"Super" material makes great GREEN batteries
 sing an unusual compound called iron-VI, or “super
iron,” Professor Marc
Anderson and doctoral candidate Ken Walz
(also a faculty member at the Madison Area Technical College) are designing
environmentally friendly batteries that deliver more power but weigh
less.
Traditional alkaline batteries contain zinc and magnesium
dioxide and generate power via oxidation and reduction reactions. On
the anode side, the zinc loses two electrons. They travel through an
electrical circuit, providing power, and return to the cathode to combine
with the magnesium dioxide, which can accept only one electron at a
time. The cathode reaction must occur twice for every reaction in the
anode, limiting the battery’s performance.
With funding from a variety of sources, including
the U.S. government and the National Science Foundation, Anderson and
Walz are developing batteries that replace the magnesium dioxide with
the iron-VI. In theory, the iron-VI can handle three electrons at a
time, speeding up the reaction time and reducing the battery’s
weight. And when the zinc is consumed and the battery dies, all that’s
left is iron-III, or rust.
Currently the two are developing prototypes of “button”
batteries—those that power devices such as wristwatches. In the
future, they hope to scale up to larger batteries—the kind parents
buy in abundance to power their kids’ toys.
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