A group of scientists from Northwestern University of Illinois state and researchers from Argonne National Laboratory of US have created a lithium-ion battery that uses iron and oxygen - it is a lithium-iron-oxide cell rather than usual lithium-cobalt-oxide. The new creation proved to be better than its modern competitors: its capacity is bigger and the cell itself is cheaper to produce because of the usage of iron.
The lithium-cobalt-oxide battery has existed on market for twenty years, and scientists were constantly improving it and searching for alternatives. Aforementioned research team has improved the common lithium-cobalt-oxide battery using two methods: replacing cobalt with iron, and forcing oxygen to participate in the reaction process.
Schematical picture of battery at molecular level
The major breakthrough is the successful use of oxygen ions in the battery reactions, which were considered too unstable to be used before. Using oxygen to transfer electrons allows the use of four times the standard quantity of lithium in the battery, thus increasing the amount of usable energy it can produce.
The researchers have already made a patent application and have promised to continue searching for other possible materials which could apply the same technology.