Trash or Treasure? Walnut Shells Used in New Type Battery?
In the R&D department of Anhui Bear Energy Store Technology Co., Ltd., Zhang Xianwen was leading three engineers to do research on sodium-ion battery assembly testing. The reporter noticed that packets of walnut shells were in the corner of the room. Just as the reporter was in confusion, the company’s principal, Professor Zhang Xianwen explained: “They are not ‘garbage’, but genuine ‘treasures’.”
“We turn waste into treasure by collecting discarded walnut shells, processing them through a unique technological process, and then adopting green power carbonization to produce high-value-added hard carbon for use as a negative electrode material in sodium batteries.” Zhang Xianwen said that walnut shells have a wide range of sources, low cost, and excellent performance. Through pyrolysis and conversion, they turn into raw materials for sodium-ion batteries, realizing the goal of turning waste into treasure and reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
As we all know, electrification, intelligence, and connectivity are the future development directions of the automotive industry. The biggest constraint on new energy vehicles is batteries. How to solve the problems of low temperature, safety, and fast charging range of batteries has become the top priority for enterprises and scientific research. Currently, sodium-ion batteries are becoming the new favorite in the field of power and energy storage due to their unique advantages. Their performance advantages and strategic resource significance provide new ideas for the development of new energy.
Sodium Ion VS Lithium Ion
Similar to lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries are also “rocking chair batteries” that rely mainly on the “movement” of sodium ions between the cathode and anode to achieve charging and discharging. So what are the benefits of using sodium-ion batteries?
“First of all, sodium-ion batteries can solve the problem of lithium ore mainly imported from abroad. They have fast charging and discharging speeds, good low-temperature performance, with a power retention rate of over 80% at minus 30 degrees Celsius, and the overall cost can be reduced by 30% to 40% compared to lithium batteries,” said Zhang Xianwen. He explained that the microstructure and composition of nutshell materials are very suitable for the transmission and migration of sodium ions. “On the whole, using nutshells as raw materials is a very good choice for making hard carbon.”
Nowadays, the sodium-ion battery materials developed by Zhang Xianwen’s team have been able to realize battery cell production and are applied in various scenarios such as new energy vehicles, mobile power supplies, and energy storage systems.
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