EL PERIÓDICO and the Barcelona Materials Science Institute (ICMAB, CSIC) will publish a series of videos and articles every Wednesday until September 7 within the framework of the popular science project ‘YouMaker: this is how science is done’. This is content in which various experts will explain in a didactic way the processes for preparing materials used in the fields of energy, electronics and medicine, such as batteries or solar cells, from their laboratories and with the participation of professional science communicators.
As electronic devices become more complex and powerful, they consume more energy. The batteries that we need if we want to use them unplugged from the electrical current, must last longer and longer. Despite being much more advanced, our phone’s battery lasts less than the battery of a phone fifteen years ago, and this is because today’s phones (with a camera, internet and a thousand applications) consume much more energy. In the future implementation of electric cars, the capacity of the batteries is a crucial issue if we want to abandon gasoline. To date, the vast majority of batteries that we know of are powered by lithium. Lithium ions are the ones that have been performing the best so far, but we have reached a point where we must look for alternative and additional materials if the electrification of electric vehicles and even more electronic devices in our daily lives is really expected. If we want to make phones more powerful and with greater autonomy, or if we want electric cars that can travel as long as a current gasoline car, we need to design batteries with new materials.
It is in this sense that a team from ICMAB is developing batteries with a material that is much more abundant in the earth’s crust and cheaper to produce than lithium: calcium. One of the advantages of calcium is that its ions can carry two charges, while lithium ions can only carry one charge. The manufacture of a battery is a complex matter, and the charge of the ions represents only one part. The materials of the electrodes and the electrolyte must also be taken into account, which must be compatible with each other and function correctly. At the moment, it seems that calcium could work well, and we already have very advanced technology with lithium. But there are differences between them that still need to be investigated further.
fit the pieces
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It would be a major advance, but there is still a lot of work to be done to make all the pieces fit together. We want it all: smaller batteries that weigh less, have higher capacity, last longer, charge quickly. Will we get it, with calcium? Let’s see what science communicator Dani Jiménez and ICMAB researcher Ashley Black explain to us in the video “How to make a calcium battery” from the “YouMaker: how science is done” project, where we will discover the parts of batteries and how they are manufactured at ICMAB.
“YouMaker” is a project of the Barcelona Institute of Materials Science (ICMAB, CSIC) in collaboration with the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) of the Ministry of Science and Innovation.