MIT develops pure lithium electrode and overturns battery design, seeking large-scale production

Recently, a research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that they have developed a new type of battery electrode that can develop batteries with higher energy density.

This breakthrough was achieved thanks to the long-term pursuit of "use of pure lithium metal as a battery anode" by MIT's Julie Labs; it is even more unexpected that the development of pure lithium electrodes is only a concept of all-solid-state batteries Part of the design.

The electrolytes in current batteries allow lithium ions to move back and forth between charge and discharge cycles. But the team designed the all-solid-state battery concept to abandon the liquid or polymer gel electrolyte that currently exists between the two electrodes inside the battery.

We know that the all-solid-state version of the battery is safer than the highly volatile liquid electrolyte that was the source of lithium battery explosion in the past. But one of the biggest challenges facing solid-state batteries is that when they charge, the atoms accumulate inside the lithium metal, causing the lithium metal to expand as it charges, and the metal shrinks during discharge. This repeated change in the shape of the battery makes it difficult for the solid to maintain constant contact, and it can easily cause the solid electrolyte to break or separate.

In addition, when the solid electrolyte is in contact with lithium metal, the chemical instability between the substances causes the solid substances to degrade over time.

As a result, the development team used an unusual design to build two types of solids, namely "Mixed Ion Electronic Conductors" (MIEC) and "Electronic and Lithium Ion Insulators" (ELI). Both materials are chemically stable when in contact with lithium metal.

On this basis, they also built a three-dimensional nanostructure inside the battery, which is in the form of a honeycomb hexagon MIEC tube array. Part of the array is filled with solid lithium metal to form battery electrodes. Each electrode tube has additional Space. When lithium swells during charging, it fills vacancies inside the tube. During charging, this flow releases the pressure created by the expansion. ELI is used as the "critical mechanical adhesive" between the MIEC wall and the solid electrolyte layer.

It is reported that the research team is trying to find ways to produce their invention on a large scale.


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