PatIntNews

Scientists at the University of Waterloo have invented a new composite material for use in Lithium batteries. This new material would enable lithium batteries to produce power up to three times more than conventional lithium batteries. A patent has also been filed for the material.

Chemistry professor Linda Nazar and her research team has made rechargeable lithium batteries that incorporates sulphur which is cheaper than many other materials currently used in lithium batteries.

"This composite material can supply up to nearly 80 per cent of the theoretical capacity of sulphur, which is three times the energy density of lithium [traditional] transition metal oxide cathodes," said Nazar. The material remains stable even after charging multiple times.

She and her team researched out a way to keep the electrically active sulphur in intimate contact with a conductor such as carbon. The research was reported in the advance online edition of Nature Materials.

The research team got together mesoporous carbon having extremely fine channels of about 1/20,000th of the width of a human hair with hot and melted sulphur. The hot sulphur was drawn into the channels by capillary forces, where it was solidified into, nanofibers, carbon-sulphur composite.

Researchers used new carbon-sulphur composite as cathode, positive electrode of a test battery, to demonstrate its impressive capacity. The team will continue the study of this material to further refine the battery's performance.