ion

NASA’s new ion engine, a fundamental piece to reach Mars

by

Ion engines are not new. There are many satellites that have used them to stabilize themselves in their orbit. It has also been used in small ships like that of the Psyche missionwhose objective was to explore the asteroid with the same name. However, NASA wants to go further and create an ion engine so powerful that in the future it can be used to take humans to Mars. There is still a long way to go; But, according to their latest evidence, they could be on the right track. The most powerful ion engine. Until now, the most powerful ion engine that has been used to go to space has been that of the Psyche mission. With it, a speed of 200,000 kilometers per hour has been reached. Instead, NASA scientists have recently tested a much more powerful engine on Earth. It is a lithium-powered magnetoplasmadynamic thruster, which uses an electric current, which interacts with a magnetic field to accelerate a lithium-ion-based propellant. All this is done in a vacuum chamber 8 meters long. After the tests, 120 kilowatts of power have been reached: 25 times more than with Psyche. It is still not enough to travel to Mars, but, after the success of the tests, these researchers hope to be able to scale the process until they achieve 4 megawatt engines. Several of those could be used to conquer the red planet. Different ions. Broadly speaking, an ion engine consists of a vacuum chamber in which an electromagnetic field accelerates electrically charged atoms through a nozzle, generating thrust. Those charged atoms are the ionic propellant. Traditionally, xenon is used, although metallic plasmas have also begun to be explored. That’s where lithium comes into play. Advantages. Ion-powered engines use 90% less propellant than chemical ones. That, in itself, is already a great advantage. On the other hand, although they start with a very low speed, they have the advantage that, in the absence of friction, as occurs in the vacuum of space, they keep accelerating for a long timeso they can reach very high speeds. This is how has been achieved that many satellites can adjust their orbit. A key piece is missing. In order to start this electromagnetic field, an energy source is needed, which is normally obtained through solar panels. However, to go to very distant places where the Sun does not reach so easily, it would be necessary to look for alternatives. For this reason, NASA scientists consider that this ion engine should be complemented with the nuclear thrusters that Both this agency and others have been studying for some time. In the case of NASA, They have made a lot of progress with Space Reactor-1 Freedoma nuclear-powered spacecraft, whose first launch is scheduled for 2028. Investment is needed. In order to scale what has been achieved so far, strategic investments will have to be made, as NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has already pointed out. in statements collected by Space. The scale they want to make is not small, so they are still waiting to receive adequate financing. In the meantime, you can at least be proud that the first 5 firings of this initial prototype went perfectly. Image | POT In Xataka | The West stopped building nuclear power plants because they were too expensive: China is teaching it a lesson

The big problem with lithium ion batteries is their degradation over time. A chemical adjustment can change it

by

It doesn’t matter if it’s a mobile phone, a laptop, the Nintendo Switch or a Dyson: as you use it, the battery life will reduce. Yes, lithium ion batteries they have changed the world and for years they have been the absolute standard in consumer electronics, but degradation over time is their endemic evil. While we look for alternatives To this technology, a research team has found a promising solution in a seemingly simple chemical tweak. The advance. The main idea of ​​this research is not to change the main materials of the battery, but simply to add a small amount of an additive: lithium difluorophosphate. Its existence is not new, but this research led by Professor Chunsheng Wang of the University of Maryland reveals how effective it is in stabilizing batteries. Why is it important. Because lithium ion batteries are present everywhere and this modification would extend their useful life using standard, low-cost chemistry. The result of their experiment is that with this additive, batteries can be optimized to maximize power and energy, or to achieve greater useful life and stability. For practical purposes, the study shows how with this adjustment they maintained a significantly higher capacity after hundreds of charge and discharge cycles. As Wang explains.“It is a relatively simple modification of current batteries.” Or what is the same, after having run security tests and long cycles, “it could realistically reach consumers.” Brief notes on the mechanism of a battery. Lithium ion batteries are made up of a negative anode and a positive cathode and have a porous separator between the two. The assembly is immersed in an electrolyte whose mission is to allow lithium ions to move between electrodes during charging and discharging. With the discharge, the anode releases electrons to the electrical circuit (gives electricity to the device) and ions to the electrolyte, meeting again at the cathode. Upon charging, an external source (the charger) reverses the process by “pumping” the ions back to the anode to store the energy in the chemical structure. The degradation of its capacity with use occurs due to the irreversible loss of lithium in secondary chemical reactions and due to mechanical fatigue of the electrodes. Basic diagram of the operation of a lithium ion battery. Walter Davison. Via: Wikimedia In detail. If we delve a little deeper into the previous explanation, the solid electrolyte interface (SEI) appears, a thin layer that forms on the anode during the first charges. In standard batteries, this layer is fragile and breaks down with use, consuming lithium and reducing battery life. Through a simple reaction inspired by organic chemistry, this additive makes the electrolyte more prone to accepting electrons, making degradation more controlled. In short, it helps to form a more robust, elastic and uniform SEI, thus acting as a kind of shield that prevents the electrolyte from reacting parasitically with the electrodes. In addition, it is a flexible chemistry that can be adjusted to be more or less protective and the presence of the additive minimizes the presence of cracks in the cathode. In Xataka | They have found a way to turn tall buildings into batteries. And that makes Benidorm our best asset In Xataka | China sold cheap batteries for years. The problem is that in the meantime no one built an alternative Cover | John Cameron

