newatlas.com Open in urlscan Pro
2606:4700::6812:1e70  Public Scan

Form analysis
2 forms found in the DOM

https://newatlas.com/search/#nt=navsearch

<form class="Page-header-search-form" action="https://newatlas.com/search/#nt=navsearch" novalidate="" autocomplete="off">
  <label><input placeholder="Search" type="text" class="Page-header-search-input" name="q" required="true"><span class="sr-only">Search Query</span></label>
  <button type="submit" class="Page-header-search-submit"><svg>
      <use xlink:href="#icon-magnify"></use>
    </svg><span class="sr-only">Submit Search</span></button>
</form>

POST /comment/submit

<form action="/comment/submit" method="post">
  <div class="CommentForm-inputs">
    <input type="hidden" name="target" value="0000017d-e524-d418-a3ff-ed3f01470001">
    <input type="hidden" name="parent" value="">
    <textarea name="body" required="" spellcheck="true" placeholder="Enter your comment"></textarea>
  </div>
  <button class="CommentForm-submit" type="submit"> Post </button>
</form>

Text Content

Press again to continue 0/1
Notice

We and selected third parties use cookies or similar technologies for technical
purposes and, with your consent, for other purposes as specified in the cookie
policy.

With respect to advertising, we and selected third parties, may use precise
geolocation data and actively scan device characteristics for identification in
order to store and/or access information on a device and process personal data
like your usage data for the following advertising purposes: personalized ads
and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product
development.

You can freely give, deny, or withdraw your consent at any time by accessing the
preferences panel.



You can consent to the use of such technologies by using the “Accept” button, by
scrolling this page, by interacting with any link or button outside of this
notice or by continuing to browse otherwise.

Learn more and customize
RejectAccept
×
 * SUBSCRIBE AD-FREE
 * LOG IN

 * HOME
 * LIFESTYLE
   
    * Health & Wellbeing
    * Outdoors
    * Tiny Houses
    * Architecture
    * Around the Home
    * Good Thinking
    * Holiday Destinations
    * View all LIFESTYLE categories
   
    * Health & Wellbeing
    * Outdoors
    * Tiny Houses
    * Architecture
    * Around the Home
    * Good Thinking
    * Holiday Destinations
    * View all LIFESTYLE categories

 * SCIENCE
   
    * Energy
    * Medical
    * Space
    * Materials
    * Biology
    * Environment
    * Physics
    * View all SCIENCE categories
   
    * Energy
    * Medical
    * Space
    * Materials
    * Biology
    * Environment
    * Physics
    * View all SCIENCE categories

 * TECHNOLOGY
   
    * Photography
    * Military
    * Mobile Technology
    * Games
    * Drones
    * Home Entertainment
    * Deals
    * View all TECHNOLOGY categories
   
    * Photography
    * Military
    * Mobile Technology
    * Games
    * Drones
    * Home Entertainment
    * Deals
    * View all TECHNOLOGY categories

 * TRANSPORT
   
    * Automotive
    * Aircraft
    * Bicycles
    * Motorcycles
    * Marine
    * Urban Transport
    * View all TRANSPORT categories
   
    * Automotive
    * Aircraft
    * Bicycles
    * Motorcycles
    * Marine
    * Urban Transport
    * View all TRANSPORT categories

© 2022 New Atlas

Menu
 * HOME
 * LIFESTYLE
   
    * Health & Wellbeing
    * Outdoors
    * Tiny Houses
    * Architecture
    * Around the Home
    * Good Thinking
    * Holiday Destinations
    * View all LIFESTYLE categories
   
   
 * SCIENCE
   
    * Energy
    * Medical
    * Space
    * Materials
    * Biology
    * Environment
    * Physics
    * View all SCIENCE categories
   
   
 * TECHNOLOGY
   
    * Photography
    * Military
    * Mobile Technology
    * Games
    * Drones
    * Home Entertainment
    * Deals
    * View all TECHNOLOGY categories
   
   
 * TRANSPORT
   
    * Automotive
    * Aircraft
    * Bicycles
    * Motorcycles
    * Marine
    * Urban Transport
    * View all TRANSPORT categories
   
   

 * SUBSCRIBE AD-FREE
 * LOG IN

Show Search
Search Query Submit Search

Energy


THE MOST CREATIVE BATTERY BREAKTHROUGHS OF 2021

By Nick Lavars
December 26, 2021
 * Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Flipboard
 * LinkedIn

/

The most creative battery brea...


