The Conversation (0)
Nature published an article looking at recent advances in lithium-ion battery technology, and at current research aiming to push lithium batteries to the limit.
Nature published an article looking at recent advances in lithium-ion battery technology, and at current research aiming to push lithium batteries to the limit.
As quoted in the publication:
Anodes can be made from silicon, which can hold up to ten times as much lithium per gram as graphite and therefore generate more power. But silicon poses its own problem: it expands to more than three times its normal size when the battery is charged and the anode is filled with lithium ions. This swelling breaks down the electrical bonds in the anode and stops the battery from working. It can also break the adjacent parts of the battery, such as the separator and even the battery case, and thus cause a fire.
Yi Cui, a materials scientist at Stanford University, California, who has been developing lithium-ion batteries for 15 years, is one of the scientists working on thinner electrode materials. He is developing silicon nanowires that stick up from the anode like fibres from a carpet and do not break the electrical bonds when they swell. But he says that the technology is still five years from commercialization. He is also experimenting with ways to improve graphite anodes, using two-dimensional graphene to absorb lithium more quickly while charging. But he says that this work too has a long way to go.
