The development of lithium-ion battery is the propeller of the development and progress of the modern world. People pay great attention to how to improve the performance of the battery. Researchers are constantly exploring various ways to optimize the performance of the battery. Whether it's building the world's fastest electrodes, making battery parts from nuclear waste, or using sound waves to prevent fire hazards, in 2020 scientists are showing us just how imaginative they are when it comes to developing the next generation of energy storage technologies.

The e researchers explored many ways to improve the performance of the electrodes, such as adding a small amount of graphene to make the electrolyte harder, and how advanced materials could enable faster battery charging or provide higher energy densities. NEWATLAS has selected the top 10 technological breakthroughs in the field of batteries. Here are some of the highlights of these studies and some of the disruptive battery designs that jump out of the conventional thinking.

The battery meter and chemistry industry is a highly focused area of research today, and researchers are offering a number of ways to improve equipment in 2020 that will be improved over the next few years.

Development and application of lithium metal materials

There are many options for introducing new materials to improve battery performance, one of which is lithium metal, which has great potential. Described as a "dream material", using lithium as an anode, instead of graphite and copper in use today, could significantly increase the energy density of batteries, allowing them to operate longer and store more energy.

But the biggest problem with lithium is safety. When the battery is charged, dendritic lithium dendrites form on the surface of the lithium metal, which in turn leads to a short circuit in the battery, a fire, and ultimately a device failure. One of the new ways to solve this problem in 2020 is by Washington State University professor Min-Kyu Son. The way they prevent lithium dendrite formation is to add a chemical to the cathode and electrolyte solution that forms a protective layer on the surface of the lithium metal anode, keeping it stable over 500 cycles of charge and discharge. It is worth mentioning that this process can be integrated into existing manufacturing processes to facilitate mass production.

Dendritic free solid state battery

In December QuantumScape, a Californian battery maker, released some performance data for solid-state lithium-metal batteries used in electric cars. Statistics show that a flatbed electric car can recharge to 80% in just 15 minutes. The company says it can do this, in part, because it uses solid electrolytes rather than liquid ones, and because an anode made of lithium metal, when charged, forms a barrier on its own, effectively avoiding dendrite problems.

The battery has an excellent energy density, about four times that of Tesla's Model 3 lithium-ion battery, with a capacity of 1 kilowatt-hour/liter. In terms of weight, the battery also delivers between 380 and 500 watt-hours per kilogram, more than the 260 watt-hours per kilogram of Tesla's battery pack. It was also found to retain 80 per cent of its capacity after 800 cycles, making it superior to other batteries in terms of battery life and safety.

Sound waves

In February, a group of researchers at the University of California, San Diego, developed an imaginative way to prevent dendrite growth in lithium-metal batteries. The team built a tiny ultrasonic device and integrated it into the lithium-metal battery, enabling it to send high-frequency sound waves through the liquid electrolyte, smoothing its flow, which would help create a neat, uniform distribution of lithium on the anode, rather than the uneven clumps that lead to dendrite growth. In tests, the ultrasound-equipped battery was able to charge from 0 percent to 100 percent in less than 10 minutes and remained stable for 250 charging cycles, indicating yet another improvement in the safety of lithium-metal batteries.

A quick-charge battery

Scientists at Texas A&M University have demonstrated a device that uses a tiny scaffold made of carbon nanotubes as an anode, in yet another example of how they might make a lithium-metal battery possible. These molecules bind to lithium ions and help avoid the formation of dendrites on the surface.

While the design is similar in terms of safety to conventional designs, the structure has also been proven to be able to generate more current. In fact, it's so much bigger than a conventional battery that the team reports that the device can handle five times as much current as a conventional battery, offering a way for a battery to be fully charged for a short time.

Silicon addition

Although lithium metal has great potential as an anode material, other metals also have potential to be developed. Silicon, for one, has four times the lithium-ion storage capacity of today's graphite and copper, but that capacity tends to decline rapidly.

In June, scientists at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIOT) used a technique called lithium preloading to improve battery life. This involves immersing a silicon anode in a special solution that seeps electrons and lithium ions into the electrode to make up for losses during the cycle.

