Indian scientists develop high-performance green energy storage material

Scientists from Bengaluru’s Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS) in collaboration with Aligarh Muslim University, have developed a new kind of energy storage material that can help vastly improve the performance of supercapacitors, which forms the core of energy storage systems.

Supercapacitors are mainly used in mobile devices, electric vehicles, energy storage systems etc because of their capacity to store and release energy faster than batteries. However, supercapacitors lack the capacity to store energy in large volumes. The new material developed by Indian scientists could help increase storage capacity of supercapacitors.

The research team, led by Kavita Pandey of CeNS, has found that the use of a combination of silver niobate (AgNbO₃) and lanthanum, which has excellent electrical properties and are environment friendly is an excellent material for boosting storage capacity of supercapacitors.

When lanthanum, which has excellent electrical and electronic properties, was injected into silver niobate nanoparticles, it was found that the silver niobate nanoparticles shrank, expanding the area for storing energy.

With lanthanum doping, the material improved its ability to conduct electricity, thereby improving the energy charging and discharging cycles as well. It also helped improve retention of energy to 118 per cent of its original capacity. With zero energy loss in constant use, the material gave 100 per cent coulombic efficiency, according to the researchers.

The material was tested using an asymmetric prototype of a supercapacitor to power an LCD display.

The use of La-doped silver niobate can boost energy density while keeping power output and stability of supercapacitors intact, a development that would help develop high-performance, compact energy storage material for electronic devices and energy storage systems. 

The lanthanum-doping experiment can be extended to other materials to improve energy storage capacity of smaller capacitors and large energy storage systems, according to the researchers.