{"id":1169325,"date":"2020-03-04T08:10:39","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T14:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1015841"},"modified":"2020-03-04T08:10:39","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T14:10:39","slug":"lithium-ion-batteries-have-a-new-rival-potassium-metal-batteries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1169325","title":{"rendered":"Lithium-ion batteries have a new rival \u2013 potassium metal batteries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute published a study where they demonstrate that it is possible to overcome a persistent challenge known as dendrites to create a metal battery that performs nearly as well as a lithium-ion battery.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Their proposal relies on potassium -a much more abundant and less expensive element- to overcome the issue.<\/p>\n<p>In their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/early\/2020\/02\/26\/1915470117\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"paper (opens in a new tab)\">paper<\/a> published in<em> Proceedings of the National Academy of Science<\/em>, the scientists explain that while metal batteries have shown great promise, they have also traditionally been plagued by the accumulation of metal deposits, called dendrites, on the anode. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>The researchers believe that potassium metal batteries could be more efficient, safe, and practical<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Dendrites are formed because of non-uniform deposition of potassium metal as the battery undergoes repeated cycles of charging and discharging. Over time, the conglomerates of potassium metal become long and almost branch-like and can pierce the insulating membrane separator meant to keep the electrodes from touching each other and cause the battery to short.<\/p>\n<p>But the team led by Nikhil Koratkar, a professor at Rensselaer, propose that by incorporating a potassium metal anode and a potassium cobalt oxide cathode, and by operating the battery at a relatively high charge and discharge rate, users can raise the temperature inside the battery in a well-controlled manner and encourage the dendrites to self-heal off the anode.<\/p>\n<p>While the temperature increase within the battery won&#8217;t melt the potassium metal, it does help to activate surface diffusion so the potassium atoms move laterally off the &#8216;pile&#8217; they&#8217;ve created, effectively smoothing the dendrite out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With this approach, the idea is that at night or whenever you&#8217;re not using the battery, you would have a battery management system that would apply this local heat that would cause the dendrites to self-heal,&#8221; Koratkar said. &#8220;In terms of performance, this could rival a traditional lithium-ion battery.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US-based researchers found a solution to a persistent problem facing potassium metal batteries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1016,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1169325"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1169400,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169325\/revisions\/1169400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1169325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1169325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1169325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}