Quick look
Iowa State engineers are using Iowa-sourced materials to build "ultra-low-cost, ultra-high-performance" batteries capable of storing Iowa wind energy. A grant from the Iowa Energy Center is supporting the project.
AMES, Iowa - Steve W. Martin, who has studied better materials for better batteries for four decades at Iowa State University, lists the cheap raw materials campus researchers are considering for one of their latest battery projects:
- Sodium. ("Sodium is 1,000 times cheaper than lithium," he said. "And it's everywhere.")
- Waste glass. (Des Moines, where garbage is separated, is a good nearby source.)
- Biochar. (It's a charcoal-like co-product of heating biomass to produce bio-oil or synthesis gas, both renewable, alternative fuels. Several Iowa companies are creating the fuels and biochar, which has been used as a fertilizer.)
- Sulfur. (It's a co-product of oil refining. The lone material on the list that can't be sourced from Iowa, though Mississippi River barges move it along the state's eastern border.)
These materials can be used to build the battery components that allow energy to be stored and discharged.
"The battery's cathode will be sulfur, the anode will be biochar and the separator will be a sodium-ion conducting glass," said Martin, an Iowa State Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering, a University Professor in materials science and engineering and leader of the project. "And most of the materials can, in part or in whole, be sourced from renewable sources in Iowa."
The big idea is to build "ultra-low-cost, ultra-high-performance" batteries using "all Iowa resources" to store "renewable Iowa wind energy," according to the project's title.
The Iowa Energy Center is supporting the project with a three-year, $458,743 grant to Martin and Patrick Johnson, an Iowa State professor of materials science and engineering. The project builds on work launched by a 2019 Iowa Energy Center grant of $480,656.
Johnson, whose background includes searching for new, high-value uses for coal during a previous faculty post at the University of Wyoming, said the project's aim is to add value to local materials by using them in batteries that can be scaled to industrial uses.
Delivering tech, education and, maybe, a startup
After going through the project's materials list, Martin and Johnson counted the potential deliverables:
First, there are new battery technologies.
The raw materials on Martin's list aren't ideal for battery production - but the potential benefits make them worth exploring. What happens, for example, when researchers mix some waste glass into the pure glass they use for a solid battery separator? Or when they use biochar instead of purer hard carbon to store sodium atoms in an anode? Or when they use cheap sodium instead of expensive lithium?
Martin and his group will focus on the sodium glass separator and sulfur cathode research. Johnson and his group will focus on the biochar anode research.
Second, there are educational accomplishments.
The research project will be the subject of doctoral theses for two students - Alec Wakefield from Buffalo, Minnesota, who works with Martin and Isuru Gusthigngnawadu from Colombo, Sri Lanka, who works with Johnson. The graduate students will also teach and mentor two undergraduates, Maggie Macoskey from Cottage Grove, Minnesota, and Brianna Dotzler from Waterloo.
Third, Martin said there will be intellectual property, including patents and papers published in scientific journals.
Fourth, Johnson said the researchers will develop partnerships with Iowa companies producing biochar in their reactors and looking for new and higher value uses for the co-product.
And fifth, there could be a startup company.
Martin said he's been in contact with Peter Hong, the director of Iowa State's Startup Factory, an incubator that helps university researchers explore commercialization of their inventions. He said the project may join a future cohort of the Startup Factory.
'Daunting technical challenges'
Martin said during prior projects his research group has essentially made these kinds of batteries.
"But they're like the artwork only a mother could love," he said.
They work as batteries. But they'll need to work as rechargeable batteries. They'll need a boost in energy density. They'll need to hold their capacity. And they'll need to be scaled up for industrial use.
Martin envisions a final product that's two or three times larger than today's typical batteries for electric vehicles. To reach industrial-scale, wind-energy capacities, it will take hundreds of such batteries connected to each other. He sees the battery units as flat, stackable pouch- or bag-like batteries, rather than wound cylinders such as household batteries.
A new battery fabrication and testing center in the Black Engineering Building on campus will help with battery development and assembly. But the researchers say the project is hardly a quick and easy slam dunk.
"Solid-state batteries are at the cutting edge," Johnson said. "There are only a handful of researchers who work with glass-based batteries."
Yes, Martin said, "these are very daunting technical challenges. But, as my daughter (Ashley Martin, head women's basketball coach at Iowa Lakes Community College) says, 'You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.'"
