Friday, 21 August 2015
An engineer holds a Lithium-ion battery cell used in its backup battery
By eliminating liquid electrolytes, the batteries eliminate fire risk. Samsung and MIT see it as a power storage 'game change
Researchers have developed a new material for a basic battery component that they say will enable almost indefinite power storage.
The
new material -- a solid electrolyte -- could not only increase battery
life, but also storage capacity and safety, as liquid electrolytes are
the leading cause of battery fires.
Today's common lithium-ion batteries use a liquid
electrolyte -- an organic solvent that has been responsible for
overheating and fires in cars, commercial airliners and cell phones.
With a solid electrolyte, there's no safety problem.
"You
could throw it against the wall, drive a nail through it — there's
nothing there to burn," said Gerbrand Ceder, a professor of materials
science and engineering at MIT and one of the main researchers.
Additionally,
with a solid-state electrolyte, there's virtually no degradation,
meaning such batteries could last through "hundreds of thousands of
cycles," Ceder added.
Organic electrolytes also have limited electrochemical
stability, meaning they lose their ability to produce an electrical
charge over time.
Along with MIT, scientists from the
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, the University of California
at San Diego and the University of Maryland conducted the research.
The researchers, who published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Materials, described the solid-state electrolytes as an improvement over today's lithium-ion batteries.
Electrolytes are one of three main components in a battery, the other two being the terminals -- the anode and the cathode.
A
battery's electrolyte component separates the battery's positive
cathode and negative anode terminals, and it allows the flow of ions
between terminals. A chemical reaction takes place between the two
terminals producing an electric current.
A past problem
with solid electrolytes is that they could not conduct ions fast enough
to be efficient energy producers. The MIT/Samsung team says it overcame
that problem.
Another advantage of a solid-state lithium-ion battery is that it can perform under frigid temperatures.
Ceder said solid-state electrolytes could be "a real game-changer" creating "almost a perfect battery."
