(from left) Andre Novent Chenady, Adinata Setiawan, Merlin Liyanti, Alvin Febrianto, dan Michelle Veronika Mutiara A present their innovaion.

ITS Campus, ITS News – As one of the major cities in Indonesia, Jakarta donates 130 thousand zinc-carbon battery waste every day. Not to mention, other major cities. Therefore, five students of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) initiated an innovation that could improve the performance of Zinc-Carbon-type commercial batteries to minimize the amount of waste.

They are Andre Novent Chenady, Adinata Setiawan, Alvin Febrianto, Merlin Liyanti, and Michelle Veronika Mutiara A. All five are undergraduate students of the Chemical Engineering class of 2018. Joining the team, they initiated innovations in improving zinc-carbon battery performance by adding nickel through the electrospray method.

According to Andre Novent Chenady as team leader, electrospray is one of the coating methods that can produce nano-sized particles. Of the many coating methods, the team chose the electrospray method. “This is due to the advantages of electrospray method that can add fewer nickel particles,” explained Andre.

Besides, Andre continued, the electrospray method also makes the surface area of nickel in the battery carbon rod wider so that the cost needed is also more efficient. Besides coating with electrospray also makes nickel on the carbon rod of the battery perfect coated with low porosity.

Schematic of nickel coating method on battery carbon rods with electrospray

Andre explained coating with electrospray method was connecting carbon rod and metallic needle. That is from injections containing nickel solution with electric energy supply. High voltage electricity from the energy supply is arranging for nickel particles to form a Taylor cone. “Once the desired conditions are achieved, nickel particles will radiate and envelop the carbon rod,” he explained further.

Andre said nickel plating on Zinc-Carbon batteries improves battery performance by up to 130 percent. By improve its performance, the battery life will be longer. That makes people do not need to change batteries frequently so that battery waste becomes reduced.

This innovation generates through the discovery of ideas and research that lasts for one month. Andre admitted that their innovative idea is still new and unprecedented. “So, we started to initiate this idea for the first time,” he claimed.

Andre Novent Chenady and his four team members during a presentation at the 2021 AISEEF competition

The hard work of the team guided by Dr. Kusdianto ST. MSc. Eng. produced proud results. Their idea won a gold medal in the ASEAN Innovative Science Environmental and Entrepreneur Fair (AISEEF) 2021 international competition and received the IYSA Special Award. The competition organizes by the Indonesian Young Scientist Association (IYSA) on 18 – 22 February 2021.

After winning the competition, which was attended by 505 teams from 20 countries, one of these ITS teams hopes the idea can be applied especially to reduce commercial battery waste in Indonesia. “As this innovation applied, battery waste in Indonesia will reduce by 30 percent,” said the student from Tanjung Pinang. (pan/ITS PUBLIC RELATIONS)

Reporter : ion4