Chemical Engineering students succeeded in creating a high-capacity battery from tamarind peel which was converted into sulfur-dopped carbon nanosheets as the anode of a sodium ion battery instead of a graphite anode.

Electric vehicles have received more attention in recent years because of their potential to reduce CO2 emissions generated from petroleum fuels which are very high every year.

The existence of the battery industry is important because batteries are a major component in the manufacture of electric vehicles and electronic goods around us. The most commonly used batteries are lithium-ion batteries. However, lithium metal is classified as a rare earth metal with only 0.006% in the earth’s crust and its distribution is uneven.

We need to know that in 2022 the demand for lithium metal reaches 689,000 tons/year, this will lead to a lack of lithium supply. It will lead to the limited fulfillment of energy storage places.

On the other hand, sodium-ion battery innovation has the potential to be developed as a lithium-ion replacement. Sodium metal has a considerable amount in seawater, earth’s crust, and components of plants so its use will also be more economical than lithium metal.

Materials that are often used as anodes in Sodium-Ion batteries are carbon or graphite. However, sodium ions have a larger size compared to lithium ions so the addition of sodium to the graphite anode can cause volume expansion and destruction due to the less surface area of ​​graphite.

In an effort to improve the performance of the Sodium-Ion battery, five Chemical Engineering students, Faculty of Engineering Universitas Brawijaya (FT-UB) under the name of the TC-ONE team, conducted research on the manufacture (Innovation of Sulfur Carbon Nanosheets of Tamarind Skin as the Anode of Future Sodium-Ion Batteries).

Kinanti Amartia Permadi with her four partners; Nabila Sahya Tartila, Salsabila Rahmah, Muhammad Haidar Baqir, and Wahyu Diski Pratama claim that activated carbon from tamarind peel can produce the highest specific capacity reaching 412 F/g.

By making a sodium ion battery anode derived from tamarind peel into a carbon nanosheet, it will produce the highest ionic storage that is microporous with nanoscale production. To improve its performance, carbon nanosheets are doped with sulfur.

This dopping has many advantages including the addition of a Faraday reaction to increase the storage capacity of Na+, increase the specific surface area for the reaction, increase electronegativity and better electrical conductivity, and expand the distance between layers for the absorption and transfer of Na+ in the charge/charge process. discharges.

With this work, the TC-ONE team succeeded in obtaining research funds from the Ministry of Higher Education in the Student Creativity Week (PKM) in the field of Exact Research.

“We hope that the existence of TC-ONE can contribute significantly to the development of industrial progress in the field of renewable energy in realizing an energy-independent Indonesia in 2045,” said Kinanti.

Under the guidance of Supriyono, S.T., M.T., the team will fight to take part in the selection of the upcoming XXXV 2022 National Student Scientific Week (PIMNAS).