Battery Manufactory

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers are working to improve conductivity and safety in lithium-ion batteries, which are used to power many electronic devices around the world, including laptops, iPods, satellites, artificial hearts and cell phones. Instability in lithium-ion batteries due to liquid-state electrolytes that help carry charges from one battery electrode to another is one hazard scientists can prevent, said Puru Jena, Ph.D., a distinguished professor in the Department of Physics in the College of Humanities and Sciences. Despite this instability, liquid-state electrolytes are commonplace in lithium-ion batteries due to their conductive superiority over more stable solid-state electrolytes. Theoretical studies by Jena and colleague Hong Fang, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physics, show it is possible to design solid-state electrolytes not only to be as conductive as their liquid counterparts but also very stable. Their findings, which ...

While lithium-ion batteries, widely used in mobile devices from cell phones to laptops, have one of the longest lifespans of commercial batteries today, they also have been behind a number of recent meltdowns and fires due to short-circuiting in mobile devices. In hopes of preventing more of these hazardous malfunctions researchers at Drexel University have developed a recipe that can turn electrolyte solution -- a key component of most batteries -- into a safeguard against the chemical process that leads to battery-related disasters. Yury Gogotsi, PhD, Distinguished University and Bach professor in the College of Engineering, and his research team from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, recently published their work -- entitled "Nanodiamonds Suppress Growth of Lithium Dendrites" -- in the journal Nature Communications . In it, they describe a process by which nanodiamonds -- tiny diamond particles 10,000 times smaller than the diameter o...

Rechargeable batteries based on magnesium, rather than lithium, have the potential to extend electric vehicle range by packing more energy into smaller batteries. But unforeseen chemical roadblocks have slowed scientific progress. And the places where solid meets liquid -- where the oppositely charged battery electrodes interact with the surrounding chemical mixture known as the electrolyte -- are the known problem spots. Now, a research team at the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, led by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has discovered a surprising set of chemical reactions involving magnesium that degrade battery performance even before the battery can be charged up. The findings could be relevant to other battery materials, and could steer the design of next-generation batteries toward workarounds that avoid these newly identified pitfalls. The team used X-ray experiments, theoretical mod...

Most of today's lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from cars to phones, use a liquid as the electrolyte between two electrodes. Using a solid electrolyte instead could offer major advantages for both safety and energy storage capacity, but attempts to do this have faced unexpected challenges. Researchers now report that the problem may be an incorrect interpretation of how such batteries fail. The new findings, which could open new avenues for developing lithium batteries with solid electrolytes, are reported in the journal Advanced Energy Materials, in a paper by Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT; W. Craig Carter, the POSCO Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT; and eight others. The electrolyte in a battery is the material in between the positive and negative electrodes -- a sort of filling in the battery sandwich. Whenever the battery gets charged or drained, ions (electrically charged atoms or molecules) c...

The dramatic rise in production of electric vehicles, coupled with expected growth in the use of grid-connected battery systems for storing electricity from renewable sources, raises a crucial question: Are there enough raw materials to enable significantly increased production of lithium-ion batteries, which are the dominant type of rechargeable batteries on the market? A new analysis by researchers at MIT and elsewhere indicates that for the near future, there will be no absolute limitations on battery manufacturing due to shortages of the critical metals they require. But, without proper planning, there could be short-term bottlenecks in the supplies of some metals, particularly lithium and cobalt, that could cause temporary slowdowns in production. The analysis, by professor Elsa Olivetti and doctoral student Xinkai Fu in MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Gerbrand Ceder at the University of California at Berkeley, and Gabrielle Gaustad ...

We have come a long way from leaky sulfur-acid automobile batteries, but modern lithium batteries still have some down sides. Now a team of Penn State engineers have a different type of lithium sulfur battery that could be more efficient, less expensive and safer. "We demonstrated this method in a coin battery," said Donghai Wang, associate professor of mechanical engineering. "But, I think it could eventually become big enough for cell phones, drones and even bigger for electric vehicles." Lithium sulfur batteries should be a promising candidate for the next generation of rechargeable batteries, but they are not without problems. For lithium, the efficiency in which charge transfers is low, and, lithium batteries tend to grow dendrites -- thin branching crystals -- when charging that do not disappear when discharged. The researchers examined a self-formed, flexible hybrid solid-electrolyte interphase layer that is deposited by both organosulfid...

Motivated by a challenge from the Department of Energy to drastically reduce the cost of storing renewable energy on the grid while capturing more of it, a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists has developed a battery powered by sulfur, air, water, and salt -- all readily available materials -- that is nearly 100 times less expensive to produce than batteries currently on the market and can store twice as much energy as a lead-acid battery. The inventors present their prototype October 11 in the journal Joule . "It has become increasingly clear that in order for renewable energy to become the main part, if not all, of our electricity generation system, it needs to match the output of the demand that we have as a society," says senior author Yet-Ming Chiang of MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. "We think that this work helps move us in the right direction and creates more hope that this is possible, but we need...

Scanning electron microscope images show an anode of asphalt, graphene nanoribbons and lithium at left and the same material without lithium at right. The material was developed at Rice University and shows promise for high-capacity lithium batteries that charge up to 20 times faster than commercial lithium-ion batteries . A touch of asphalt may be the secret to high-capacity lithium metal batteries that charge 10 to 20 times faster than commercial lithium-ion batteries, according to Rice University scientists. The Rice lab of chemist James Tour developed anodes comprising porous carbon made from asphalt that showed exceptional stability after more than 500 charge-discharge cycles. A high-current density of 20 milliamps per square centimeter demonstrated the material's promise for use in rapid charge and discharge devices that require high-power density. The finding is reported in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano . "The capacity of these batter...

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has successfully designed a novel organic material of superior electrical conductivity and energy retention capability for use in battery applications. This invention paves the way for the development of ultra-stable, high capacity and environmental friendly rechargeable batteries. The study led by Professor Loh Kian Ping from the Department of Chemistry at NUS Faculty of Science was published in scientific journal Nature Energy on 8 May 2017. Challenges of rechargeable batteries Rechargeable batteries are the key energy storage component in many large-scale battery systems such as electric vehicles and smart renewable energy grids. With the growing demand of these battery systems, researchers are turning to more sustainable, environmentally friendly methods of producing them. One such method is to use organic materials as an electrode in the rechargeable battery . Organic electrodes leave lower e...