Near America’s largest coal-fired power plant, toxins are showing up in drinking water and people have fallen ill. Thousands of pages of internal documents show how one giant energy company plans to avoid the cleanup costs.
From Plants to Batteries
A Florida State University research team has developed a way to use a common material found in plants to help create safer, larger capacity batteries. By incorporating lignin an organic compound in the cell walls of plants that makes them rigid the team has created a type of electrolyte compound, says professor Hoyong Chung.
Electrolytes, which separate the negative and positive terminals of a battery, can be either liquid or solid, and each type has its strengths and weaknesses. “Liquid electrolytes are good conductors of ions, but solid electrolytes are typically safer, stronger and can be used at higher temperatures than liquid versions,” says Chung.
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