Indian scientists develop new material to supercharge green energy storage

BENGALURU: In a breakthrough with potentially far-reaching implications for clean energy, Indian scientists have engineered a next-generation material that significantly boosts the performance of supercapacitors — devices crucial for fast energy storage and delivery.

Led by Dr Kavita Pandey at the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), Bengaluru, in collaboration with Aligarh Muslim University, the research focused on silver niobate (AgNbO₃), an eco-friendly, lead-free compound known for its favourable electrical properties. The team enhanced this material by doping it with lanthanum, a rare-earth element prized for its electronic characteristics. “The lanthanum atoms shrank the size of the silver niobate nanoparticles, increasing the surface area available for energy storage and improving electrical conductivity.

This allowed the supercapacitor to charge and discharge energy faster while also retaining significantly more of it,” the department of science and technology (DST) said.DST added that as a result, the new material demonstrated exceptional performance: it retained 118% of its initial energy capacity even after extensive use and achieved 100% coulombic efficiency — indicating virtually no energy loss during charge-discharge cycles.

A working prototype of an asymmetric supercapacitor built using the lanthanum-doped silver niobate successfully powered an LCD display, offering a glimpse into its practical applications.“Published in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds, the study underscores the role of rare-earth doping in designing high-efficiency energy materials. Researchers say the innovation can accelerate the development of compact, stable storage devices for portable electronics and large-scale renewable energy systems,” DST said.Future work will focus on extending this doping strategy to other perovskite materials and exploring commercial-scale production.