TIFR Hyderabad researchers come up with light chargeable batteries

Engineering a new way of charging the batteries, researchers of TIFR, Hyderabad, demonstrated how the lithium ion battery, similar to existing commercial designs, can be directly charged with sunlight, thereby developing a solar battery.

Hyderabad: Engineering a new way of charging the batteries, researchers of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Hyderabad, demonstrated how the lithium ion battery, similar to existing commercial designs, can be directly charged with sunlight, thereby developing a solar battery.

During their study on rechargeable batteries, the researcher group led by Prof. TN Narayanan used a hetero-structure electrode, a combination of two materials Molybdenum sulphide and Molybdenum oxide, in a lithium ion battery, which is commonly used to power cell phones, laptops, e-bikes etc. In this study, the researchers observed that the charging mechanism in the battery was being driven by light.

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Further, the researchers explored whether light was indeed charging the battery or observation simply a result of an unknown side reaction. Using the lithium metal – Titanium disulphide and Titanium dioxide – hybrid electrode assembly, Amar Kumar, lead author and graduate student at Prof. Narayanan’s group and his colleagues successfully demonstrated functioning of a light chargeable battery. The team improved the design by replacing lithium with graphite, developing a safer solar battery.

“Lithium intercalated TiS2/TiO2 as cathode and graphite as an anode seems to be functioning as a battery, with efficiency similar to what is used in cell phones, but are also rechargeable using light with solid electrolytes – hence, safer solar batteries,” the researchers said. Computational studies providing further mechanistic insights were conducted by Soumya Ghosh’s group at TIFR Hyderabad.

According to researchers, the work opens up a plethora of opportunities for the development of commercially viable light chargeable batteries while also raising several fundamental questions regarding charging mechanism, thermal effects etc.

Presently, the Narayanan’s group at the TIFR Hyderabad in collaboration with Michael De Volder’s group of the University of Cambridge are exploring potential candidate materials for developing robust renewable energy harvesting cum storage systems.