India's rare-earth doping breakthrough hints at future of energy storage
energy retention
and 100 per cent
coulombic efficiency
, marking a major development in supercapacitor performance.
The breakthrough has been achieved by researchers at the
Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences
(CeNS), Bengaluru, in collaboration with Aligarh Muslim University. The research team, led by
Dr Kavita Pandey
at CeNS — an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology — used silver niobate (AgNbO₃), a lead-free material, as the base and introduced
lanthanum doping
to improve performance.
According to the findings, the addition of lanthanum, a rare-earth element, improved the electronic conductivity of the material and reduced particle size, increasing surface area available for energy storage. The doped material retained 118 per cent of its initial capacity after repeated use and achieved 100 per cent coulombic efficiency, with no loss of energy during charge-discharge cycles.
A prototype
asymmetric supercapacitor
developed using the new material was able to power an LCD display. The research has been published in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds.
'This research demonstrates the potential of lanthanum doping as a method to tailor silver niobate for high-performance supercapacitors,' the research paper stated.
The study highlights the role of
rare-earth doping
in improving the properties of silver niobate nanoparticles for electrochemical energy storage. The team said future research would explore doping strategies in other perovskite materials and focus on scaling up lanthanum-doped silver niobate for commercial use.
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