University of Texas at Austin researchers have created a new ラーメンベット 本人確認-based battery material that is highly stable, capable of recharging as quickly as a traditional lithium-ion battery and able to pave the way toward delivering more energy than current battery technologies.
For about a decade, scientists and engineers have been developing ラーメンベット 本人確認 batteries, which replace both lithium and cobalt used in current lithium-ion batteries with cheaper, more environmentally friendly ラーメンベット 本人確認. Unfortunately, in earlier ラーメンベット 本人確認 batteries, a component called the anode would tend to grow needle-like filaments called dendrites that can cause the battery to electrically short and even catch fire or explode.
In one oftwo recent ラーメンベット 本人確認 battery advancesfrom UT Austin, the new material solves the dendrite problem and recharges as quickly as a lithium-ion ラーメンベット 本人確認. The teampublished their results in the journal Advanced Materials.
“We’re essentially solving two problems at once,” said David Mitlin, a professor in the ラーメンベット 禁止ゲーム of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied ラーメンベット 本人確認 Laboratory who designed the new material. “Typically, the faster you charge, the more of these dendrites you grow. So if you suppress dendrite growth, you can charge and discharge faster, because all of a sudden it’s safe.”
Graeme Henkelman, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and theOden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, used a computer model to explain, from a theoretical perspective, why the material has the unique properties it does.
“This material is also exciting because the ラーメンベット 本人確認 metal anode theoretically has the highest energy density of any ラーメンベット 本人確認 anode,” Henkelman said.
Demand is rising for stationary energy storage systems for homes and for smoothing out the ebb and flow of wind and solar energy on electric grids. At the same time, lithium mining has been criticized for itsenvironmental impacts, including heavy groundwater use, soil and water pollution and carbon emissions. Lithium-ion batteries typically also use cobalt, which is expensive and mined mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where ithas significant impacts on human health and the environment. By comparison, ラーメンベット 本人確認 mining is cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
Mitlin is bullish on the idea that this new innovation and others from UT Austin, including anew solid electrolyte that boosts energy storage, will mean ラーメンベット 本人確認 batteries may soon be able to fill the growing demand for stationary energy storage.
When a rechargeable battery is being charged, ions (such as lithium or ラーメンベット 本人確認) move from one component called the cathode to another called the anode. When the battery is being used to generate electricity, the ions move from the anode back to the cathode.
The new anode material, called ラーメンベット 本人確認 antimony telluride intermetallic – Na metal composite (NST-Na), is made by rolling a thin sheet of ラーメンベット 本人確認 metal onto an antimony telluride powder, folding it over on itself, and repeating many times.
“Think of making a kind of layered pastry, like spanakopita,” Mitlin said.
This process results in a very uniform distribution of ラーメンベット 本人確認 atoms that makes it less likely to form dendrites or surface corrosion than existing ラーメンベット 本人確認 metal anodes. That makes the battery more stable and allows faster charging, comparable to a lithium-ion battery’s charge rate. It also has a higher energy capacity than existing ラーメンベット 本人確認-ion batteries.
Henkelman said that if the ラーメンベット 本人確認 atoms that carry a charge in a ラーメンベット 本人確認 battery bind more strongly to each other than they do to the anode, they tend to form instabilities, or clumps of ラーメンベット 本人確認 that attract more ラーメンベット 本人確認 atoms and eventually lead to dendrites. He used a computer simulation to reveal what happens when individual ラーメンベット 本人確認 atoms interact with the new composite material NST-Na.
“In our calculations, this composite binds ラーメンベット 本人確認 a little more strongly than ラーメンベット 本人確認 binds itself, which is the ideal case for having the ラーメンベット 本人確認 atoms come down and evenly spread out on the surface and prevent these instabilities from forming,” Henkelman said.
The study’s two lead authors Yixian Wang and Hui Dong — current and former graduate students in Mitlin’s lab respectively — fabricated the material. Colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory led by John Watt characterized its properties. The study’s other authors are Hongchang Hao, Pengcheng Liu and Naman Katyal of UT Austin.
Mitlin, Wang and Dong have applied for a patent, along with UT Austin, on the new ラーメンベット 本人確認 metal anode material’s fabrication, structure and functionality.
This ラーメンベット 本人確認 was made possible by support from the National Science Foundation and The Welch Foundation.
