Post by account_disabled on Feb 20, 2024 5:53:11 GMT -5
The development of efficient and sustainable energy storage devices is of vital importance for a climate-friendly future. As the number of applications for batteries and supercapacitors continually increases, in the future it will be essential to improve not only the performance of these energy storage devices , but also their sustainability in terms of (renewable) sources, availability and recyclability.
In the search for new resources, researchers have now come across a surprising raw material: brewery waste. Chemists from the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena have joined forces with Spanish partners to test spent brewery grain as a biological source to produce materials for electrochemical energy storage systems. On the one hand, they obtained carbon, which can be used as an electrode in batteries, and on the other hand, activated carbon as an electrode material for supercapacitors.
The Jena team developed a method in which they produced carbonaceous materials suitable for storage applications. With the new process, experts were able to maximize the surface area and optimize the pore size of the materials. When used as an electrode in supercapacitors, these carbons guarantee a very high capacity and make it possible to produce a dev C Level Executive List axice with high energy density, the researchers report.
“For some years now, we have been investigating the suitability of different biological raw materials to make carbon-containing materials that we use to create energy storage devices,” explains Professor Andrea Balducci from the University of Jena. “And brewery waste meets important criteria for this: its chemical composition is, in principle, very suitable for the applications we are targeting.”
Brewer's spent grains are available in large quantities, researchers say. In the European Union, for example, around million tons were produced in , of which million tons were produced in Germany alone. Additionally, breweries are well distributed throughout the country, making waste readily available, so long trips to obtain raw materials are not necessary.
Until now, activated carbon for supercapacitors, for example, is currently mainly obtained from coconut shells . This could change in the future, although more research is needed.
“This type of waste could be an interesting option to produce materials for supercapacitors if certain factors can be further optimized, such as the cost or the chemical composition of the raw material,” adds Balducci . “We will work on other projects to better understand the advantages and limitations of using this abundant material so that it can then be used more widely in the production of sustainable energy storage.”
In the search for new resources, researchers have now come across a surprising raw material: brewery waste. Chemists from the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena have joined forces with Spanish partners to test spent brewery grain as a biological source to produce materials for electrochemical energy storage systems. On the one hand, they obtained carbon, which can be used as an electrode in batteries, and on the other hand, activated carbon as an electrode material for supercapacitors.
The Jena team developed a method in which they produced carbonaceous materials suitable for storage applications. With the new process, experts were able to maximize the surface area and optimize the pore size of the materials. When used as an electrode in supercapacitors, these carbons guarantee a very high capacity and make it possible to produce a dev C Level Executive List axice with high energy density, the researchers report.
“For some years now, we have been investigating the suitability of different biological raw materials to make carbon-containing materials that we use to create energy storage devices,” explains Professor Andrea Balducci from the University of Jena. “And brewery waste meets important criteria for this: its chemical composition is, in principle, very suitable for the applications we are targeting.”
Brewer's spent grains are available in large quantities, researchers say. In the European Union, for example, around million tons were produced in , of which million tons were produced in Germany alone. Additionally, breweries are well distributed throughout the country, making waste readily available, so long trips to obtain raw materials are not necessary.
Until now, activated carbon for supercapacitors, for example, is currently mainly obtained from coconut shells . This could change in the future, although more research is needed.
“This type of waste could be an interesting option to produce materials for supercapacitors if certain factors can be further optimized, such as the cost or the chemical composition of the raw material,” adds Balducci . “We will work on other projects to better understand the advantages and limitations of using this abundant material so that it can then be used more widely in the production of sustainable energy storage.”