Power-starved India may benefit from rechargeable magnesium battery

There might be a silver lining to a looming dark cloud for power-starved India, thanks to a rechargeable magnesium battery developed at IICT. This new and improved battery is being heralded as the answer to many issues resulting from perennial cases of power outage.

India has been plagued with power cuts for ages now. Take Uttar Pradesh for example, where denizens get just about an eight hour supply on an average daily. If they are lucky, they might get about 12 - 14 hours of power supply in the day. The same situation abounds in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bengal, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Telangana, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. These power outages require the use of inverters, but these devices too, get discharged in a couple of hours.

But now a battery, developed by scientists from the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical technology (CSIR-IICT) in Hyderabad may change the pace of things and make the situation more manageable. This safe, cost effective, rechargeable magnesium metal battery with a natural graphite cathode seems like a beacon of hope in an otherwise trying state of affairs. The team that developed the battery was led by Dr. J Vatsalarani.

According to the researchers, technology so far for rechargeable magnesium batteries was not available for commercial use. The battery developed utilizes eco-friendly materials such as modified natural graphite (cathode), magnesium (anode), and ionic liquid electrolyte, which are both safe and abundantly available. The team believes that the battery should be widely adopted by industries other than the government, and should ideally replace highly toxic lead acid batteries with the eco-conscious rechargeable magnesium battery.