New research from MIT could lead to batteries that pack more power per pound and last longer. A new paper co-authored by Yuming Chen and Ziqiang Wang at MIT explores the idea of using pure lithium as the battery’s anode. The design is part of a concept for developing safe solid-state batteries by dispensing with… Read more »

Scientists at the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Lab have uncovered a “root” cause of the growth of needle-like structures – known as dendrites and whiskers – that plague lithium batteries and can cause short circuit, failure, and even fire. Dendrites are tiny, rigid tree-like structures that can grow inside a lithium battery. Their needle-like projections… Read more »

A team from the University of Texas at Dallas has teamed up with Texas Instruments to demonstrate silicon’s ability to harvest energy from heat while still remaining mass-producible. “In a general sense, waste heat is everywhere: the heat your car engine generates, for example,” said Mark Lee, head of UT Dallas’s Department of Physics and… Read more »

Researchers at MIT have come up with a new pulsed laser deposition technique to make thinner lithium electrolytes using less heat, which they say promises faster charging and potentially higher-voltage solid-state lithium-ion batteries. Key to the new technique for processing the solid-state battery electrolyte is alternating layers of the active electrolyte lithium garnet component (LLZO)… Read more »