Research Areas
What are we working on
Aluminum-ion Batteries:
This type of secondary battery has a very similar functioning as the lithium ion batteries. The specific capacity of the battery is determined by the intercalation of the active ions in the cathode. However, most minerals and graphitic materials developed to date are far from reaching the volumetric capacity of aluminum. For that reason, in this project we focus in the development and characterization of new minerals and graphitic materials as cathodes for aluminum-ion batteries with high intercalation capability, low cost, mechanical stability and appropriate conductivity.
“SOLAR-STORAGE ENERGY” PROJECT
Aluminum Air Batteries
The intermittency of renewable energy sources such as eolic and solar make necessary the development of new methodologies of energy storage. Moreover, those methodologies need to be carbon neutral, cheap and efficient. Aluminum-based batteries appears as a promising alternative for energy storage when we take into account that this metal is cheap, safe, abundant, with high volumetric capacity and easily recyclable. Aluminum has four times more volumetric capacity than lithium (8,0 vs 2,0 Ah/cm3) and comparable gravimetric capacity (3,0 vs 3,8 mAh/g). Aluminum-air batteries have theoretical capacities of even 1090 Wh/kg which make them particularly interesting for applications in mobility. This type of batteries consists of an aluminum anode, an electrolyte (usually a KOH solution) and an air cathode. This cathode normally contains a membrane that is permeable to oxygen, an electron collector and a catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction.
This project looks for the registration, evaluation, and analysis of the feasibility in the usage and performance of different technologies of batteries (lead, lithium, and vanadium) interconnected to polycrystalline silicon solar cells in conditions properly of our Centro American region. Simultaneously, the performance of solar generation of a small system of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) modules will be studied.
This is a technical assistance project between Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica (BCIE), Proyecto Acelerando las Inversiones en Energía Renovable en Centroamérica y Panamá (ARECA), and Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) by the Centro de Electroquímica y Energía Química (CELEQ), as technical advisor and place of installation of the systems, with the aim of promoting the green energy investments by ARECA´s non-refundable funding's.
These systems will allow obtaining a data base about these kinds of technologies, which are less known in our countries, and will endorse first-hand information and local access of the systems to the students, professors/ staff of the University, and every interested person. The endeavored projection is opening the road in Costa Rica and the region to the interest in emergent technologies of generation and storage of energy, facilitating the decision making in terms of renewable energy and considering the possible uses in remote sites.
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