Scientists have made a breakthrough that could lead to batteries that charge in
a fraction of the time
SergChe/Depositphotos
View 8 Images
1/8
Scientists have made a breakthrough that could lead to batteries that charge in
a fraction of the time
SergChe/Depositphotos
2/8
Reactivating islands of "dead" lithium could boost the range of electric
vehicles and deliver longer battery life to electronic devices
dickcraft/Depositphotos
3/8
Researchers liken their battery design to a BLT sandwich
Lisa Burrows/Harvard SEAS
4/8
Scientists have used cellulose nanofibrils found in wood as the basis for a new
battery electrolyte
HayDmitriy/Depositphotos
5/8
Scientists have developed a chlorine-based prototype battery with six times the
capacity of today's lithium-ion devices
Stanford University/Guanzhou Zhu
6/8
Scientists in the US have developed a novel lithium-metal battery that retains
its functionality over 600 cycles
Jie Xiao/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
7/8
A metal electrode (the textured inner circle) sits on a grey disc of solid
electrolyte, with dendrites starting to form on its surface
MIT
8/8
The left image shows electrolyte (blue) filling a pocket within a thin lithium
anode, creating an effective SEI seen in green, compared to a thicker lithium
anode with a largely ineffective SEI
Mike Perkins/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

View gallery - 7 images

With lithium-ion batteries serving as the engine room for so much of the modern
world, from phones and laptops, to electric cars and planes, every scientific
breakthrough that improves their performance is an important one. Some of these
come from incremental advances that experiment with alternative materials, for
example, while some come from re-imagining the whole device and the way they
work from the ground up. 2021 produced a stellar crop of discoveries that
resulted from researchers thinking outside the box in this way. Let's take a
look at the most creative and interesting examples.





OPENING UP TO FASTER CHARGING

Scientists have made a breakthrough that could lead to batteries that charge in
a fraction of the time
SergChe/Depositphotos

One of the ways scientists hope to improve the charging rates of batteries is by
using porous structures for the anode, one of its two electrodes. This offers a
greater contact area with the liquid electrolyte that transports lithium ions
and enables them to diffuse more easily through the material, potentially making
for batteries that charge much, much faster.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More Stories
Medical
Electrified ePatch bandage speeds healing and kills harmful bacteria
Space
Perseverance captures clearest video yet of a solar eclipse on Mars

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In November, we looked at a promising new take on this technology, with
scientists at the University of Twente fashioning an anode out of a material
called nickel niobate. This featured an "open and regular" crystal structure
with identical, repeating channels, making it ideal for ion transport.

This was worked into a full battery cell, with the scientists finding it offered
ultra-fast charging rates, 10 times faster than today's lithium-ion batteries.
This was a marked improvement on the porous materials proposed so far in this
area, which feature disorganized and random channels that cause the structures
to cave in during charging and the battery to fail. As a sweetener, the
researchers point out that nickel niobate has a higher volumetric density than
the graphite used for today's anodes, which could also lead to commercial
batteries that are lighter and more compact.





BRINGING LITHIUM BACK FROM THE DEAD

Reactivating islands of "dead" lithium could boost the range of electric
vehicles and deliver longer battery life to electronic devices
dickcraft/Depositphotos

When a battery is cycled, lithium ions travel back and forth between the two
electrodes, but not all of them complete the journey all of the time. This
causes electrochemically inactive "islands" of lithium to form in between that
remain disconnected from the electrodes, with these clumps causing a decline in
the device's storage capacity or even causing it to catch fire.



In an interesting advance this week, scientists at Stanford University figured
out a way to not just neutralize these damaging clumps of dead lithium, but
bring them back to life to boost the performance of the battery. The team found
that by adding a high-current voltage during recharging spurred this inactive
lithium into action, causing it to creep "like a worm" and reconnect with the
electrode, increasing the battery's lifespan by 30 percent.

According to the team, this breakthrough could lead to improved designs for
fast-charging batteries or rechargeable batteries with greater capacities and
lifespans. Interestingly, they note that the dead lithium island problem is a
real issue for next-generation lithium-metal batteries, which have the potential
to hold up to 10 times more energy, so the breakthrough could lead to new
solutions that unlock this highly promising architecture.