In the search to eliminate the lithium of the batteries, we have found the best candidate: multivent ion batteries

by

Lithium ion batteries move the world and, in the era of electrification, every time They are more important. They have a series of limitations and Lithium is a finite resource With a high environmental impact, which is a problem if we want to electrify mobility. There the future solid state batteriesbut meanwhile, a group of NJIT researchers He has had an idea to give more life to the current technology: squeeze the maximum current batteries. As? With multivent ion batteries. Multivalent ions. A team of researchers from the New Jersey Institute -Njit- had an idea. If lithium is key to current batteries, but also scarce, We could use more abundant elements such as magnesium, calcium, aluminum or zinc as a replacement or to ‘dopar’ current batteries. The objective was to maintain, at least, the properties of current batteries and, if possible, improve storage benefits without depending on lithium. There the multive ion batteries come into play. If Ion-Litio have only one load, multiveous ion batteries that use the aforementioned elements allow two or even three positive charges. This property, in theory, allows you to store more energy by ion. Not everything is perfect. This property, as exposed in the studyit allows to store more energy by ion, but if they are not used it is because they present an important technical challenge. Multivalent ions are larger than lithium and have a greater load, which makes their movement difficult within current materials. To make it easy, imagine that the interior of the cells of a lithium -ion battery is a sponge with a certain number of recesses that catch particles. In a multivete ion battery, it has more holes and each one catches more particles, but the sponge is also greater. Accelerated by AI. That was the great limitation of the technological industry, but what NJIT researchers have done is to put the artificial intelligence To work. In this context, the use of AI is ideal because it allows simulating a large range of possibilities, of which the most convincing to test them. The end of the AI was to find new viable compounds to create multive ion batteries and, for this, they used a dual approach. On the one hand, a model called CDVAE (Variational Crystal Dissemination Self -coach) that was trained with known crystalline structures to generate new materials. On the other, a model of LLM LLM LANGUAGE Aphinated to select only the most thermodynamically stable structures. When they finished the work, they discovered five new porous metal oxides that are shown as ideal for transporting multivalent ions quickly and safely. “One of the greatest obstacles was not the lack of promising chemicals for batteries, but the practical impossibility of trying millions of material combinations,” said Dibakar Datta, leader of the research team. “We resort to generative artificial intelligence as a rapid and systematic way to explore that vast panorama and detect the few structures that multivalent batteries could really do practices.” Structures isolated by AI models. Section A is that of the CDVAE. The B is that of LLM Beyond the batteries. The team states that it validated the structures generated by AI using mechanical-chanting simulations and stability tests, confirming that these isolated materials could be synthesized with great potential for applications in the real world. Currently, and with those results, from the NJIT they are collaborating with other laboratories to synthesize and test those materials designed by AI. And something that Datta highlights is that, as a collateral effect on research, they have demonstrated once again that AI can be “a quick and scalable method to explore any advanced material, from electronics to clean energy solutions, without relying on extensive tests by test and error.” Once the best results are isolated, of course, it is time to try them in the real world, but much of the previous work It accelerates considerably. A mere patch? Now, although changing the ‘formula’ of lithium -ion batteries can be a good patch, the objective of the industry is still put in the implementation of solid state batteries. The catalyst in them is not a liquid, but a solid that allows us to solve many of the problems of current batteries, while offering a Greater energy density and faster load times. They are batteries that are already developed and that are being driven by Much of the automotive industrybut the problem is that it is a more expensive technology and is not settled. Bringing it to the real world, for example, Mercedes is already in itwhile other brands like BMW say that, for the moment, they are not in their plans due to precisely the price. Images | NJIT, Cell Reports Physical Science, Kumpan Electric In Xataka | An extraordinarily promising substitute has come out of the batteries. And yes, it has everything

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.