One exciting thing about the clean energy industry is how much battery technology is still evolving and improving, meaning that we can barely conceive of what will be possible with clean energy 10 or 20 years down the road.
The latest example is a newly designed lithium-ion battery from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, which can retain 98% storage capacity over 500 charge cycles, as reported by Interesting Engineering.
The new design features something called a "dual-gradient cathode," which, according to Interesting Engineering's reporting, enhances stability while maintaining efficient lithium-ion transport.
Better, more efficient batteries simply mean electric vehicles with longer ranges, storage systems that can store more clean, renewable energy, and products that (in theory) could be more affordable.
"This breakthrough material represents an across-the-board improvement for batteries," said Khalil Amine, leader of Argonne's Advanced Battery Technology team, in a press release.
"It features higher storage capacity, robust stability and heat tolerance at high voltages, and longer lifetimes. Its high energy density enables production of smaller, lower-cost batteries, supporting widespread adoption of EVs and grid batteries."
In other battery breakthrough news, researchers in Sweden recently came up with a new design that is "twice as good" as existing batteries. The team behind the design said that it could make laptops weigh half as much, make smartphones as thin as credit cards, and increase EV driving ranges by 70%.
Equally as important as designing new batteries is figuring out how to more effectively recycle the batteries we already have. These batteries require several rare metals that were mined from the Earth at great environmental cost (although at a much lesser cost than extracting and burning dirty energy sources like gas and oil).
In order for the battery industry to be truly environmentally friendly, it is crucial that the recycling technology improves so that we don't have to keep mining for more and more lithium.
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