While most silicon-based negatives lose more than 20 percent of their lithium ions during the initial charging cycle, the new anode lost less than 1 percent during the test. It also has a 25 percent higher energy density than comparable products on the market.

Microwave and salt development and application

Plastic bottles are a huge source of waste, but scientists have found a way to use them in the next generation of batteries

Another battery chemical with great potential is sodium ions, but for very different reasons. Lithium is a rare metal, expensive to mine and harmful to the environment. Salt, which comes from a wide range of sources in the world, has the opportunity to be converted into cheaper batteries for power grids and other applications. In April, it was discovered that an important part of the battery could also be obtained from abundant materials.

Purdue university scientists can from recycled PET plastic back into thin slices, then use super fast microwave radiation treatment, make it become a substance called terephthalic acid disodium, the small organic molecules has excellent electrochemical performance, has long been considered a potential anode material, the team said it is part of a sodium ion battery components.

"We are addressing a surge in renewable energy conversion and storage, driven by concern and increasing awareness in society about climate change and energy resource constraints," said lead researcher Vilas Bohr.

Inspiration from the ocean

Chitin, found in shrimp shells, has been used to produce a sustainable electrode for mobile batteries

Another alternative battery design that provides grid-scale storage solutions for renewable energy is the oxidized reduction flow cell. Instead of storing energy inside the battery, these devices store it in liquid electrolytes in large external tanks, which means the storage potential can be increased by increasing the size of the tank.

In June, a research team at MIT demonstrated how the key building blocks of these batteries could be made from more sustainable materials. Chitin is a cellulose-like polysaccharide found in shrimp shells, and the researchers were able to combine it with felt to make electrodes for a higher energy density oxidation-reduction fluid flow battery.

"The benefits are not only in its good performance, but also in the low cost of the starting material, and taking into account the reuse of waste, which makes the electrode more sustainable," said Francesco Martin Martinez, senior author of the study.

Take full advantage of gravity

Another solution to large-scale storage of renewable energy may lie in the use of gravity. The Scottish company Gravitity is developing a new type of energy storage system that consists of large weights, powerful winches and cables. The energy comes from the weight falling from a shaft that turns the winch and generates electricity.

The energy produced in as little as 15 minutes lasts for up to 8 hours, with peak output ranging from 1 to 20 megawatts. It will be a low-cost, sustainable energy solution and the company is gearing up to build a prototype system, which will be tested in Edinburgh by the end of 2021.

Use graphene to increase hardness

In June, the development of another solid-state battery received a lot of attention. It is common to replace liquid electrolytes with solid ones to achieve a higher energy density, but this usually results in the battery cracking and corroding.

A research team at Brown University looked at graphene to find a solution to this problem. They added a small amount of graphene to the ceramic material to form a new solid electrolyte, which they claim is the strongest to date. What's novel about this study is that graphene is very conductive, which is not a good performance indicator for electrolytes, but they kept the graphene concentration low enough to find a sweet spot that prevents graphene from conducting electricity, and still provide a high degree of hardness.

The fastest electrode in the world

Battery performance depends on how far an ion can carry a charge; On the left is a typical, chaotic description of the electrode structure in which an ion must travel long and circuitous distances. On the right is a vertically aligned rigid structure of carbon nanotubes, which connect each small piece of the active substance and its ions directly to the collector

All batteries have a pair of electrodes, the cathode and the anode, through which current flows, and these are usually disorganized structures where ions need to carry charges to move around in a complex environment. NAWA, a maker of supercapacitors, unveiled its own electrode design in October that provides a faster ion transport channel.

The electrodes consist of a vertically arranged structure, similar to that of a comb, with 100 billion highly conductive carbon nanotubes erected on bolts and coated with active materials such as lithium ions. This creates a superhighway for moving ions, allowing them to move in and out of the battery in a more convenient way.

In fact, the company says its electrodes can make a battery 10 times more efficient at charging and discharging, achieving a 0-80 percent charge in five minutes. At the same time, the energy density could jump two or three times.

Nawa says its process for producing these electrodes is low cost and it is confident that it will be more cost competitive with existing electrodes. The company expects the technology to start hitting the market in 2022, and more advanced technology systems to be developed by 2023. The company is currently in talks with a number of car companies and has secured a major customer in France, Saft.

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