Battery of options

SULPHUR Lithium-sulphur battery developed by Vasant Kumar from the University of Cambridge and Renjie Chen from the Beijing Institute of Technology. Made by wrapping graphene around a sulphur electrode, the battery produces a conductive porous carbon cage in which sulphur acts as the host and each sulphurcarbon nanoparticle acts as an energy storage unit. The battery is deemed to have an energy density greater than lithium-ion batteries. POTASSIUM Researchers at the Oregon State University, USA, have shown that potassium can be used with graphite in a potassium-ion battery, overturning decades of false assumptions. X-ray diffraction studies confirm that KC36, KC24 and KC8 sequentially form upon potassiation, whereas depotassiation recovers graphite through phase transformations in an opposite sequence. SODIUM Graphene oxide paper electrode for sodium and lithium-ion batteries developed by Gurpreet Singh, assistant professor of mechanical and nuclear energy and Lamuel David, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at the Kansas State University, USA. They found that the sodium storage capacity of paper electrodes depends on the distance between the individual layers that can be tuned by heating it in argon or ammonia gas. VANDATE-BORATE GLASS Scientists at the Electrochemical Materials Institute, Switzerland, proposed vandate-borate glass—a material made of vanadium oxide and lithium borate—as cathode material. The material is not only