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International Breakthrough
Technion Researchers Develop Silicon-Air Battery Capable of Working Non-Stop Thousands of Hours
The Technion has registered a patent on this development which was published in the world’s leading electrochemistry journal
Technion researchers have succeeded in developing a silicon-air battery capable of working non-stop thousands of hours. The development was published in the leading scientific journal “Electrochemistry Communications.”
Prof. Yair Ein Eli of the Technion’s Faculty of Materials Engineering has been researching metal-air batteries for many years. The batteries we are familiar with have a positive (+) electrode called a cathode and a negative electrode (-) called an anode. The two are separated by a divider in which there is a liquid containing ions (electrolyte). “In metal-air batteries there is a significant saving in weight and costs because they actually do not have a built-in cathode,” he explains. “In this battery, the cathode is the oxygen that comes from the atmosphere through the membrane (this is the battery used for example for hearing aids because it is light and long-lasting). There were attempts in the past to upgrade this battery both for electric cars and for portable electronic devices. Lately, this received renewed impetus when Toyota and Panasonic began joint efforts to adapt the zinc-air battery for future electronic cars.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) along with commercial companies, among them IBM and Tesla Motors, and with the encouragement of American government, are trying to develop rechargeable lithium-air batteries that are capable of reaching ten times the energy density of existing technologies (they will work ten times more time or enable traveling ten times farther).
Prof. Ein Eli proposes using silicon-air batteries. “Silicon is a more common material, not dangerous, more stable, light weight and has high energy capacity (four electrons are transferred during oxidation of a single silicon atom). We actually turned it into sand (silicon dioxide) during battery usage. This will be a non-rechargeable battery like similar batteries around today,” he explains.
This kind of battery, with an unlimited shelf life, will be good for use in medicine (for example in pumps for diabetics or in hearing aids) and in electronics as a built-in part of a structure entirely from silicon. The innovative battery can supply energy for thousands of working hours without need for replacement.
The work on developing the silicon-air battery was financed by the Bi-National Research Fund, with the participation of doctoral student Gil Cohen and Dr. David Starosvetsky from the Technion and Prof. Digby Macdonald from Penn State in the US.
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