Final Report Summary - FUNLAB (Fundamental breakthroughs in Lithium-Air Batteries)
Funlab is a project aimed to achieve fundamental breakthroughs in lithium-air batteries. Lithium-air batteries have the potential to deliver a much higher energy than lithium-ion batteries, but major improvements at the level for the fundamentals of the reactions are required in order to improve their practical specific energy and rechargeability. The focus of the project is on the use of redox mediators to facilitate reaction kinetics as well as mitigating the issue of electrode passivation. A combination of different techniques (including in-situ mass spectrometry) has been applied to elucidate the mechanism of lithium-oxygen and sodium-oxygen batteries and the specific role of redox mediators.
The work demonstrates that impressive improvements in performance can be achieved in metal-oxygen batteries, and issues such as electrode passivation or degradation reactions can be overcome by altering the reaction mechanism by using, for example, redox mediators.
Even though metal-oxygen batteries are still far away from commercialization, this work, together with all the advances made by the research community, shows that there are strategies that could solve the current fundamental issues that are associated to these batteries.
Results of this work have been posted in the following webpage: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/chemistry/about/staff/nga1e12.page
The work demonstrates that impressive improvements in performance can be achieved in metal-oxygen batteries, and issues such as electrode passivation or degradation reactions can be overcome by altering the reaction mechanism by using, for example, redox mediators.
Even though metal-oxygen batteries are still far away from commercialization, this work, together with all the advances made by the research community, shows that there are strategies that could solve the current fundamental issues that are associated to these batteries.
Results of this work have been posted in the following webpage: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/chemistry/about/staff/nga1e12.page