Editor’s Note: The following article was originally issued by the University of Texas at Austin. The research team performed nano-diffraction measurements on battery particles extracted from a commercial wireless earbud at the Hard X-ray Nanoprobe (HXN) at the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. Their findings indicate that there are tiny, coexisting regions within the battery that behave differently. These regions show signs of changing phases, which adds to the bigger picture of how the material behaves across different parts of the battery cell. For more information on Brookhaven’s role in this research, contact Denise Yazak (dyazak@bnl.gov, 631-344-6371).
AUSTIN, Texas — Ever notice that batteries in electronics don’t last as long as they did when they were brand new?
An international research team led by The University of Texas at Austin took on this well-known battery challenge, called degradation, with a twist. They’re focusing their work on real-world technology that many of us use daily: wireless earbuds. They deployed X-ray, infrared and other imaging technologies to understand the complexities of all the technology packed in these tiny devices and learn why their battery lives erode over time.
“This started with my personal headphones. I only wear the right one, and I found that after two years, the left earbud had a much longer battery life,” said Yijin Liu, an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, who led the new research published in Advanced Materials. “So, we decided to look into it and see what we could find.”
They found that other critical components in the compact device, like the Bluetooth antenna, microphones and circuits, clashed with the battery, creating a challenging microenvironment. This dynamic led to a temperature gradient — different temperatures at the top and bottom portions of the battery — that damaged the battery.
Exposure to the real world, with many different temperatures, degrees of air quality and other wildcard factors, also plays a role. Batteries are often designed to withstand harsh environments, but frequent environmental changes are challenging in their own way.
These findings, the researchers say, illustrate the need to think more about how batteries fit into real-world devices such as phones, laptops and vehicles. How can they be packaged to mitigate interactions with potentially damaging components, and how can they be adjusted for different user behaviors?
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