The Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) opened the Christian Doppler Laboratory at the beginning of this week. Under the leadership of Alexander Opitz (pictured), an interdisciplinary team will conduct research into oxygen-ion batteries together with the Austrian energy company Verbund. In contrast to conventional batteries, oxygen-ion batteries do not require the elements lithium or cobalt. Instead, abundant ceramic materials are used. In addition, oxygen-ion batteries are neither flammable nor toxic, according to TU Wien.
The idea of using ceramic materials for batteries came about rather by chance, recalls laboratory head Opitz: “It was only when we changed our perspective on the material we were actually investigating for fuel and electrolysis cell applications that we saw that, under certain conditions, our ceramics can have a similar capacity to conventional lithium-ion battery materials. In other words, they can store a similar amount of energy.”
Oxygen-ion batteries work by filling the cavities in the storage electrode material with oxygen ions. The oxygen is not exchanged with the atmosphere, but is shifted back and forth between the two storage electrodes of the cell in the form of oxide ions. For the new technology to work, however, it must be isolated from the ambient air and operated at temperatures of 300 to 500 °C.
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