By adjusting the heating process when making lithium-ion cathodes, the team created batteries that retained nearly 93% of their energy after 500 cycles.
Editor’s note: The following news brief was originally published by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The research team used transmission X-ray microscopy at the Full Field X-ray Imaging (FXI) beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a DOE Office of Science user facility at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, to visualize 3D changes in nickel oxidation states within individual particles of nickel-rich layered cathodes as they were heated. Understanding this process could help pave the way for longer-lasting battery structures.
To make batteries that last longer, scientists are creating internal battery structures that don’t degrade as quickly as current designs do. In fact, the reason many lithium-ion batteries ultimately fail is that their cathodes, or negative electrodes, crack after repeated charging and discharging.
Researchers at the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center, a partnership between Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, have found a simple way to solve this problem in nickel-rich layered-oxide cathodes, the type of cathode used in powerful, long-lasting lithium-ion batteries for data centers and grid-scale energy storage.
By adjusting the heating process when making these cathodes – starting slowly, then ramping up the heat quickly – they found they could create more uniform cathode structures at the nanoscale level. These structures don’t crack and degrade as quickly as current batteries.
The resulting material was more resistant to strain and cracking, retaining nearly 93% of the battery’s energy after 500 cycles.
Read more on the BNL website