NEF1204 Introduction To Engineering Design

Introduction

Battery is globally used as a gadget for energy storage. The energy is stored in the form of chemical (rechargeable battery). During electrochemical processes, the chemical energy is transformed into electrical energy. These energy conversions have promoted the use of electronic batteries (Stoychev et al., 2013).

Electronic battery therefore, refers to a gadget that comprises an electrochemical cell or several cells in electrochemical form connected externally to generate electric power to some gadgets like technologically advanced phones, power driven cars etc. Electronic battery has two terminals that helps in the electric transmission of power. That is, cathode and anode. Cathode is the positively charged terminal whereas anode is the negatively charged terminal. Cathode produces negatively charged ions called electrons (Luo et al., 2013). These electrons produce electric power during the external connection, hence the molecular conductance theory.

In the earlier years people were using the electron driven batteries as compared in the recent years where people have shifted the attention from electron generated electron driven batteries to ion-driven chemical batteries (Huang et al., 2015).

Differences between electronic batteries and other forms of batteries

The electronic batteries are rechargeable when they get discharged whereas other forms of battery like alkaline batteries used in torches are used once and disposed.

Electronic batteries are used to power moving machines like motor vehicle while other forms of batteries (primary batteries) are used to power portable gadgets.

Electronic batteries use liquid electrolyte to produce electric energy as compared to dry cell batteries that uses irreplaceable paste electrolyte (So et al., 2013).

The superconductors that were used on the earlier years had several defects and were obsolete. Additionally, thermoelectric was not spared from these effects. This brought a lot more problems on the energy usage to humanity. Therefore, to address these problems experts have enhanced the level of their studies by creating high-level temperature superconductors and thermoelectric substance that produces power from low temperatures variations effectively. Further, there has been proposal for more advanced scientific studies on these old methods and invention of new technologies (Colson & Dichtel, 2013). All these have been beneficial to humanity.

This has led to the invention of thin-film deposition methods like Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) and Atomically Precise Dot deposition (APD²). The Atomic Layer Deposition method refers to successive use of gaseous material in stages in a chemical activity. That is, ALD is vapor stage activity that can produce thin-films of diverse materials. ALD is important in fitting together of semi-conductor gadgets and combination of nano-materials (Parvez et al., 2014).

On the other hand, Atomic Precise Dot deposition (APD²) is defined as a wet- process due to increased molecular force of dot-precursors identifying the number of metal-ions forming the dots. This has facilitated the usage of biological processes like photosynthesis in which the useful molecular moiety is organized through atomic-precision in 3-dimentions. This makes the moiety to meet and freely execute useful operations from atomic-properties (Xia et al., 2013).

Characteristics of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD)

• It is based on the growth of Titanium dioxide thin-films through the process of Atomic Layer Deposition. This Titanium Oxide (TiO2) is used as a photocatalyst and an electrode (Mayabadi et al., 2014). It has high surface area that increases it performance. Its smaller size increases band-conductivity and reduces the valence-band (Mardilovich, Hoffman & Herman, 2013).
• It is a vapor-based system
• ALD is always faster and efficient than (APD²).
• It takes shorter deposition time and better-quality film
• Its chemically expandable to atomic precise dot deposition
• ALD is applicable for fabricated-microelectronics because it can generate correct thickness and identical materials.

Characteristics of Atomic Precise Dot deposition (APD²)

• It is a wet-based process since it is unsuitable to vaporize heavy molecular dot-precursors comprising of several metal-ions.
• It is slow and inefficient as compared to ALD
• Its dot-precursors are regulated on substrate to form mono-layer or few molecular-layers.
• It takes longer deposition time

Combining of the tow processes ALD and APD into one unit require a better and simple standard mechanism. This will help prevent the precursor-gas of ALD from form a liquid but will initiate more chemical processes in the room. When spraying, the movement of gases should be stopped to facilitate a better spray-design. At the same time temperature should be well controlled and maintained in the room (Zhu et al., 2014). This will ensure better evaporation.

Conclusion

From the above findings, the study will be useful in solving the socio-economic problems by combining the concept of Atomic Layer Deposition and Atomic Precision Dot deposition as depicted in the thin-films. This will be useful in the generation of electric energy that will be widely. Advance level of various technological researches is therefore paramount to enhance laboratory tests for better combination of the two processes. This will help solve the problem of over-reliance on outdated scientific research and improve quality of material science research by combining the concepts of ALD and APD².

References

Colson, J. W., & Dichtel, W. R. (2013). Rationally synthesized two-dimensional polymers. Nature chemistry, 5(6), 453.

Huang, L., Hu, Z., Xu, J., Zhang, K., Zhang, J., & Zhu, Y. (2015). Multi-step slow annealing perovskite films for high performance planar perovskite solar cells. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 141, 377-382.

Luo, X., Deng, F., Min, L., Luo, S., Guo, B., Zeng, G., & Au, C. (2013). Facile one-step synthesis of inorganic-framework molecularly imprinted TiO2/WO3 nanocomposite and its molecular recognitive photocatalytic degradation of target contaminant. Environmental science & technology, 47(13), 7404-7412.

Mardilovich, P., Hoffman, R., & Herman, G. (2013). U.S. Patent No. 8,587,093. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Mayabadi, A. H., Waman, V. S., Kamble, M. M., Ghosh, S. S., Gabhale, B. B., Rondiya, S. R., ... & Gosavi, S. W. (2014). Evolution of structural and optical properties of rutile TiO2 thin films synthesized at room temperature by chemical bath deposition method. Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, 75(2), 182-187.

Parvez, K., Wu, Z. S., Li, R., Liu, X., Graf, R., Feng, X., & Müllen, K. (2014). Exfoliation of graphite into graphene in aqueous solutions of inorganic salts. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 136(16), 6083-6091.

So, M. C., Jin, S., Son, H. J., Wiederrecht, G. P., Farha, O. K., & Hupp, J. T. (2013). Layer-by-layer fabrication of oriented porous thin films based on porphyrin-containing metal–organic frameworks. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 135(42), 15698-15701.

Stoychev, G., Turcaud, S., Dunlop, J. W., & Ionov, L. (2013). Hierarchical multi?step folding of polymer bilayers. Advanced Functional Materials, 23(18), 2295-2300.

Xia, X., Chao, D., Qi, X., Xiong, Q., Zhang, Y., Tu, J., ... & Fan, H. J. (2013). Controllable growth of conducting polymers shell for constructing high-quality organic/inorganic core/shell nanostructures and their optical-electrochemical properties. Nano letters, 13(9), 4562-4568.

Zhu, J., Zhu, Y., Zhu, L., Rigutto, M., van der Made, A., Yang, C., ... & Sun, Q. (2014). Highly mesoporous single-crystalline zeolite beta synthesized using a nonsurfactant cationic polymer as a dual-function template. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 136(6), 2503-2510.