Iron-ion new battery technology- IIT Madras

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Iron-ion Battery will be the option of Li-ion Battery soon

The Indian Institute of Technology are autonomous public institutes of higher education and these IITs have given lots of new technology which makes our life better. Their contribution is always inclined to make our planet greener.Now, IIT Madras is in the news because the research team has invented a new battery type.

“Iron-ion” battery

So, question would be – what type of batteries are in used now a day?

Battery pack made up of Li-ion cells for Chevrolet Bolt & TESLA Model X. 

So, in all the modern electric car ‘Li-ion’ batteries are used. But there is some drawback of using this Li-ion battery, like-1.     Lithium is very reactive in open environment that is the reason it is not found in free state in nature.2.     Li-ion battery requires very high protection from overcharging and prevention from short-circuit.3.     The use of Li-ion battery will impact on green environment if proper battery disposal norms are not in place.4.     The cost of Lithium is raising up due to high demand of Li-ion battery.

But in most of the electric cars and electronic devices only Li-ion batteries are used because of higher energy density.
5. Fabrication of battery only possible in a controlled atmosphere.

So, What is alternative:

Now through the recent innovation of Iron-ion battery, all the disadvantages of Li-ion battery will be overcome in near future. As we all know that the compared to all other metals, iron is cheaper and according to the research team – Iron has a smaller ionic radius and favorable redox potential. Since these benefits are overlooked, the potential use of iron in rechargeable metal ion battery has not been realized yet. The research team has overcome this challenge by inventing a suitable electrolyte for the operation of the battery.The research team of Iron-ion battery : IIT Madras Through this research team has mentioned some import points which are listed below-– Even Iron-ion battery manufactured in ambient condition gives 75% of performance of the battery fabricated in a controlled environment.– Ether based electrolytes are better for the good performance of the Iron-ion batteries.– Iron-ion battery has 55-60% of the lithium ion battery performance.– The developed battery can be further probed to reach the performance of the Li-ion battery and can be a better replacement for the same. Battery retained 54% of its capacity after the end of 50th cycles.

 Battery Construction:

Anode: Iron (Mild steel grade) Cathode: Vanadium pentoxide  – Vanadium pentoxide has a layered structure with very large spacing between the layers. The large inter-layers 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.
Fe2+ ions are the charge carriers in newly fabricated Iron-ion rechargeable battery.Dr. Ramaprabhu Sundra (Team members : Ms Ajay Priya V.S. and Ms. Sai Smruti Samantaray) has demonstrated the Iron-ion battery up to 150 charging and discharging cycles So, this is going to change the market scenario in future. As per current scenario where China and some European countries are dominating in the market for the lithium material so we as a rapidly growing country must have an alternate for that. Thanks!