Lowokwaru (malangkota.go.id) – A team of students from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (MIPA) Universitas Brawijaya (UB) Malang discovered the potential of oyster shell waste to be used as a battery material for electric vehicles. This finding was later called Crossta Baterry.
The team consisting of Ahmad Multazam Abdan, Ahmad Syarwani, Izza Lailatul Kasanah, Zainurrohman Prastomo, Uray Keisya Ranaputri and supervised 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, Culture, Research and Technology and Brawijaya University through the Student Creativity Program in the field of Exact Research. "The batteries that are currently circulating and used, for example Lithium batteries or Nickel-Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) batteries, are not widely found on earth and require high costs in their use," said Ahmad Multazam as the team leader.
In addition, Indonesia also has to import battery elements from China, which makes production costs even more inflated. 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 of the uses of calcium is as a 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 development in the energy sector in the future.
Because, calcium batteries contain abundant raw materials and their production costs are lower than other types of batteries. "Calcium batteries (Ca-Ion) are an innovation in power storage that uses calcium as its main ingredient. Which 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 that had been calcined using several instruments such as FTIR, AAS, Powder XRD, and SEM EDX, followed by the results of electrical tests using an RLC Meter. Through these tests, it was shown that the CaO from the 800°C calcination has the potential to be continued to battery effectiveness testing," said the head of the Crossta Baterry research team.
Multazam added that although this research is still in the development stage and still requires a lot of evaluation to produce effective and efficient alternative battery raw materials, it is hoped that this research can continue to be optimized and developed further.
"Hopefully it can enter PIMNAS (National Student Scientific Week) representing UB (Brawijaya University). Currently, better development is still being carried out and hopefully it can become research that can be useful and applied widely in the industrial world, especially for electric vehicle batteries," he concluded. (say-hmsUB/yon).
