Thursday, March 4, 2010

Iron, a new life in power lithium ion battery

Iron is critical in human life both as a basic material, and as the oxygen transporter in the blood. The term of iron age is used to take the place of bronze age. Iron age tells how important the iron, then later steel is for the human civilization.

Oddily enough, there are 2 to 6 grams of iron in adults, enough to make a couple of nails. In biology, iron is credited with binding site for oxygen molecule in the red cell. Without iron, no life will be possible.

The strangest part is that iron finds new application in the lithium ion rechargeable battery. Lithium ion batteries are widely used in portable electronics because of their low weight, high energy density. An iron containing material is discovered to be one of the best for lithium ion battery. People dub the thus made batteries as LIFE batteries. Li and Fe are chemistry symbol for the elements of lithium and iron respectively.

The principle for iron in blood to transport oxygen molecules is the same as in the latest lithium ion battery. Is that amazing? The god, or nature picked iron to be used in blood, and now LIBs have iron in it which has the chemistry. The chemistry can be summarized as Fe3+/Fe2+ redox couple.

Iron is also one of the most stable nuclei in all elements. ie, either fusion of fission, will mostly likely lead to iron.

Computer Generated Images of Graphene

Space filling model of a simplified graphene.
Stick model of the same simplified graphene.

A different view of the above stick model of the same simplified graphene. Carbon, hydrogen labels removed.

Computer generated image for graphene with a formula of C52H18
Mol. Wt.: 642.7
C, 97.18% by weight; H, 2.82% by weight.
C-C bond distance 0.139 nm
C-H bond distance 0.112 nm