The Electrochemical Society hosted Dr. Yijin Liu’s live webinar, “A micro-to-nano zoom through a real-world battery with x-ray vision,” on May 17, 2023. Dr. Liu took audience questions during a live Question and Answer session at the end of the presentation. Kindly, he answered, in writing, questions not answered during the broadcast. See his responses below.
NOTE: Registration is required to view the webinar.
Dr. Yijin Liu
Dr. Yijin Liu
Lead Scientist
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Date: May 17, 2023
Time: 1300–1400h ET
Naoki Ota. Photo Credit: 24M
ECS’s Detroit Section is proud to present guest speaker Naoki Ota at its September section meeting. He will speak on:
Naoki Ota
President and CTO
24M Technologies, Inc.
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA (more…)
A collaborative team of researchers from Shinshu University in Japan have found a new way to curb some of the potential dangers posed by lithium ion batteries.
The team was led by Susumu Arai, a professor of the department of materials chemistry and head of Division for Application of Carbon Materials at the Institute of Carbon Science and Technology at Shinshu University.
These batteries, typically used in electric vehicles and smart grids, could help society realize a low-carbon future, according the authors. The problem is that while lithium could theoretically conduct electricity at high capacity, lithium also results in what is known as thermal runaway during the charge and discharge cycle.
“Lithium metal is inherently unsuitable for use in rechargeable batteries due to posing certain safety risks,” said Arai. “Repeated lithium deposition/dissolution during charge/discharge can cause serious accidents due to the deposition of lithium dendrites that penetrate the separator and induce internal short-circuiting.”
Capitalizing on tiny defects can improve electrodes for lithium-ion batteries, new research suggests.
In a study on lithium transport in battery cathodes, researchers found that a common cathode material for lithium-ion batteries, olivine lithium iron phosphate, releases or takes in lithium ions through a much larger surface area than previously thought.
“We know this material works very well but there’s still much debate about why,” says Ming Tang, an assistant professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University. “In many aspects, this material isn’t supposed to be so good, but somehow it exceeds people’s expectations.”
Part of the reason, Tang says, comes from point defects—atoms misplaced in the crystal lattice—known as antisite defects. Such defects are impossible to completely eliminate in the fabrication process. As it turns out, he says, they make real-world electrode materials behave very differently from perfect crystals.
A new sodium-based battery can store the same amount of energy as a state-of-the-art lithium ion at a substantially lower cost.
As a warming world moves from fossil fuels toward renewable solar and wind energy, industrial forecasts predict an insatiable need for battery farms to store power and provide electricity.
Chemical engineer Zhenan Bao and materials scientists Yi Cui and William Chueh of Stanford University aren’t the first researchers to design a sodium ion battery. But they believe their approach has the price and performance characteristics to create a sodium ion battery that costs less than 80 percent of a lithium ion battery with the same storage capacity.
“Nothing may ever surpass lithium in performance,” Bao says. “But lithium is so rare and costly that we need to develop high-performance but low-cost batteries based on abundant elements like sodium.”
With materials constituting about one-quarter of a battery’s price, the cost of lithium—about $15,000 a ton to mine and refine—looms large. Researchers say that’s why they are basing the new battery on widely available sodium-based electrode material that costs just $150 a ton.
Researchers have found a new method for finding lithium, used in the lithium-ion batteries that power modern electronics, in supervolcanic lake deposits.
While most of the lithium used to make batteries comes from Australia and Chile, but scientists say there are large deposits in sources right here in America: supervolcanoes.
In a recently published study, scientists detail a new method for locating lithium in supervolcanic lake deposits.
The findings represent an important step toward diversifying the supply of this valuable silvery-white metal, since lithium is an energy-critical strategic resource, says study coauthor Gail Mahood, a professor of geological sciences at Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.
In June 2016, the International Meeting on Lithium Batteries (IMLB) in Chicago successfully celebrated 25 years of the commercialization of lithium-ion batteries. According to Doron Aurbach, technical editor of the Batteries and Energy Storage topical interest area of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, research efforts in the Li-battery community continues to provide ground-breaking technological success in electromobility and grid storage applications. He hopes this research will continue to revolutionize mobile energy supply for future advances in ground transportation.
ECS has published 66 papers for a new IMLB focus issue in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. All papers are open access at no charge to the authors and no charge to download thanks to ECS’s Free the Science initiative!
The focus issue provides important information on the forefront of advanced battery research that appropriately reflects the findings from the symposium.
Most of today’s batteries are made up of two solid layers, separated by a liquid or gel electrolyte. But some researchers are beginning to move away from that traditional battery in favor of an all-solid-state battery, which some researchers believe could enhance battery energy density and safety. While there are many barriers to overcome when pursing a feasible all-solid-state battery, researchers from MIT believe they are headed in the right direction.
This from MIT:
For the first time, a team at MIT has probed the mechanical properties of a sulfide-based solid electrolyte material, to determine its mechanical performance when incorporated into batteries.
“Batteries with components that are all solid are attractive options for performance and safety, but several challenges remain,” says Van Vliet, co-author of the paper. “[Today’s batteries are very efficient, but] the liquid electrolytes tend to be chemically unstable, and can even be flammable. So if the electrolyte was solid, it could be safer, as well as smaller and lighter.”
Recent safety concerns with lithium-ion batteries exploding in devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone and hoverboards have many energy researchers looking into this phenomenon for a better understanding of how batteries function when stressed.
A new open access paper published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society provides some insight into these safety hazards associated with the Li-ion battery by taking a look inside the battery as it is overworked and overcharged.
Overcharging or overheating Li-ion batteries causes the materials inside to breakdown and produce bubbles of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other gases. As more of these gases are produced, they begin to buildup and cause the battery to swell. That swelling can lead to explosion.
“The battery can either pillow a small amount and keep operating, pillow a lot and cease operation, or keep generating gas and rupture the cell, which can be accompanied by an explosion or fire,” Toby Bond, co-author of the paper, told New Scientist.