A BATTERY STYLED LIKE A BLT

Researchers liken their battery design to a BLT sandwich
Lisa Burrows/Harvard SEAS

One of the reasons scientists see so much potential in lithium-metal batteries
is because lithium metal has a far higher capacity and energy density than the
graphite and copper used for the anodes in today's batteries. This positions it
as a "holy grail" in the eyes of Harvard material scientist Xin Li, who back in
May presented a new sandwich-style battery that could overcome some of the
stability issues to plague lithium-metal designs so far.

These stability issues stem from needle-like protrusions called dendrites that
form on the lithium-metal anode during charging, causing the battery's
performance to decline, and it to fail or even catch fire. Li and his colleagues
sought to overcome this by swapping the battery's liquid electrolyte for a pair
of solid ones, which are layered together in a BLT-style sandwich and work to
safely control and contain the dendrites as they form.

Further, the sandwich-style battery is able to backfill the gaps created by
dendrites. In testing, the team found it retained 82 percent of its capacity
after 10,000 cycles and, most promisingly, demonstrated the kind of current
density that could one day enable electric vehicles to charge within 20 minutes.





DOES NATURE HAVE THE ANSWER?

Scientists have used cellulose nanofibrils found in wood as the basis for a new
battery electrolyte
HayDmitriy/Depositphotos

In October we looked at another interesting solution to the stability issues
associated with lithium-metal batteries, with a team of scientists in the US
turning to nature for inspiration. This breakthrough again hinged on the notion
of using a solid electrolyte rather than a liquid one to carry the charge, with
the scientists using cellulose nanofibrils derived from wood as their starting
point.

These microscopic polymer tubes were combined with copper to form a solid ion
conductor, featuring tiny openings in between the polymer chains that acted as
"ion superhighways," enabling lithium ions to travel with record efficiency.
This meant the material had a conductivity between 10 and 100 times greater than
other polymer ion conductors. The researchers also say because the material is
paper-thin and flexible, the electrolyte could better tolerate the stresses of
battery cycling and withstand the environment of a lithium-metal architecture.



A NEW TAKE ON AN OLD DESIGN

Scientists have developed a chlorine-based prototype battery with six times the
capacity of today's lithium-ion devices
Stanford University/Guanzhou Zhu

Alkali metal-chlorine batteries have been around since the 1970s and offer a
high energy density, but the highly reactive chlorine means that they only last
for a single use. In August, scientists at Stanford University came up with a
way to stabilize these reactions, and actually allow these types of high-density
batteries to be recharged.

The solution consisted of a novel electrode material made of porous carbon that
sponged up erratic chlorine molecules, and safely converted them back into
sodium chloride, their original form prior to discharging. This cycle was able
to be repeated up to 200 times in an experimental battery offering around six
times the density of today's lithium-ion technology.





LESS IS MORE

Scientists in the US have developed a novel lithium-metal battery that retains
its functionality over 600 cycles
Jie Xiao/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

If it wasn't becoming clear, lithium-metal batteries are a key focus among
scientists in this space, and back in June we saw researchers take them into
record-breaking terrain. The team focused on what's known as the solid
electrolyte interphase (SEI), which is a thin film on top of the anode that
plays an important gatekeeping role by controlling which molecules enter from
the electrolyte during cycling.

Complex reactions occur around the anode and affect the performance of SEIs in
current designs, but scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) found a novel solution in the form of very
thin strips of lithium with a width of around 20 microns, far thinner than a
human hair. These were used as the basis for an anode with an SEI that interacts
more healthily with the electrolyte than anodes with thicker strips that smother
important electrochemical reactions.

The left image shows electrolyte (blue) filling a pocket within a thin lithium
anode, creating an effective SEI seen in green, compared to a thicker lithium
anode with a largely ineffective SEI
Mike Perkins/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

The team's prototype pouch cell battery featuring this anode that retained 76
percent of its capacity over a record 600 cycles, with an energy density of 350
Wh/kg. For reference, the best-in-class lithium-ion batteries in use today have
a density of 250 to 300 Wh/kg.



LIKE FILLING A CAVITY

A metal electrode (the textured inner circle) sits on a grey disc of solid
electrolyte, with dendrites starting to form on its surface
MIT


Back in March we looked at another interesting example of a battery that uses a
solid electrolyte rather than a liquid one, with the design claimed to overcome
some of the key roadblocks in this area. The battery featured a "semi-solid"
electrode made of sodium-potassium alloys, likened by the researchers to the
material dentists use to fill cavities in that it was firm, but able to flow and
be molded.

