The new manganese dioxide-zinc battery that was developed. Image credit: The City College of New York

Researchers at The City College of New York have developed a new generation of manganese dioxide-zinc batteries with a long life cycle and high energy density.

The new battery could make the common household battery suitable for large grid storage applications.

The battery was developed to apply a new twist to the old chemistry behind batteries resulting in a new battery that takes advantage of intercalation and complexation chemistry to make the cathodes rechargeable to a larger extent, greatly extending its life.

“A new layered crystal structure of manganese dioxide is used in this chemistry, which is intercalated with copper ions,” said Gautam G. Yadav, senior research associate at The City College of New York. “This makes it rechargeable to its theoretical capacity for a significant number of cycles.”

Researchers claim this is the first time a calcium hydroxide interlayer has been used to block the poisonous zinc ions through complexation. This allows the battery to maintain its energy density for more than 900 cycles.

While there are trends to replace lithium-ion batteries with zinc-anode versions because it is cheap, abundant and safer, it has not been feasible because zinc-anode batteries have a short life cycle, which is not appropriate for a commercialized rechargeable battery. Researchers believe this new method will change that.

The full research can be found in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.