Chinese scientists develop first hydride ion prototype battery

DALIAN -- A team of Chinese scientists has developed the first hydride ion prototype battery, laying a solid foundation for China's green energy development. The team's findings were published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Considered an important part of the future clean energy system, hydrogen typically participates in reactions in the form of protons, hydride ions and hydrogen atoms. Among these, hydride ions have the highest electron density, while they are easily polarized and highly reactive -- making them a promising energy carrier. The hydride ion battery is an important research direction in the field of clean energy.

Similar to the widely used lithium-ion battery, a hydride ion battery uses the movement of hydride ions to store and release energy. However, the battery was previously confined to the conceptual stage due to a lack of appropriate electrolyte materials, which should possess high ionic conductivity, low electronic conductivity, good thermal and electrochemical stability, and compatibility with electrode materials.

The research team led by Chen Ping, Cao Hujun and Zhang Weijin, all from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, located in northeast China's Liaoning Province and affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has invented a new core-shell structured composite hydride which serves as the electrolyte material.

This composite is composed of a thin layer of barium hydride coated on cerium trihydride. It exhibits good hydride ion conduction properties at room temperature, along with excellent thermal and electrochemical stability -- making it an ideal electrolyte material.

The team successfully achieved charging and discharging by using sodium aluminum hydride, a hydrogen storage material, as the positive electrode, and hydrogen-poor cerium dihydride as the negative electrode. The team also built a stacked battery based on this configuration, increasing the voltage to 1.9 volts and lighting up an LED light.

These findings, notably, prove the feasibility of the hydride ion battery for powering electronic devices -- and mark its leap from the conceptual stage to experimental verification.

According to the study, the hydride ion battery represents a brand new technical route of energy storage which is expected to play an important role in fields such as large-scale energy storage, hydrogen storage, mobile power sources and special power sources.

The team said it will focus on the development of hydride ion battery core materials and the optimization of their performance -- and expand the battery's application scenarios to provide strong support for China's green energy development.