Researchers from Moscow State University (MSU) and Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) have transmuted a pesky poisonous weed – Sosnowsky’s hogweed – into a high-grade anode material for cheap sodium-ion batteries. These are emerging cost-effective alternatives to lithium-ion batteries for uses where compact size is not crucial, such as solar and wind farms.
Sodium-ion batteries use sodium ions and release them over many cycles, which is crucial for battery operation. It does not significantly expand in size upon charge-up. Unlike Li-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries are cheap, reasonably easy to synthesize and dispose of, and do not create significant fire hazards.
“We thought, wouldn’t it be fun to take something as nasty and objectionable as hogweed and make something useful out of it,” study co-author Zoya Bobyleva of Lomonosov Moscow State…
Researchers transmute poisonous weed into anode material for sodium-ion batteries
