A team of students from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (MIPA) discovered the potential for oyster shell waste to be used as battery material for electric vehicles. This discovery is called Crossta Battery.
The team consisting of Ahmad Multazam Abdan, Ahmad Syarwani, Izza Lailatul Kasanah, Zainurrohman Prastomo, Uray Keisya Ranaputri and guided by Prof. Akhmad Sabarudin, M.Sc., Dr.Sc. conducted research on the calcium oxide content in oyster shells as a raw material for batteries, which is one of the future energy sources that is widely used as an energy source for electric vehicles. This research was funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture and Brawijaya University through the Student Creativity Program in Exact Research.
“The batteries that currently commercialized and used, for example Lithium batteries or Nickel-Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) batteries, are not often found on earth and require high costs to use,” said Ahmad Multazam as team leader. In addition, Indonesia also has to import battery elements from China, which increases production costs.
Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the bodies of animals and humans. Calcium has many benefits and is abundant in the surrounding environment. One use of calcium is as raw material for battery electrodes to produce calcium batteries.
He explained that calcium batteries are easy to recharge so they have great potential for technological developments in the energy sector in the future. The reason is that calcium batteries contain abundant raw materials and their production costs are lower than other types of batteries.
“Calcium (Ca-Ion) batteries are a power storage innovation that uses calcium as the main ingredient. “Calcium is easier to find in nature, so the price of calcium batteries is relatively cheaper than other types of batteries,” said Multazam.
“In this research, a testing process was carried out on the synthesis of oyster shell calcium oxide which had been calcined using several instruments such as FTIR, AAS, Powder XRD, and SEM EDX, followed by electrical test results using an RLC Meter. “Through this test, it shows that CaO resulting from calcination at 800°C has the potential to be continued in battery effectiveness testing,” said the head of Crossta Battery research team.
Multazam added that although this research is still in the development stage and still requires a lot of evaluation to produce alternative battery raw materials that are effective and efficient, it is hoped that this research can continue to be optimized and developed further.
“The hope is to enter PIMNAS (National Student Science Week) representing UB (Brawijaya University). “Currently, better developments are still being carried out and hopefully this can become research that can be useful and widely applied in the industrial world, especially for electric vehicle batteries,” he concluded. [tim/sitirahma/ UB PR/ trans. Iir].
