New Rechargeable Battery Could Accelerate EV Adoption

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a new rechargeable technology for batteries that could have double the power output compared to today’s most-widely used batteries, without catching fire or taking up additional space.  This new tech could drastically extend the range of the electric vehicles or the time between cell phone charges.

The lithium ion battery, the current standard for battery technology, became the norm in the early 1990s, when it was found that such technology was more stable than the rechargeable lithium metal batteries tested in the 1980s.  Those early lithium metal batteries used liquid electrolytes, and in the battery environment, the lithium traveling between the electrodes formed “metal whiskers”, the so-called dendrites that can create a short circuit and cause the batteries to catch fire and even explode.

Now the University of Michigan researchers say that their battery breakthrough—using a ceramic, solid-state electrolyte in lithium metal batteries—solves the short-circuiting and poor durability issues with those batteries, in what could be a game-changer and a roadmap to what could be the next generation of rechargeable batteries.

The current widely used lithium ion batteries use graphite to prevent the forming of the metal whiskers, but energy density and capacity with graphite is much lower than the energy density in lithium metal in a solid-state battery, the scientists say in the research funded by the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy and the Department of Energy. 

Current lithium ion batteries max out with a total energy density at around 600 watt-hours per liter (Wh/L) at the cell level, while solid-state batteries can reach 1,200 Wh/L, according to the researchers. 

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