Mobile phone batteries with a lifetime of up to three times longer than today’s technology could be a reality thanks to a novel innovation by engineers at RMIT University.
Rather than disposing of batteries after two or three years, recyclable batteries could last for up to nine years, by using high-frequency sound waves to remove rust that inhibits battery performance, according to the RMIT team.
Only 10 percent of used handheld batteries, including for mobile phones, are collected for recycling in Australia, which is low by international standards. The remaining 90 percent of batteries go to landfill or are disposed of incorrectly, which causes considerable damage to the environment.
The high cost of recycling lithium and other materials from batteries is a major barrier to these items being reused, but the team’s innovation could help address this challenge.
The team is working with a nanomaterial called MXene, a class of materials they say promises to be an exciting alternative to lithium for batteries in the future.
Leslie Yeo, distinguished professor of Chemical Engineering and lead senior researcher, said MXene was similar to graphene with high electrical conductivity.
“Unlike graphene, MXenes are highly tailorable and open up a whole range of possible technological applications in the future,” said Yeo. The big challenge with using MXene was that it rusted easily, thereby inhibiting electrical conductivity and rendering it unusable, he said.
“To overcome this challenge, we discovered that sound waves at a certain frequency remove rust from MXene, restoring it to close to its original state,” Yeo added.
The team’s innovation could one day help to revitalize MXene batteries every few years, extending their lifetime up to three times, he said.
“The ability to prolong the shelf life of MXene is critical to ensuring its potential to be used for commercially viable electronic parts,” Yeo said.
The research is published in Nature Communications.
Potential applications
The team says their work to remove rust from MXene opens the door for the nanomaterial to be used in a wide range of applications in energy storage, sensors, wireless transmission and environmental remediation.
Associate professor Amgad Rezk, one of the lead senior researchers, said the ability to quickly restore oxidized materials to an almost pristine state represented a game changer in terms of the circular economy.
Next steps
While the innovation is promising, the team needs to work with industry to integrate its acoustics device into existing manufacturing systems and processes. The team is also exploring the use of their invention to remove oxide layers from other materials for applications in sensing and renewable energy.
“We are keen to collaborate with industry partners so that our method of rust removal can be scaled up,” Yeo said.