Scientists develop oxygen ion batteries: the capacity of the battery does not decay and has a long service life.

CTOnews.com, March 23 (Xinhua) Lithium-ion batteries are currently the mainstream battery solution, but scientists are looking for alternative solutions. An oxygen ion battery has been developed by a research team at the Vienna University of Technology.

Although the energy density of this kind of oxygen-ion battery is not comparable to that of lithium-ion battery, its advantage is that the battery capacity will not decay, and the materials used are renewable and have a very long service life.

"We have accumulated a lot of experience about ceramic materials in the course of studying fuel cells, which led us to the idea of whether this material can also be used to make batteries," said Alexander Schmid, head of the project.

The ceramic materials developed by the team can absorb and release oxygen ions with double negative charges. When a voltage is applied, oxygen ions migrate from one ceramic material to another, and then they can migrate back again, resulting in an electric current.

CTOnews.com learned from the report that oxygen-ion batteries can only reach about 1/3 of the energy density of lithium-ion batteries and need to operate at temperatures between 200C and 400C, so they are currently not suitable for smartphones and electric vehicles.

Paper address: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aenm.202203789