When this material comes into contact with the solid electrolyte, it has just
the right amount of give in it to prevent the type of cracks that would form on
a more rigid and brittle electrode material. This self-healing material
prevented the formation of damaging dendrites and also allowed for far higher
current densities than other solid-state batteries have allowed for – around 20
times greater – paving the way for far greater charging rates.

View gallery - 7 images


WE RECOMMEND

 1. Fisker has designs on solid state battery breakthrough
    Nancy Owano et al., TechXplore.com, 2018
 2. Assessing Iron Deficiency is a Crucial Aspect of Heart Failure. Explore
    More.
    ReachMD
 3. Coin Cell Batteries Feature Extended Battery Life Breakthroughs
    Med Design and Outsourcing, 2010

 1. Battery Breakthroughs: New research highlights leaf technology, graphene’s
    role, and a superoxide closed system
    Heather Thompson, Med Design and Outsourcing, 2016
 2. Does TreatingIron Deficiency Translate to Heart Failure Outcomes? Explore
    More.
    ReachMD
 3. Free CME: Exploring DIAMOND Data, Latest Guidelines, and Best Practices for
    Hyperkalemia
    ReachMD

Powered by
 * Privacy policy
 * Do not sell my personal information
 * Google Analytics settings


I consent to the use of Google Analytics and related cookies across the TrendMD
network (widget, website, blog). Learn more
Yes No



TAGS

EnergyBatteriesBatteryLithium-ionLithium metal
 * Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Flipboard
 * LinkedIn

4 comments
Nick Lavars
Nick has been writing and editing at New Atlas for over six years, where he has
covered everything from distant space probes to self-driving cars to oddball
animal science. He previously spent time at The Conversation, Mashable and The
Santiago Times, earning a Masters degree in communications from Melbourne’s RMIT
University along the way.


MOST VIEWED

 * Military
   
   
   "IRON BEAM" LASER WEAPON COUNTERS MULTIPLE TARGETS IN LIVE FIRE TESTS

 * Science
   
   
   RESEARCHERS DISCOVER DIRECT GUT-BRAIN COMMUNICATION PATHWAY

 * Aircraft
   
   
   ULTRA-LIGHT LIQUID HYDROGEN TANKS PROMISE TO MAKE JET FUEL OBSOLETE

Load More


4 comments
Sign in to post a comment.
Please keep comments to less than 150 words. No abusive material or spam will be
published.
noteugene December 27, 2021 02:38 AM
Good news. Wish ATLAS would have given us a heads up about when to expect this
tech to be put into production though. 2023 cell phones?
el_gallo_azul December 27, 2021 05:07 PM
I'm not too worried about charging times, but it would certainly be nice to have
battery cells with useful capacity that don't burst into flames and burn
everything to the ground like the current crop of LiNMC and similar.
noteugene December 27, 2021 07:09 PM
Great. Wonder how long it will take them to implement this into cell phone's?
2023? Wish the article would have clued us in.
1stClassOPP December 28, 2021 08:09 AM
Keep at it, we’ll get there!
Saving comment...

Post


GET OUR NEWSLETTER


Over 220,000 people receive our email newsletter. Get your daily dose of
extraordinary ideas!
Register
 * HOME
    * FEATURES
    * REVIEWS
    * ABOUT
    * ADVERTISE
    * TERMS
    * PRIVACY
    * CONTACT
    * RSS
    * FAQ

 * LIFESTYLE
    * 20th Anniversary
    * Architecture
    * Around the Home
    * Children
    * Collectibles
    * Good Thinking
    * Health & Wellbeing
    * Holiday Destinations
    * Outdoors
    * Pets
    * Remarkable People
    * Tiny Houses

 * SCIENCE
    * Biology
    * Electronics
    * Energy
    * Environment
    * Materials
    * Medical
    * Physics
    * Quantum Computing
    * Space

 * TECHNOLOGY
    * 3D Printing
    * Computers
    * Deals
    * Photography
    * Drones
    * Games
    * Home Entertainment
    * Laptops
    * Military
    * Mobile Technology
    * Music
    * Robotics
    * Smartwatches
    * Telecommunications
    * Wearable Electronics
    * Virtual Reality

 * TRANSPORT
    * Aircraft
    * Automotive
    * Bicycles
    * Marine
    * Motorcycles
    * Urban Transport

Follow Us
 * twitter
 * instagram
 * pinterest
 * flipboard
 * facebook
 * linkedin

© 2022 New Atlas