FT students of UNS formulate cathode LiNMC material

Khikmah Nur Rikhy Stulasti, Refarmita Nur Halimah, and Luth atul Azizah Aini developing the project to support the development of lithium batteries in Indonesia. (photo: UNS. Doc)

IO, Solo – The use of batteries cannot be excluded from daily life, especially rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Ranging from electronic devices such as cellphones and laptops to the electric vehicles currently being developed, all require this type of battery.

Besides the fact that many electronic products rely on this battery, a lithium battery has various advantages which make it widely applied. Some of them are the large energy capacity, long lifespan, and high stability. Of course, it depends on the variety and quality of the material in the cathode. The main component of the lithium battery.

These days, the world is developing one type of cathode material. This type of cathode material being developed is LiNMC (Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt). However, it is inefficient because Indonesia is still importing this LiNMC material cathode.

Based on this, three students of Chemistry Engineering Department of Faculty of Engineering (FT) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta innovated in the development of LiNMC material cathode as the primary material of lithium battery manufacturing.  They are Khikmah Nur Rikhy Stulasti, Refarmita Nur Halimah, and Luthfiatul Azizah Aini.

“We are evolving this project to support the development of lithium batteries in Indonesia,” said Khikmah, as quoted by UNS Public Relation.

According to their explanation, the innovation in the development of cathode’s materials could open the opportunity for Indonesia to produce lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries in the country.

If it can be realized, surely it will contribute a lot to the buildout of electric vehicle Indonesia.

These Li-Ion batteries are expected to follow the technology trends that have been initiated by other countries as well as China, South Korea, Japan, and the United States. In addition, Europe has also been following this technology trend.

“Moreover, Indonesia is a prosperous country of Nickel mining. So, it needs to be further utilized into a material with high economic value, one of which is the material of LiNMC cathode,” Refarmita commented.

With the abundance of natural resources, until now Indonesia is prominent as a nickel exporting country. As has been stated from INSG in 2013, the world nickel production is mostly absorbed by China (51%) and Europe (19.5%). Therefore, the application of nickel-metal as the cathode can strive the increasing of the domestic economy.

“We hope the technology that we are developing, helps the government in developing mining material processing technology,” added Luthfi. (*/est)