Everything I need to know about STAIR Battery

Get ready for greener power for your cars and portable devices with the all new STAIR Battery! Thanks to some brilliant minds at University of St. Andrews in Scotland. They, along with some associates at Strathclyde and Newcastle have come up with a technology to prolong the life of batteries by enhancing their energy storing capability. This Project, named as ‘An O2 Electrode for a Rechargeable Lithium Battery’, was started around four years back with funding of $2.4 million from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of Great Britain.

STAIR

Named as St. Andrews Air, this battery uses air to improve the storage capacity by adding a carbon component. The Oxygen reacts with the carbon pores inside the battery to release electrical energy. This process can be repeated giving birth to a series of charging and discharging. STAIR is capable enough to store 10 times more energy than the regularly used batteries. Usually the conventional lithium-ion based batteries are used in portable devices such as laptops, mobile phones and MP3 players for power storage. This is all set to change with the STAIR Battery. The new technology is expected to be used in rolling out an entire new range of electric vehicles. Scientists at the university are also thinking of building a STAIR cell to be used in smaller portable devices like MP3 players and mobile phones.

The Benefits

Advantages are many. The prominent ones being that this battery would be less expensive as compared to the ones using lithium. This is because carbon component is less expensive than the lithium cobalt oxide. Secondly, oxygen is re-utilized which means less usage of heavy chemicals. This results in a cheap and better capacity for battery. Next, there would be a substantial reduction in the weight and size of the batteries which would mean that EV manufacturers can produce cars having batteries with prolonged life and greater range. Earlier during the research, a capacity-to-weight ratio of 1,000 milli-amp/hours per gram of carbon (mA/hours/g) was found, whereas recently it went upto 4,000 mA/hours/g. It is estimated that the storage capacity of batteries in cell phones would increase by 8 times.

The Low down

No matter what the advantages are, people will have to wait for this technology to arrive. According to the scientists it could take anywhere around three years to launch the STAIR Battery on a commercial scale. You will be able to figure out its weaknesses once it hits the market. At present, none are known.

The Impact

The new battery will also use renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind. The batteries will be discharged and generate electricity with sun shining or wind blowing. It will also solve the problem irregular supply, be it day or night. This is highly important when the world, today, faces one of the most challenging problems in the history of mankind – global warming. It is these steps that will truly make our world a better place to live in.

The world is changing with a spectacular rapidity. But every change cannot be called a progress. Most of the progress is an illusionary change. The most prominent example is the ruthless industrialisation that the humanity underwent years ago. It was degress in disguise, which we failed to observe. Now that we have seen the true ugly face of this change, it would be unfair to call it progress. Good that we have woken up, frightened although. Better we have started taking actions to correct our illusionary progress. This battery is just a flick of light in the dark. Such flickers are expected in enormous quantum to change the way we all are living today. Now that is true progress.