DETROIT – Lithium-ion batteries are the backbone of most of today’s electronic devices, including electric vehicles. But for all of their game-changing benefits, the batteries still have an inherent flaw: dendrites. These thin, snaking, tree-like pieces of lithium form sharp points and end up piercing the battery, causing short circuits and other problems. This ultimately shortens the lifespan of lithium-ion batteries, and leaves major room for improvement.
Scientists have focused, then, on studying lithium dendrite formation to see how they can make better, longer-lasting batteries for electric vehicles. Now, Harvard University researchers say they have the answer: a lithium-metal battery made of a solid-state metal material rather than lithium-ion, eliminating the pesky dendrites and offering more structural stability than a battery consisting of liquid or graphite materials.
Think of the new battery like a BLT: “Our multilayer design has the structure of a less-stable electrolyte sandwiched between more-stable solid electrolytes, which prevents any lithium dendrite growth,” the scientists say in their new study, which appears in Nature.
