Researchers at University of California, Irvine have developed a new battery method that could reduce or even eliminate the use of cobalt in lithium-ion batteries as well as make them last much longer.
The battery uses nickel, which does not have the child labor issues that the mining of cobalt has. However, until this development nickel wasn’t a practical substitute because large amounts of it were required to create lithium batteries.
According to Huolin Xin, UC Irvine professor of physics and astronomy, for nickel-based batteries to become a viable alternative to cobalt, these batteries would need to use as little nickel as possible.
“We’re the first group to start going in a low-nickel direction,” Xin said. “In a previous study by my group, we came up with a novel solution to fully eliminate cobalt. But that formulation still relied on a lot of nickel.”
Concentrated doping
The Irvine team developed a process called complex concentrated doping allowing them to alter the key chemical formula in lithium-ion batteries. The doping process eliminated the need for cobalt in commercial components and replaced it with nickel.
“Doping also increases the efficiency of nickel,” Xin said. Meaning electric vehicle (EV) batteries would require less nickel to operate efficiently making it a viable alternative to cobalt-based lithium-ion batteries.
The team said EV companies are planning to take the results of the research and replicate them.
“EV makers are very excited about low-nickel batteries, and a lot of EV companies want to validate this technique,” Xin said. “They want to do safety tests.”
The full research can be found in the journal Nature Energy.
