Rice University Team Finds Asphalt-Lithium Metal Anode Enables Faster Charging, Resistance to Dendrite Formation

The Rice lab of chemist James Tour has developed anodes comprising porous carbon made from asphalt that showed exceptional stability after more than 500 charge-discharge cycles.  A high-current density of 20 milliamps per square centimeter demonstrated the material’s promise for use in rapid charge and discharge devices that require high-power density.  The finding is reported in the journal ACS Nano.

In addition the researchers found that the new anode prevented the formation of lithium dendrites.  These mossy deposits invade a battery’s electrolyte.  If they extend far enough, they short-circuit the anode and cathode and can cause the battery to fail, catch fire or explode.

The Tour lab previously used a derivative of asphalt—specifically, untreated gilsonite, the same type used for the battery—to capture greenhouse gases from natural gas.  This time, the researchers mixed asphalt (Asp) with conductive graphene nanoribbons and coated the composite with lithium metal through electrochemical deposition.
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The capacity of these batteries is enormous, but what is equally remarkable is that we can bring them from zero charge to full charge in five minutes, rather than the typical two hours or more needed with other batteries.

—James Tour

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