Professor Soong-ho Um’s research team significantly improves the performance of next-generation zinc batteries using discarded DNA

▲ (왼쪽부터) 성균관대 화학공학부 엄숭호 교수, 제1저자 안자나 박사과정생, 공동 교신저자 사만다 박사후연구원 — ▲ (From the left) Professor Eom Soong-ho of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University, first author Anjana, a doctoral student, and co-corresponding author Samantha, a postdoctoral researcher.

Professor Eom Soong-ho's research team in the Department of Chemical Engineering has developed an eco-friendly electrode design technology that uses discarded DNA to dramatically increase the performance and lifespan of next-generation zinc water-based batteries.

This research was conducted jointly by doctoral student Anjana and Dr. Samantha in the New Biomimetic Materials and Electrochemistry Laboratory. Lithium-ion batteries, which are mainly used in existing electric vehicles and electronic devices, have excellent performance, but have the disadvantage of high fire risk and high raw material costs. As an alternative to this, ‘water-based zinc ion batteries’ that use water as an electrolyte are in the spotlight, but there is a limitation in that the electrode structure easily collapses when charged and discharged repeatedly, shortening the lifespan.

Professor Eom Soong-ho's research team focused on the ability of DNA, the basic unit of life, to form precise structures. As a result of introducing biomass-derived DNA obtained from nature into the electrode synthesis process, an electrode with fine pores (porous structure) through which ions can move quickly was created. This special structure not only accelerates the battery response speed, but also serves to firmly hold the electrode frame.

The DNA-based electrode developed by the research team showed excellent durability, maintaining 71.35% of its initial capacity even after 30,000 charge and discharge tests. This is a number that increases the lifespan by more than several times compared to the performance of existing zinc batteries, which deteriorated after charging and discharging about 1,000 to 6,000 times. Additionally, the speed of ion movement inside the battery has increased, greatly improving energy efficiency.

This technology is expected to be widely used in future sustainable clean energy fields such as smart grids and large-scale energy storage systems (ESS), as it has no risk of explosion and is inexpensive. The research team plans to accelerate commercialization by expanding the production scale of this technology and further improving actual battery cell performance.

Professor Eom Soong-ho said, “This study proves that DNA can be an excellent engineering tool to create next-generation battery materials beyond simple biological genetic material.” He added, “It is an eco-friendly material that is discarded and overcomes the technical limitations of existing batteries, while at the same time presenting a new material design standard for future energy storage.”

The results of this research, which was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Science and ICT's Korea-EU and Korea-France collaboration infrastructure project, were published online on July 24 in Small, a world-renowned journal in the field of nano and materials science.