A team of researchers from the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California Riverside has developed a low-cost method to produce sand-based lithium ion batteries. These batteries are performing three times better than standard lithium-ion batteries.
Zachary Favors, a graduate student, has been focusing his research on anodes and how to find a suitable material replacement for graphite and nanoscale silicon. He found sand that contains a high percentage of quartz and ground it down to the nanometer scale. The milled sand went through a series of purification steps, mixed with salt and magnesium to create a powder and then heated. The final product developed was pure silicon that had a unique characteristic of being very porous. The porous characteristic of the pure nano-silicon is the key to the improved performance.
Read about the applications that could utilize the sand-based lithium-ion batteries.
