The "breathable battery" represents a promising and sustainable alternative to traditional energy storage technologies. With ongoing research and development, this innovative concept has the potential to reshape the energy landscape, enabling cleaner and more efficient utilization of renewable energy sources.
Researchers from China, under the guidance of Professor Chen Jun from the College of Chemistry at Nankai University in Tianjin, have made a major advancement by creating a rechargeable battery that extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during discharge using composite materials containing sodium carbonate.
The battery, referred to as a "breathable" battery, has a capacity of 350 mAh and an energy density of 183 Wh/kg.
The battery works by obtaining oxygen from the air while discharging and releasing it back during charging. Previously, the use of sodium in batteries posed challenges such as dendrite formation at the negative pole, leading to short circuits, and high energy consumption during sodium production via electrolysis of sodium chloride or sodium hydroxide. However, the researchers overcame these issues by producing a composite material of sodium carbonate on multiple-walled carbon nanotubes, effectively prohibiting dendrite formation by controlling the battery's capacity.
The sodium-carbon dioxide battery follows the development of breathable lithium-air batteries that utilize oxygen for discharge. In comparison, the sodium-carbon dioxide battery is more environmentally friendly, and sodium carbonate is easier to produce. The breakthrough battery technology has promising applications, such as providing an energy supply for Mars probes, considering the planet's atmosphere is composed of 95% carbon dioxide.