‘Emerging as a viable alternative’

Potassium-ion batteries store more energy than sodium-ion options, making them ideal for large-scale green energy storage, according to a summary of recent research at Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea.

People need battery options as lithium grows scarce and costly. Lithium-ion batteries power our phones and electric cars, but their growing use has made lithium increasingly scarce. We need new ways to store power from wind and solar at a big enough scale.

A team at Dongguk University, led by professor Eunho Lim, studied battery choices for a greener world. The results, published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, suggested that potassium is a suitable substitute for lithium because it is common and inexpensive.

“Potassium-ion batteries are emerging as a viable alternative due to the abundance and cost-effectiveness of potassium, but realizing their potential requires the development of advanced anode materials tailored to the unique properties of potassium ions,” explained Lim.

His group looked at many anode materials and identified what works and what doesn’t for each type.

You might use these batteries to store power from home solar panels at a lower cost. Power firms could build larger storage facilities for less money, which could lower your energy bills and keep solar and wind power ready when needed. These batteries hold more power in the same space, so they work better than what we use now.

For our planet, reducing the use of lithium helps mitigate the harm caused by lithium mines. Mining lithium in Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia consumes water and damages the land. Using common potassium helps mitigate this harm while providing clean power.

Lim will continue to develop new materials for improved potassium-ion batteries. He aims to develop materials that are as good as or better than those used in today’s lithium-ion batteries. Currently in labs, this technology could appear in real products within five to seven years if the tests go well.

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