As electronics advances, the demand for high-performance batteries increases. The lithium-ion battery is currently leading the charge in powering portable electronic devices, but another lithium-based battery contender is on the horizon.

The lithium-air battery is one of the most promising research areas in current lithium-based battery technology. While researchers such as ECS’s K.M. Abraham have been on the Li-air beat since the late 90s, current research is looking to propel this technology with the hopes of commercializing it for practical use.

A new contender: Lithium-air batteries

Recently, Khalil Amine, IMLB chair; and Larry Curtiss, IMLB invited speaker, co-authored a paper detailing a lithium-air battery that could store up to five times more energy than today’s lithium-ion battery.

(MORE: Submit your abstract for IMLB today!)

This work brings society one step closer to the commercial use of lithium-air batteries. In previous works regarding Li-air, researchers continuously encountered the same phenomenon of the clogging of the pores of the electrode.

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Researchers combine electrochemical investigations with measurement methodologies to develop a new theory to the aging process of lithium ion batteries.
Image: Claudia Niranen/TUM

Lithium ion batteries affect everything from small electrical devices to airplanes, yet the battery’s aging process creates limitations to storage capacity. While researchers have not yet been able to determine what causes aging in lithium ion batteries, a research team has made new developments to offer more insight to this downfall and potentially create more youthful batteries.

The study, recently published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES), describes newly discovered factors that speed up the aging process in lithium ion batteries. This research is especially important in light of efforts in renewable energy, where this energy storage technology could be interwoven with the grid to help bolster efforts in wind and solar.

This from a press release:

The research group determined two key mechanisms for the loss of capacity during operation: The active lithium in the cell is slowly used up in various side reactions and is thus no longer available. The process is very temperature dependent: At 25 °C the effect is relatively weak but becomes quite strong at 60 °C. When charging and discharging cells with a higher upper cut off potential (4.6 V), cell resistance increases rapidly. The transition metals deposited on the anode may increase the conductivity of the pacifying layer and thereby speed up the decomposition of the electrolyte.

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When it comes to energy storage, hydrogen is becoming more and more promising. From hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to the “artificial leaf” to the transformation of waste heat into hydrogen, researchers are looking to hydrogen for answers to the growing demand for energy storage.

At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), researchers are using hydrogen to make lithium ion batteries operate longer and have faster transport rates.

In a response to the need for higher performance batteries, the researchers began by looking for a way to achieve better capacity, voltage, and energy density. Those qualities are primarily determined by the binding between lithium ions and electrode material. Small changes to the structure and chemistry of the electrode can mean big things for the qualities of the lithium ion battery.

The research team from LLNL discovered that by subtly changing the electrode, treating it with hydrogen, lithium ion batteries could have higher capacities and faster transport levels.

“These findings provide qualitative insights in helping the design of graphene-based materials for high-power electrodes,” said Morris Wang, an LLNL materials scientist and co-author of the paper.

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On the path to building better batteries, researchers have been choosing silicon as their material of choice to increase life-cycle and energy density. Silicon is favored among researchers because its anodes have the ability to store up to ten times the amount of lithium ions than conventional graphite electrodes. However, silicon is a rather rigid material, which makes it difficult for the battery to withstand volume changes during charge and discharge cycles.

This from Georgia Tech:

Using a combination of experimental and simulation techniques, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and three other research organizations have reported surprisingly high damage tolerance in electrochemically-lithiated silicon materials. The work suggests that all-silicon anodes may be commercially viable if battery charge levels are kept high enough to maintain the material in its ductile state.

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The technology that was created for sci-fi movies may soon be reality. A new transparent, solar powered lithium ion battery has been developed by a team of researchers from Kogakuin University. Not only could this new battery bring transparent smartphones reminiscent of the Iron Man movies to life, but it could replace any transparent items (i.e. windows) for additional energy storage capabilities.

Since a team of researchers at Stanford University developed the first nearly transparent battery about four years ago, the team at Kogakuin University has been hard at work on their transparent battery that combines clarity with self-charging abilities.

