Chemists Settle Battery Debate, Propel Research Forward
MrPlow writes:
Submitted via IRC for c0lo
A team of researchers led by chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has identified new details of the reaction mechanism that takes place in batteries with lithium metal anodes.
The findings, published today in Nature Nanotechnology ("Identification of LiH and nanocrystalline LiF in the solid-electrolyte interphase of lithium metal anodes"), are a major step towards developing smaller, lighter, and less expensive batteries for electric vehicles.
Scientists have long recognized the advantages of lithium metal anodes; in fact, they were the first anode to be coupled with a cathode. But due to their lack of "reversibility," the ability to be recharged through a reversible electrochemical reaction, the battery community ultimately replaced lithium metal anodes with graphite anodes, creating lithium-ion batteries.
Now, with decades of progress made, researchers are confident they can make lithium metal anodes reversible, surpassing the limits of lithium-ion batteries. The key is the interphase, a solid material layer that forms on the battery's electrode during the electrochemical reaction.
Source: https://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news2/newsid=57158.php
Journal Reference:
Zulipiya Shadike, Hongkyung Lee, Oleg Borodin, et al. Identification of LiH and nanocrystalline LiF in the solid-electrolyte interphase of lithium metal anodes, Nature Nanotechnology (DOI: 10.1038/s41565-020-00845-5)
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.