Innovative! Korean University creates lithium battery with 40% higher energy density than current ones
A research team from Pohang University of Science & Technology has succeeded in developing an anode-free lithium battery. The project manages to achieve a maximization of energy density and improves it by 40% compared to normal batteries. The team's work has been published in Advanced Functional Materials.
The research team of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), led by Professor Soojin Park and PhD student Sungjin Cho (Department of Chemistry), in collaboration with Professor Dong-Hwa Seo and Doctor Dong Yeon Kim (School of Energy and Chemical Engineering) of the Ulsan Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), has developed anode-free lithium batteries with long-lasting performance on a single charge.
The Korean battery industry has been committed to finding revolutionary ways to increase battery capacity by introducing new technologies or other anode materials, but in the end the solution was even simpler. The team wondered: “What if we completely get rid of the anodic materials, which with their decay affect the life and efficiency of the batteries?”.
The new anode-free battery has a volumetric energy density of 977Wh / L, 40% higher than conventional batteries (700wh / L).
Batteries usually change the crystal structure of anode materials as lithium ions flow to and from the electrode during repeated charging and discharging. For this reason the battery capacity decreases over time. It was thought that if it were possible to charge and discharge only with a bare anode current collector, without anode materials, the energy density – which determines the battery capacity – would increase. However, this method has a critical sweet spot that causes significant swelling of the anode volume and shortens the life cycle of the battery. The swelling is due to the absence of stable lithium storage in the anode.
To overcome this problem, the research team succeeded in developing an anode-free battery in a commonly used carbonate-based liquid electrolyte by adding an ion-conducting substrate. The substrate not only forms a protective layer for the anode, but also helps to minimize the bulk expansion of the anode.
The team study showed that the battery maintained a high capacity of 4.2mAh cm-2 and a high current density of 2.1mA cm-2 for a long time in the carbonate-based liquid electrolyte . It has also been shown, both in theory and through experiments, that substrates can store lithium. What's more, what's getting even more attention is that the team successfully demonstrated solid-state half-cells using an argyrodite sulfide-based solid electrolyte. This battery is expected to accelerate the commercialization of non-explosive batteries, as it maintains a high capacity for longer periods.
In reality it would not be correct to speak of a battery "Without anode": the anode is there, it is formed in the protective substrate mentioned above, but it is in fact continuously renewed, so the problem of duration is minimized. The studies are interesting, but they are still in their infancy, so let's expect more twists.
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The Innovative Article! Korean University creates lithium battery with energy density 40% higher than current comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/innovativo-universita-coreana-crea-batteria-al-litio-con-densita-energetica-del-40-superiore-alle-attuali/ on Wed, 12 Oct 2022 09:00:50 +0000.