Phones, laptops and other personal devices have boomed over the past few decades thanks to lithium-ion batteries, but as climate change demands more powerful batteries for electric vehicles and grid-scale renewable energy storage, lithium-ion technology may no longer be enough. The theoretical capacity of lithium-metal batteries is an order of magnitude larger than that of lithium-ion batteries, but its disadvantage is that it is “flammable and explosive.” According to a paper published in the journal Matter on November 9, researchers at the University of Chicago have proposed a way to solve this decades-long problem: using solvo-free inorganic molten salts to create high energy density, safe batteries.<\/p>\n
The researchers say they have developed a non-flammable, non-volatile system that is safe and can increase the energy density by two times compared to lithium-ion batteries.<\/p>\n
Traditional lithium-metal batteries rely on an electrolyte made by dissolving lithium salts in a solvent. Those volatile, flammable solvents raise safety concerns. To solve this problem, the researchers tried different solvents, or modified the concentration of salt. There has been a trade-off in such attempts: batteries that use solid inorganic substances as electrolytes are safer; Batteries that use liquid electrolytes are more powerful. The result is either unsafe batteries or batteries that do not live up to the enormous theoretical capabilities of lithium metal batteries.<\/p>\n
The Chicago team took a novel approach this time. They make lithium liquid by melting it instead of dissolving it. This requires the creation of a new salt component that melts at low temperatures. The challenge is to reach a temperature where the lithium salts melt, but the lithium metal in the rest of the battery does not.<\/p>\n
Pure lithium chloride melts at temperatures slightly above 600 \u00b0 C, and lithium metal melts at 180\u00b0C, which means that any useful molten salt electrolyte must have a much lower melting point. So, the team created a salt that melts at 45\u00b0C, obtaining a powerful battery that can operate safely at 80\u00b0C to 100\u00b0C.<\/p>\n
The research team is also continuing to study the composition of salts with lower melting points, with the ultimate goal of developing a powerful lithium metal battery that can operate safely at room temperature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Phones, laptops and other personal devices have boomed over the past few decades thanks to lithium-ion batteries, but as climate change demands more powerful batteries for electric vehicles and grid-scale renewable energy storage, lithium-ion technology […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":566,"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cn.dailyeconomic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}