The electric capacity of lithium-ion batteries currently used in electric vehicles can only travel about 200 km on a single charge, and it is desired to develop a new type of large-capacity storage battery in order to extend the mileage.There is a "lithium-air battery" as a new secondary battery that has been attracting attention in recent years.Unlike lithium-ion batteries, this battery operates only with lithium metal, electrolyte, and air without using cobalt-based or manganese-based compounds for the positive electrode, and can achieve a capacity 5 to 8 times that of lithium-ion batteries. It has been.However, for lithium-air batteries, electrode materials and catalysts that can handle both charge and discharge chemical reactions are under development, and development competition using various metal and carbon-based materials is underway at home and abroad.

This time, Professor Chen Mingwei of the Institute for Advanced Research in Atomic and Molecular Materials (AIMR) of the same university succeeded in developing a lithium-air battery with high energy utilization efficiency by using nanoporous graphene and a small amount of ruthenium-based catalyst.At present, there are issues such as the use of a small amount of precious metal as a catalyst and the large overvoltage during charging, but this result can be said to be an important step toward the practical application of lithium-air batteries.It is expected that a high-performance, low-cost catalyst will be developed, and a lithium-air battery that can simultaneously realize a large electric capacity and a low overvoltage will be developed. In the future, we aim to put it into practical use in collaboration with companies.

The research results will be published online on September 9st (German time) in "Advanced Materials".

Source:[Tohoku University] Development of electrode materials for "lithium-air batteries" capable of large-capacity storage-nanoporous graphene and ruthenium-based catalysts are the keys-