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Summary Reader Response Draft 2

This article “The Future”, Lockett (2022) introduces a new discovery of lithium-sulphur batteries and how it will shape the future. Currently the battery tech of choice has always been lithium-ion battery, however they have some downsides to using it.

According to Lockett (2022), the raw materials that are needed to build lithium-ion battery are lithium, graphite, cobalt and manganese. However cobalt is environmentally damaging as they leach out toxic chemical when mining it. There is also the life cycle problem where the lithium-ion battery will lose its power storage capacity if it is repeatedly being charged, battery degradation is also an issue for the electronic vehicle (EV) world as it will cost a fortune to replace the battery in it, thus it will have to be thrown away and contributed to electronic waste which is becoming a problem for the world to deal with. There is also the density problem as Lithium-ion battery packs are quite energy-dense but is heavy and bulky. This will limit the EV range as the batteries are heavy, and it will make it unfeasible to adopt for some application like commercial electric planes and ships. It was stated that “On the surface, lithium-sulphur as a compound seems to solve all of lithium-ion’s problems” which implies that all these is in theory, and it has not been fully tested out yet.

The discovery of lithium-sulphur has shown the potential to replace the current battery choice as it is cost lesser to manufacture and environmentally friendly compared to lithium-ion. Furthermore, it is more energy dense and lightweight. However, the drawback of lithium-sulphur is that they suffer from short lifespan.

The mining of materials used to make lithium-sulphur is cheap to manufacture and environmentally friendly as Earth has abundant resources of lithium and sulphur therefore that we can minimise the mining’s ecological impact to the ecosystem as well as ensure a stronger supply chain (Lockett, 2022). Sulphur is also a cheap raw material as a by-product of the oil industry, and in theory, their costs per unit of power can offer substantial savings (Merrifield, 2020) compared to cobalt, which is one of the common elements in lithium-ion battery. As the world is moving towards to become a greener world, with lithium-sulphur being environmentally friendly can be a huge reason to be able to replace lithium-ion battery.

Another benefits to using lithium-sulphur battery is their high energy density due to the composition of sulphur. The specific energy density of lithium-ion is between 260 – 270 wh/kg (Dragonfly Energy, 2022), while the theoretical value of lithium-sulphur is 10 times that of lithium-ion, estimated 2500 wh/kg. The higher the energy density, the longer the battery can emit a charge in relation to its size, hence it is able to store a higher amount of energy which allows the appliance to last for a longer period. As consumers nowadays demand a faster charge time from their devices, which includes everything from phones to cars, (Lockett, 2022) the higher energy density of lithium-sulphur can be an improvement to lithium-ion battery hence replacing it as the upcoming battery tech of choice.

Despite the benefits of lithium-sulphur, the short lifespan of lithium-sulphur is hindering it from becoming available to the market. The short life cycle is due to its chemistry as charging the battery causes a build-up of chemical deposits called polysulfides that will degrade the cell hence reduces the amount of time the battery can be recharge repeatedly. However, scientists have been trying to figure out ways to experiment on this chemical reaction in order to reduce the build up of chemical deposits. According to William (2022), the scientist at Drexel University found a chemical reaction of sulphur that stops this cell degradation called “monoclinic gamma-phase sulphur”, which means that the battery can charge for at least 4000 charge cycle without a drop in capacity.

However, scientists are still trying to decipher this phenomenon behind this phase of sulphur that is created or how to ensure it stays that way. So further research is needed in order to develop a reliable battery that can be used in billions of computers, electric cars, and the like.

In conclusion, I believe that the use of lithium-sulphur battery would change human as it can enable the use of commercial planes and ship to run on electricity as fuel lives and it allows a lot of activities to go electric hence making the emission of carbon dioxide to be much lesser there are more benefits to using lithium-sulphur battery compared to lithium-ion battery, in terms of its eco-friendliness, high energy capacity while being cost efficient.


Reference

Park, J. W., Jo, S. C., Kim, M. J., Choi, I. H., Kim, B. G., Lee, Y. J., Choi, H. Y., Kang, S., Kim, TY., Baeg, K. J.,(2021, April 2) Flexible high-energy-density lithium-sulphur batteries using nanocarbon-embedded fibrous sulphur cathodes and membrane separators https://www.nature.com/articles/s41427-021-00295-y

 

Marrifield, R (2020, June 5) Cheaper, lighter and more energy-dense: The promise of lithium-sulphur batteries https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/cheaper-lighter-and-more-energy-dense-promise-lithium-sulphur-batteries

 

Lockett, W (2022, April 17). The Future https://bigthink.com/the-future/lithium-sulfurbatteries/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fs=e&s=cl&fbclid=IwAR1JQVrPK4Nt6YauDpwVZrmkeHE1jR0zfHdUdqe1wC5xr4XEabacCNVJLE#Echobox=1658939001-1


Dragonfly Energy (2022, December 14) https://dragonflyenergy.com/why-does-energy-density-matter-in-batteries/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20lithium-ion%20batteries,50-100%20wh%2Fkg.

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