Structural ceramic batteries using an earth-abundant inorganic waterglass binder

Sodium trisilicate waterglass is an earth-abundant inorganic adhesive which binds to diverse materials and exhibits extreme chemical and temperature stability. Here we demonstrate the use of this material as an electrode binder in a lay-up based manufacturing system to produce structural batteries. While conventional binders for structural batteries exhibit a trade-off between mechanical and electrochemical performance, the waterglass binder is rigid, adhesive, and facilitates ion transport. The bulk binder maintains a Young’s modulus of >50 GPa in the presence of electrolyte solvent while waterglass-based electrodes have high rate capability and stable discharge capacity over hundreds of electrochemical cycles. The temperature stability of the binder enables heat treatment of the full cell stack following lay-up shaping in order to produce a rigid, load-bearing part. The resulting structural batteries exhibit impressive multifunctional performance with a package free cell stack-level energy density of 93.9 Wh/kg greatly surpassing previously published structural battery materials, and a tensile modulus of 1.4 GPa.

Application of Cellulose Derivatives in Mineral Processing

Cellulose derivatives (CDs) have been recognized as an anionic water-soluble, non-toxic, biocompatible and biodegradable polysaccharide. The CDs have been used as a viscosity regulator, thickening agent, sizing agent and coating agent and emulsion stabilizer, electrode binder in various industries. These characteristics properties of CDs are associated with hydroxyl groups/functionalized groups present in their structure. The CDs have significant advantages in various fields including several industrial applications such as mineral processing, palletisation process, oil drilling industrial applications due to their non-toxic and selective properties. Moreover, The CDs have been extensively used as a depressant, dispersant as well as flocculants in mineral processing from various ores. During the mineral processing like flotation of sulfide minerals highly toxic inorganic species were used as dispersant and depressant which ultimately cases environmental toxicity. Therefore, there is a current need to introduce CDs as various alternative nontoxic dispersant and flocculants. This chapter emphasized an overview of the application of CDs in mineral processing including the structure, properties of the commonly used minerals processing.

Correlating high temperature thin film ionomer electrode binder properties to hydrogen pump polarization

Ionomer electrode binders are important materials for polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells and electrolyzers and have a profound impact on cell performance. Herein, we report the effect of two...

Algae-based electrochemical energy storage devices

Different parts of electrochemical energy storage devices including the electrode, binder, electrolyte, and membrane have been prepared from algae and algal derivatives.