Just days after researchers at the California Institute of Technology unveiled a 3D printed design for lithium-ion batteries, another university team has announced a different battery breakthrough using additive manufacturing (AM).
This time, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) developed a 3D printed hybrid zinc-ion battery that can store more than seven times as much energy as similar devices. The team says the technology could one day help store electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power.
Unlike traditional lithium-ion batteries, the hybrid zinc-ion battery combines features of both batteries and supercapacitors, allowing it to store large amounts of energy while delivering it quickly. These batteries use zinc, a material that is cheaper, easier to find, and typically considered safer. That has made them a promising option for storing renewable energy, where cost and safety are usually more important than keeping batteries small and lightweight. Batteries used to store electricity from solar and wind farms also need to last for years and recharge quickly. The challenge has been storing enough energy to compete with other battery technologies.
“The future of energy storage won’t be defined by a single technology,” said co-corresponding author Maher El-Kady, an assistant researcher in UCLA’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and co-founder and Chief Science and Technology Officer of Nanotech Energy. “At some point, we will need to look for something to complement the current options for grid-scale energy storage. What we’ve done in this study essentially gives us zinc-ion hybrid devices that can store nearly one order of magnitude higher capacity.”
The findings were published in the journal Small in the paper titled “High Mass-Loading Vanadium Oxide on 3D Printed Carbon Lattices for Zinc-Ion Supercapacitors.”
A UCLA-led research team developed a 3D printed electrode with a hollow structure that expanded the capacity of hybrid zinc-ion energy storage devices. Image courtesy of Maher El-Kady / UCLA.
A New Design
Instead of creating a new battery chemistry, the UCLA team decided to redesign one of the battery’s main parts. The researchers first 3D printed a lightweight lattice on an Elegoo Mars 3 Pro resin printer. After printing, the structure was heated at high temperatures until it became a conductive carbon framework. That carbon lattice acts as the battery’s electrode. The team then coated it with vanadium oxide, the material that stores and releases energy. Because the lattice contains billions of tiny pores, it provides a huge internal surface area while still leaving room for zinc ions to move through the battery.
“The method we used lets us build any 3D scaffold, layer by layer, and control its microstructure,” said co-corresponding author Ric Kaner, a UCLA distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemis
Just days after researchers at the California Institute of Technology unveiled a 3D printed design for lithium-ion batteries, another university team has announced a different battery breakthrough using additive manufacturing (AM).
This time, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) developed a 3D printed hybrid zinc-ion battery that can store more than seven times as much energy as similar devices. The team says the technology could one day help store electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power.
Unlike traditional lithium-ion batteries, the hybrid zinc-ion battery combines features of both batteries and supercapacitors, allowing it to store large amounts of energy while delivering it quickly. These batteries use zinc, a material that is cheaper, easier to find, and typically considered safer. That has made them a promising option for storing renewable energy, where cost and safety are usually more important than keeping batteries small and lightweight. Batteries used to store electricity from solar and wind farms also need to last for years and recharge quickly. The challenge has been storing enough energy to compete with other battery technologies.
“The future of energy storage won’t be defined by a single technology,” said co-corresponding author Maher El-Kady, an assistant researcher in UCLA’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and co-founder and Chief Science and Technology Officer of Nanotech Energy. “At some point, we will need to look for something to complement the current options for grid-scale energy storage. What we’ve done in this study essentially gives us zinc-ion hybrid devices that can store nearly one order of magnitude higher capacity.”
The findings were published in the journal Small in the paper titled “High Mass-Loading Vanadium Oxide on 3D Printed Carbon Lattices for Zinc-Ion Supercapacitors.”
A UCLA-led research team developed a 3D printed electrode with a hollow structure that expanded the capacity of hybrid zinc-ion energy storage devices. Image courtesy of Maher El-Kady / UCLA.
A New Design
Instead of creating a new battery chemistry, the UCLA team decided to redesign one of the battery’s main parts. The researchers first 3D printed a lightweight lattice on an Elegoo Mars 3 Pro resin printer. After printing, the structure was heated at high temperatures until it became a conductive carbon framework. That carbon lattice acts as the battery’s electrode. The team then coated it with vanadium oxide, the material that stores and releases energy. Because the lattice contains billions of tiny pores, it provides a huge internal surface area while still leaving room for zinc ions to move through the battery.
“The method we used lets us build any 3D scaffold, layer by layer, and control its microstructure,” said co-corresponding author Ric Kaner, a UCLA distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemis