Battery Cell Technologies

Battery Cell Technologies

Subject: Science and Technology

In news: The suitability of some frontier battery technologies are likely to be evaluated by NITI Aayog and Ministry of Power based on the end-use application of the battery storage projects in electric vehicles (EVs).

• The new technologies include a novel rechargeable iron-air battery developed by a US-based start-up for electricity grid storage that promises to deliver power at less than a tenth of the cost of lithium-ion batteries, alongside solid-state batteries that use alternatives to the aqueous electrolyte solutions , an innovation that could lower the risk of fires, sharply increase energy density and potentially take only 10 minutes to charge a battery, cutting the recharging time by two-thirds  is being explored by mobility.
• It could potentially enable battery storage ecosystems to diversify away from the established Lithium-ion formula.
• Iron Air Battery:
  • It leverages the concept of ‘reversible rusting’.
  • The battery uses oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust while discharging, and while charging, the application of an electrical current transforms the rust back to iron and the battery releases oxygen back into the air. 
  • But the problem with the tech pertains to the battery’s size and weight, which makes its application impractical in electric vehicles, one of the biggest use areas of batteries.

Energy storage policy in India:

• IEA projects that India could have 140-200 GW of battery storage capacity by 2040, potentially a third of total battery storage capacity in the world by then.
• The Department of Science and Technology has launched
  • a “Materials for Energy Storage” and “Materials for Energy Conservation and Storage Platform” programme,
  • and set up centres on Batteries and Supercapacitors with Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and Indian Institute of Science respectively, for developing energy materials for efficient electrochemical energy storage devices.