Sustainability is worth how much?

A high-performance version of the zinc-ion battery will enable stationary energy storage that promises to be cheaper, safer and more environmentally friendly than lithium-ion batteries. Until now, zinc-ion batteries have been severely hampered by their rapid degradation during use. Now, a KAUST team has developed a new electrolyte and electrode combination that improved several aspects of zinc-ion battery performance, particularly the stability over multiple charge and discharge cycles. To combat these issues, the team developed a water electrolyte with a very high salt concentration. The more salt ions present in the solution to bind surrounding water molecules, the fewer free water molecules are available to damage the electrodes.