What Role Can Potassium Titanate Play In Battery Advances?
Potassium titanate is an important compound for use in various chemical processes, such as in capacitors and friction materials like brake pads. But in the future, it may have another role to play in motoring.
As Material Properties has noted, the compound could have a major role to play in the future in battery technology development. It said: “One promising area is its use in next-generation batteries, where it could potentially improve energy density and longevity.”
This area is not just theoretical or a case of a new application searching for a use. This is an age when electric vehicles are proliferating and there is a growing need to store more electricity when renewables cannot produce it all the time – the answer to the question of what happens when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
The need for batteries to be able to last longer and store more energy is an imperative for the electric vehicle sector, as it will make the charging process more efficient and also reduce concerns about ‘range anxiety’ – the notion that a vehicle travelling to a more remote area might get stranded out of reach of a charger.
Progress is already being made in this area with other materials. For example, Lithium-sulphur batteries may now offer the prospect of better storage capacity and longevity than other renewable batteries after engineers at Southern Methodist University in the US found a way to prevent polysulfide dissolution from occurring during their use.
Polysulfide dissolution reduces the lifespan of such batteries, but a new polymer created by researchers enables these batteries to be used without this happening.
While this may advance the cause for lithium-sulphur batteries, work is taking place on various other substances to seek to overcome constraints on capacity.
In such an active industry aiming at the critical goal of decarbonising the motor industry, there are many materials that could have a role to play. Potassium titanate is very much among them.
