Researchers have turned to portabella mushroom in an effort to create an environment-friendly, inexpensive and easy-to-produce battery, securing a potential alternative to lithium-ion batteries currently used in many devices and electric vehicles.
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries use synthetic graphite, which is not only tedious to prepare because of its high-level purification requirement but also expensive and harmful to the environment. With demand in batteries anticipated to increase, the need also rose for a more sustainable alternative to graphite, of which biomass was a good candidate.
Using biomass has recently gained attention because the material is high in carbon, inexpensive and kind to the environment, since it is a biological material from recently living or living organisms.
Researchers from the University of California, Riverside focused on using mushrooms as biomass because earlier research had established that their high porosity gives them a lot of small spaces to let air or liquid pass through.
Porosity is crucial to batteries because it creates additional space for storing and transferring energy, a critical factor in boosting battery performance.
Not to mention that mushrooms are high in potassium salt, which increases electrolyte-active material over a period of time when pores are activated. This means that whereas lithium anodes lose capacity as they are used, mushroom anodes gain even more as utilization opens up more pores to facilitate energy storage and transfer.
Aside from diminishing capacity, a major problem with conventional carbons like graphite is that they require chemicals for preparation and activation, which is not good for the environment.
With almost 900,000 tons of natural raw graphite expected to be produced to accommodate the almost 6 million electric vehicles forecast to hit the market in 2020, that means a lot of harsh chemicals, such as sulfuric and hydrofluoric acid, will be finding their way into the ground as hazardous waste.
According to the European Union, the method of producing lithium-ion batteries is simply unsustainable.
The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. Authors include Mihrimah Ozkan, Cengiz Ozkan, Zachary Favors, Roberto Ionescu and Brennan Campbell.
Earlier research has led to the development of lithium-ion anodes based on nanosilicon using beach sand as a natural raw ingredient. Patents have been filed by the UCR Office of Technology Commercialization for this invention and the portabella mushroom battery.
Photo: Stacy Spensley | Flickr
