Electrochemistry News Items & Facts - March 2024

Every day, we all use battery powered devices at home, drive vehicles, eat packaged foods, and drink clean water. These are a few examples of the countless aspects of our modern lifestyles which are reliant on electrochemistry - broadly defined as the study of how electricity interacts with materials.

As an electrochemistry instrumentation company, Admiral Instruments proudly serves our customers who are among the millions of scientists, engineers, & technicians around the world using potentiostats and battery cyclers to uncover new ways electrochemistry may benefit us all.

To celebrate how electrochemistry has shaped the past, touches our present-day lives, and influences the future, every month Admiral Instruments posts five notable news articles, publications, & trivia somehow related to electrochemistry. Click on each entry to read more from the source article!

Electrochemistry News Items & Facts for March 2024:

1. The "solid-electrolyte interphase" forms when a Li-ion battery receives its first charge during production, which results in an immediate ~10% loss of the battery's theoretical capacity.

2. The ideal temperature range to charge a Li-ion battery is 0 degC to 45 degC, and the ideal discharge temperature range is -20 degC to 60 degC. However, there are numerous research efforts underway to greatly expand the temperature range where ideal charging conditions exist.

3. The world's largest Li-ion battery grid storage facility (as of this writing) is called Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California. It consists of a 300MW/1200MWh Phase I and 100MW/400MWh Phase II. However, the facility has had consistent operational issues. But rather than battery defects being the cause of problems, investigations show that software errors in a heat suppression system is the root failure.

4. The highest efficiency achieved with microwave power transmission is 84%, recorded back in 1975 by a team in Japan. Systems with higher microwave power output have lower efficiency.

5. Efficiency of perovskite solar cells has increased from a mere 3.8% to over 25% in just 10 years, nearly matching the highest efficiency of single-crystal silicon solar cells which took over 20 years to reach their current efficiency levels.