Researchers at IIT Madras has successfully developed Iron-Ion battery which would provide an alternative solution for Lithium-Ion. This development itself is crucial because we have limited lithium resources.
Iron-Ion battery is a compact source of alternative in this regard it will be cheaper, capable of storing larger energy than lithium cells and our planet have an ambident resource of Iron.
However, the greatest concern with these types of batteries is its weight. The Researchers didn’t mention the weight although to reduce its weight the battery has fabricated using carbon mild steel as the anode and vanadium pentoxide are used as the cathode.
Vanadium is chosen because the large inter-layer spacing in vanadium pentoxide allows iron ions to easily move in and bind to the interlayers of the cathode and also easily get detached and move back to the anode, And Fe2+ ion will act as a charge carrier in Iron-ion Battery which will be able to perform multiple charging cycles.
The battery can also be cycled at high current densities so that energy can be drawn at a faster rate from the battery. Iron has favorable Physico-chemical properties like lithium. The redox potential of iron ion is higher than lithium-ion and the radius of the Fe2+ ion is nearly the same as that of the lithium-ion.
The current prototype is capable of bearing a 150 charge cycle with an output of 220WH/KILO, Which is only around 55-60% of 350 WH/KILO energy density for Lithium-Ion. The team is now focused on further improving the performance of the iron ion battery Which is expected would take 5 years for commercialization.
Advantages
Cost-Effective and provide slightly better storage capability. Use of water Element will further eliminate the risk of fire, the toxic elements are minimal as compare to Lithium-ion. This doesn’t form any type of dendrites thus prevent short-circuit and easy to fabricate, unlike Lithium which is very reactive in nature and needs to take care of that.