Engineers at the University of Illinois are working on a new way to build lithium-ion batteries that will make them safer and hopefully extend their working life, New Atlas reports. Professor Christopher Evans led a team that has developed a solid electrolyte formula that would replace the liquid electrolytes used now. Unlike previously suggested alternatives like ceramic and certain polymers, this new polymer and configuration would stay flexible and adaptive inside the battery.
Lithium-ion batteries power much of the world now, but they’re still a sometimes volatile format. Inside a liquid electrolyte lithium-ion battery, the liquid can interact with the lithium, and the lithium itself can form dangerous metallic vines called dendrites that can edge through the battery case and more. A compromised lithium-ion battery, like an aging one prone to swelling, can turn into a fire hazard very quickly. These things happen rarely, but having even a low risk of something like an explosion is too much.
The University of Illinois team led by Evans has developed a way to make flexible polymers by cross-linking the polymer strands in order to build in elasticity. They also made the polymers trade strands so that heating the polymer makes it hold together more firmly instead of melting like some other suggested polymer solutions. Ceramic is more heat tolerant and doesn’t deform at high temperatures, but it’s brittle and doesn’t thwart the threat of growing dendrites.
There’s another major silver lining with their research: the polymer is self healing. In their paper, they detail the portion of the experiment where they demonstrate how the polymer does this. “Damage was made by cutting along the entire width of the electrolyte (15 mm) using a razor blade,” they explain, and then put gentle weight on the damaged area to promote healing.
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