By: Roxanne Cortner
Amazon recently announced an idea of drone package delivery that may not be found to be realistic due to the drone’s battery life. Drone batteries will only allow packages to be carried a maximum of five miles before the battery dies and the drone and package fall from the sky.
Joshua Johnson, a Georgia Southern graduate student and battery researcher, is researching to find a better battery that is more effective for storing energy. Johnson started his research in the eighth grade when he became interested in building a better battery for a science project. He began looking into different types of materials that could be used as elements to store and transfer energy.
Johnson explained that now he is looking to find an alternative to lithium batteries due to the fact that lithium is a scarce material, inefficient to mine, and have a short lifespan due to their recharge ability. Johnson further explained that his research is based on the idea of finding a more effective and efficient ion for batteries. Johnson’s ideas include the replacement of lithium ions in batteries with sodium, nickel, and hydrogen ions.
Currently, drone and car batteries are made with lithium which is toxic, but inexpensive compared to the previous use of zinc. Zinc was a heavier, more toxic, and more expensive material. Lithium was a better alternative as it was a lighter material, but the process of obtaining lithium is inefficient. Mining lithium for batteries requires the use of 500,000 gallons of water per metric ton of lithium which can be very damaging to the surrounding community and environment.
Some alternatives are sodium-ion batteries because they are much less damaging to the environment and less expensive due to their abundance along with the ocean's crust. Since sodium is naturally produced, this causes less harm to the environment during the collection process. Sodium is also available worldwide which saves on the production costs it would take to ship it like shipping lithium from other select countries.
“Fuzzy logic could assist in the prevention of accidents by using advanced programming to solve problems with the batteries as they happen,” Johnson said.
Fuzzy logic, logic based on possibility instead of probability, increases the safety of batteries. If a battery were to malfunction, overcharge, or charge too quickly, then this could result in the battery exploding. With the implementation of fuzzy logic the overall safety of batteries could be increased.
Johnson further stated that finding an alternative for lithium batteries could also increase their overall safety for the public. Due to the ability of lithium batteries being able to be recharged they are reused for an extensive amount of time. Lithium batteries also become more volatile over time. This creates concerns about lithium batteries' safety because the main reason they are used is also their biggest safety hazard.
Current electric-car batteries that use lithium-ion have to be replaced every 7-10 years. If Johnson can develop these theories and determine a better material source for batteries, then this could also make electric cars more efficient. This would allow electric car batteries to last longer than the charges they may hold now which is also beneficial in the move towards a more sustainable future.
Johnson said that with all of his research if he can’t find a solution, it will become a mathematical issue. A lot of his research is based on the material learned in physics one and physics two classes which he has applied to figure out how these batteries can be more efficient.
Johnson will continue researching and looking for an alternative to these materials until he finds an effective alternative and can get his research to the world.