An international team of scientists has found a way to improve battery design to produce safer and more powerful lithium batteries.
Scientists using neutrons have established the first benchmark (one nanosecond) for a polymer-electrolyte and lithium-salt mixture. The results could improve the power and safety of lithium batteries. Credit: Phoenix Pleasant/ORNL, U.S. Department of Energy
The team used quasi-elastic neutron scattering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to define the first benchmark, a nanosecond, or a billionth of a second, for a mixture of lithium salt and an organic polymer electrolyte.
“It all comes down to studying materials,” said Eugene Mamontov, head of the ORNL Chemical Spectroscopy group. “And polymer electrolytes won’t catch fire like liquid electrolytes do in lithium batteries. »
The team used the neutron technique to validate the computer simulations, ending a long-standing debate over how long it takes for lithium ions to break free from the tiny cages created by polymer electrolytes. The rate at which a battery’s ions release from these environments, or from solvation cages in polymer electrolytes, helps determine how energy flows through the battery. Polymer electrolytes could enable more energy-dense electrodes, such as lithium metal, resulting in more powerful electrodes. lithium batteries.
The results also open the door to rapid examination of new battery materials at ORNL. “Neutrons are very sensitive to hydrogen, present in virtually all electrolytes. This allowed us to see how it moved through the system and understand the dynamics of polymer electrolytes at an unprecedented level of detail. We couldn’t have determined the time and duration otherwise,” said ORNL neutron scattering scientist Naresh Osti.
“Naresh and Eugene’s interpretation of neutron data from the experiment at ORNL allowed us to understand the extent to which lithium ions are locked into polymer electrolytes. Our results suggest that this general approach will apply to liquid electrolytes,” said Nitash Balsara, Charles W. Tobias Professor of Electrochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley.
Source: Laboratoire national d’Oak Ridge
Originally published in The European Times.
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