abundance of zinc in the earth’s crust, and their low toxicity and high safety,” Zhongfan Jia, one of the researchers and a professor of Chemistry at Flinders University, added.

Making an affordable zinc-ion battery

This isn’t the first time scientists have created a zinc-ion battery . However, most of the previously proposed AZIB designs had two big limitations. They cost more than lithium batteries and were less safe to use.

This is mainly because they used expensive and highly combustible metals as cathodes. To overcome this challenge, the researchers came up with an innovative solution.

In their AZIB, they used zinc as an anode as usual but replaced the expensive metals with a modified version of a cheaper and safer industrial polymer at the cathode.

They used a commercially available poly(methyl vinyl ether-alt-maleic anhydride) polymer, also called poly(MVE-alt-MA)) polymer. Next, they modified this polymer with 4-amino-TEMPO, to create the final product, a radical polymer known as PTEMPO.

“Our research is building conductivity using nitroxide radical polymer cathodes made from cheap commercial polymer and optimized the battery performance using low-cost additives,” Jia said.

Using an office photo laminator, they made a pouch to pack the anode and cathode, and the battery was ready. “The pouch battery with 0.8–0.9 g of active polymer displayed a 60-mAh capacity with 1.5 V operational voltage,” the study authors note.

This zinc-ion battery pouch can easily power a small electric fan, an LED light, and a model car.

This small innovation can bring big changes

A report suggests that the current lithium supply may fail to meet the rising demand. As a result in the coming years, battery makers could find it very difficult to procure enough lithium for their operations.

“The global battery supply chain may find lithium in shortfall again approaching the end of this decade when the supply growth might not keep pace with that of the demand,” Susan Zou, VP at Rystad Energy, a firm focusing on energy research, told CNBC .

The proposed low-cost zinc-ion battery proves that AZIB has the potential to become a practical alternative to lithium-ion batteries . Even if it doesn’t entirely replace conventional batteries, it could help battery manufacturers mitigate the supply-chain issue

However, its success would also depend on the cost.

According to the researchers, the PTEMPO polymer makes up 90 percent of the zinc-ion battery cost. Currently, this polymer is available at 760/kg but the researchers claim that this cost could be reduced by 60 percent.

Hopefully, future research will bring more improvements in the performance and efficiency of this innovative battery solution.

The study is published in the journal Energy Storage Materials .