According to foreign media reports, in a paper published in the professional journal Matter on Thursday, scientists at the University of Maryland in the United States have invented a zinc-based battery made of "crab shells". The battery is said to use a chemical in crustacean shells to store energy and is more biodegradable, environmentally friendly and more sustainable than lithium batteries. In addition, the battery maintained 99.7% efficiency after 1,000 uses (approximately 400 hours).
The chemicals in conventional batteries are known to be corrosive and flammable and take hundreds or thousands of years to degrade. In some cases, batteries from electronics have caught fire on airplanes, or in recycling bins. As the world transitions to green energy technologies, the batteries used in such technologies also need to be environmentally friendly. Hu Liangbing, director of the Center for Materials Innovation at the University of Maryland, said, "We believe that the biodegradability of materials, the impact on the environment, and the performance of batteries are very important for batteries." Bones contain chitin , a valuable material that is abundant in nature and also found in fungi and insects, but is often discarded as food waste and a by-product of the food industry. The
researchers chemically treated chitin and added aqueous acetic acid to finally synthesize the battery's electrolyte. Electrolytes are charged particles that move back and forth between the negative and positive electrodes, storing energy. Hu's team then combined this chitosan electrolyte with zinc to create this renewable battery.
In addition, this battery is not flammable, and two-thirds of the chitosan batteries can be completely degraded within 5 months, leaving only recyclable zinc. The
study authors say the design could pave the way for the development of high-performance and sustainable batteries for green energy storage.
Graham Newton, Professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Nottingham, said: "The development of zinc-ion batteries still faces many challenges, but basic research such as this is very important."
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