Science Daily April 2, 2018 A major byproduct in the papermaking industry is lignosulfonate, a sulfonated carbon waste material. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have demonstrated the potential of using lignosulfonate to design sustainable, low-cost electrode materials for lithium-sulfur batteries. In its elemental form, sulfur is nonconductive, but when combined with carbon at elevated temperatures, it becomes highly conductive, allowing it to be used in novel battery technologies. They have created a lithium-sulfur battery prototype that is the size of a watch battery, which can cycle about 200 times. The next step is to scale up the prototype to markedly […]
Tag Archives: Battery technology
Charging ahead to higher energy batteries
TechXplore February 26, 2018 The low rate capabilities and low energy densities of the all-solid-state batteries are partly due to a lack of suitable solid-solid heterogeneous interface formation technologies. Researchers in Japan grew garnet-type oxide solid electrolyte crystals in molten LiOH on a substrate that bonded the electrode into a solid state as they grew. They were able to control the thickness and connection area within the cubic layer, which acts as a ceramic separator. Each crystal is connected to neighboring ones. The new technique of stacking solid electrolyte layer could be an ideal ceramic separator with a dense thin-interface […]
Surprising discovery could lead to better batteries
Science Daily January 12, 2018 When a lithium-ion battery supplies electricity, lithium ions flow into empty sites in the atomic lattice. It was assumed that the concentration of lithium would continuously increase in the lattice. By imaging reactions inside the electrodes in real time, an international team of researchers (USA – Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Michigan, MIT, UC Berkeley, UK, China) has shown that, when the battery’s electrodes are made from nano-sized particles, the lithium concentration within local regions of nanoparticles go up, and then down. This discovery is a major step toward improving the battery life of consumer […]