Other researchers have been focusing on the qualities and potential of transparent materials. A team from Michigan State University began exploring this field last year to develop a transparent luminescent solar concentrator that can be used on buildings, cell phones, and other clear surfaces. However, this development did not have the functionality that the new transparent battery from Kogakuin University does.

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EJ Taylor, ECS Treasurer and Chief Technical Officer at Faraday Technology, recently ran across this article from The Economist discussing an accidental discovery that could yield big results.

Materials scientists Wang Changan of Tsinghua University and Li Ju of MIT may have unintentionally found the answer to developing a battery that can last up to four times longer than the current generation.

Initially, the scientists were simply researching nanoparticles made of aluminum. While these tiny particles are good conductors of electricity, they become less efficient when exposed to air. When air hits these tiny particles, a coating of an oxide film begins to develop, greatly affecting the performance. The research the two scientists were working on was not to create a better battery, but rather to eliminate the oxide that coats the particles.

This from The Economist:

Their method was to soak the particles in a mixture of sulphuric acid and titanium oxysulphate. This replaces the aluminium oxide with titanium oxide, which is more conductive. However, they accidentally left one batch of particles in the acidic mixture for several hours longer than they meant to. As a result, though shells of titanium dioxide did form on them as expected, acid had time to leak through these shells and dissolve away some of the aluminium within. The consequence was nanoparticles that consisted of a titanium dioxide outer layer surrounding a loose kernel of aluminium.

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The batteries have the ability to be integrated into the surface of the objects, making it seem like seem like there is no battery at all.

A new development out of the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has yielded a new technique that could make it possible to print batteries on any surface.

With recent interests in flexible electronics—such as bendable screen displays—researchers globally have been investing research efforts into developing printable functional materials for both electronic and energy applications. With this, many researchers predict the future of the li-ion battery as one with far less size and shape restrictions, having the ability to be printed in its entirety anywhere.

The research team from UNIST, led by ECS member Sang-Young Lee, is setting that prediction on the track to reality. Their new paper published in the journal Nano Letters details the printable li-ion battery that can exist on almost any surface.

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Two-dimensional layered structure of graphene and its silicon carbide-free integration with silicon can serve as a prototype in advancing silicon anodes to commercially viable technology.
Source: Nature Communications

Researchers from various institutes across Korea have found a way to nearly double the life of the lithium-ion battery.

In an ever-pressing race to create a more efficient and longer-lasting battery for electronics, researchers across the globe are looking toward alternative materials to make the li-ion battery stronger. A team of researchers associated with Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology, including ECS member Jang Wook Choi, have combined silicon and graphene to yield an amazing increase in lithium-ion battery efficiency.

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ECS treasurer E.J. Taylor (Founder & CTO of Faraday Technology), recently forwarded us a story from The Economist featuring ECS members and their contributions to research and development on the ever-improving lithium-ion battery.

Since the battery’s commercialization by Sony in the early 1990s, the lithium-ion battery has improved to produce better laptops, smartphones, and even power electric cars.

Vincent Battaglia, ECS member and head of the Electrochemical Technologies Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, states that the lithium-ion battery “is almost an ideal battery.” With its light weight and recharging capabilities, the battery has received much attention from researchers globally.

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Chemical phase map showing how the electrochemical discharge of iron fluoride microwires proceeded from 0 percent discharge (left), to 50 percent (middle), to 95 percent.
Source: AZO Materials

ECS student member Linsen Li, along with former member Song Jin, have recently completed the first part of their study focusing on the powerful potential of iron fluoride in lithium-ion batteries, which can improve energy storage.

“In the past, we weren’t able to truly understand what is happening to iron fluoride during battery reactions because other battery components were getting in the way of getting a precise image,” said Linsen Li, graduate student and research assistant at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

This development will likely impact energy storage and could, in the future, advance large-scale renewable energy storage technologies if the researchers can maximize the cycling performance and efficiency of the low-cost fluoride lithium-ion battery materials.

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