Electric cars should help the world go green and stop harming the planet. Brown University and University of Maryland engineers take that goal to another level with a new proposal for batteries made from trees, according to new findings published in Nature.
Lithium-ion batteries have become the standard form of rechargeable batteries thanks to their exceptionally long charging times. You are probably reading this story from a device that runs on such a battery. Most electric cars, like Tesla’s, use lithium-ion batteries.
These batteries use a liquid solution that conducts lithium ions from the battery’s cathode and anode – for laypeople, it is the liquid that keeps electrical current flowing from the battery to the device that powers it.
The problem is that this liquid is made up of toxic materials that are sometimes unstable. They have, uh, explosive results at times.
A solid conductive structure would prevent this from happening, but it could be prone to cracking and breaking, rendering the battery unusable. An ideal material for lithium-ion solid-state batteries would be thin and flexible to withstand structural loads – like wood from a tree.
The team behind the new research has developed a hybrid material made from copper and wood-derived fibers. They tested it as a model for conducting ions back and forth in a lithium-ion battery and found that it worked 10 to 100 times better than other solid-state conductors – a record high.
The new findings are based only on preliminary model tests; a battery made of trees is still a long way off. However, should it become established as a practicable form of energy, it could very well replace rechargeable batteries as we know them. And it’s hard to imagine that electric cars have a better selling point for their green bona fides than to say that their batteries are literally made of trees.
