Renewable materials build low-cost batteries to store wind energy
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.
