Researchers develop new organic materials for the next generation of energy storage equipment in the

2024-01-17

As the modern world increasingly relies on energy storage devices, implementing sustainable battery technology has become increasingly important. This technology is more environmentally friendly, easy to dispose of, relies only on rich elements, and is affordable. A new report by Skoltech researchers describes an organic material used in next-generation energy storage devices, whose structure follows elegant molecular design principles. The report was recently published in the journal ACS Energy Applied Materials and became the cover story of the magazine.

Organic batteries are an ideal candidate for achieving this goal. Organic cathode materials that store a large amount of energy per unit of mass can be quickly charged, durable, and easy to mass produce, but they have not yet been developed. To address this issue, researchers from Skoltech have proposed a simple oxidation-reduction active polyimide. It is synthesized by heating a mixture of aromatic dianhydride and meta phenylenediamine, both of which are easily obtainable reagents. This material exhibits promising characteristics in various types of energy storage devices, such as lithium, sodium, and potassium based batteries. It has a high specific capacity (up to about 140 mAh/g), a relatively high redox potential, as well as good cycling stability (up to 1000 cycles) and fast charging ability (<1 minute).

The energy and power output of this new material is superior to its previously known isomer, which comes from p-phenylenediamine. Firstly, it has smaller particles and a higher surface area, which makes it easier for the charge carrier to diffuse. Secondly, the spatial arrangement of adjacent imide units in the polymer allows metal ions to bind more energetically, which increases the redox potential.

The researchers proposed a new molecular design principle for battery polyimide, which uses aromatic molecules and meta amino groups as building blocks. For a long time, scientists have conducted little research on this structural motif and instead used para phenylenediamine or similar structures instead. The current research findings provide good clues for understanding how to design battery polyimides at the molecular level, which may lead to cathode materials with better properties.

Microsoft Bing Search will welcome its own artificial intelligence assistant

Microsoft is building an assistant robot that will appear on Bing. com search results, which looks quite similar in functionality to Cortana. This tool, simply named "Chat", will enable people to communicate through Bing search results, essentially based on a new experimental artificial intelligence.

In 2017, Microsoft showcased a single purpose "Bing bots" robot preview for local search results, built on Microsoft's robot framework and designed to assist users in search queries.

"Chat" is an alternative solution from Microsoft to search assistant services like Siri and Google Assistant, which can do more than just perform search tasks. For example, when searching for "Windows 10", the robot will start a conversation about the current computer and the latest version of Windows.

Chat can also recommend products within the price range. For example, when asked to recommend laptops under $900 by Bing, the assistant would recommend Lenovo laptops because they "can run all versions of Windows, which is a good choice if you are looking for a laptop that can last for a long time. You should also look at the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, which is a laptop with a removable keyboard," the assistant wrote. However, for unknown reasons, the assistant did not recommend Microsoft's Surface products.

The assistant is also ready to chat with humans, but its chat function is currently limited. When it has no answer, it will repeat some meaningless text like Siri.

In the past few years, Microsoft has developed Bing image robots and Bing music robots, and the "Chat" assistant is the company's latest project. It is currently unclear when Microsoft plans to officially announce this chatbot.

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