The latest battery breakthrough comes from Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), where researchers have developed a lithium-ion battery that they say can be recharged up to 70 per cent in only two minutes, and can endure more than 10,000 charging cycles. NTU Singapore’s scientists replaced the traditional graphite anode with a new gel material made… Read more »

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are using a new imaging technique to learn more about the process that causes lithium-ion batteries to degrade over time. Using coherent X-ray diffractive imaging at the DOE’s Advanced Photon Source facility, a team of researchers mapped the three-dimensional strain in individual nanoparticles within the electrodes of operating batteries. In… Read more »

A new study has found that fast charging and discharging of lithium-ion batteries may not be as damaging as most researchers believe. The results of the study, Current-induced Transition from Particle-by-particle to Concurrent Intercalation in Phase-separating Battery Electrodes, published in Nature Materials, challenge the conventional wisdom that fast charging necessarily shortens battery life. The authors… Read more »

Using a new method to track the electrochemical reactions in a battery, scientists at the DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have gained new insight into why fast charging inhibits performance. The results, published in Nature Communications, could help battery makers to optimize materials for faster-charging batteries. “Our work was focused on developing a method to track… Read more »

Transmission electron microscopy has allowed MIT researchers to directly observe a lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) electrode during charging, and they found that, just as suspected, a solid-solution zone (SSZ) forms at the boundary between lithium-rich and lithium-depleted areas, as lithium ions are pulled out of the electrode. The new findings, which appear in a paper… Read more »