Battery testing system in Dr. Yu Uni’s lab to develop advanced electrode materials. Credit: University of Texas at Texas Stein
Over the years, researchers have aimed to learn more about the group of metal oxides that promise to be the most important material for the next generation of lithium-ion batteries because of their mysterious ability to store significantly more than they could possibly store. An international research team co-led by the University of Texas at Austin has broken the code of this scientific discrepancy, breaking down the barrier to creating ultra-fast battery energy storage systems.
The team discovered that this metal oxide has unique ways of storing energy outside of classic electrochemical storage mechanisms. Research in, published Nature stuff, Today’s commercially available lithium-ion batteries have found many types of metal compounds with three times the energy storage capacity compared to normal materials.
By decoding this mystery, researchers are helping to unlock more energy-efficient batteries. That could mean smaller, more powerful batteries used to quickly charge for everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.
For nearly two decades, the research community has been horrified by the high potential of these materials with inconsistencies beyond the theoretical limits, said Gihua Yu, an associate professor and a leader in mechanical engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering. Project. “This work demonstrates the first experimental evidence to show that the extra charge is physically stored within this material by the space charge storage mechanism.”
Battery testing system in Dr. Yu Uni’s lab to develop advanced electrode materials. Credit: University of Texas at Texas Stein
To demonstrate this phenomenon, the team found a way to observe and measure how the elements change over time. Researchers from UT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Waterloo In Canada, Shandong University of China, Qingdao University in China and Chinese Academy of Sciences participated in the project.
At the center of the discovery is transition-metal oxide, a compound that contains oxygen bound to transition metals such as iron, nickel and zinc. Energy can be stored inside metal oxides – unlike the special methods by which lithium ions come out of these materials or convert their crystalline compositions for energy storage. And researchers have shown that the extra charge capacity can also be stored on the surface of iron nanoparticles formed during a series of conventional electrochemical processes.
According to research, a wide range of transition metals can unlock this extra capacity, and it shares a common thread – the ability to collect a high density of electrons. The content is not yet ready for prime time, the UA said, mainly due to a lack of information about them. But the researchers said the new findings should go a long way in shedding light on the potential of this material.
The key technique employed in this study, named in situ magnetometry, is a real-time magnetic monitoring method for investigating the evolution of the internal electronic composition of materials. It is able to measure charge capacity by measuring variations in magnetism. This technique can be used to study charge storage on a very small scale that goes beyond the capabilities of many traditional characteristic equipment.
“The most significant results were obtained from a technique commonly used by physicists, but very rarely in the battery community,” the UA said. “This is a perfect demonstration of the beautiful marriage of physics and electrochemistry.”
Reference: By Qiang Li, Hongsen Li, Qingtao Xia, Zhengqiang Hu, Yu Xu, Shishen Yan, Chen Ji, Qingua Zhang, Xiaoxiong Wang, Xiaanto Shang “transition metal oxide lithium-ion batteries, additional storage capacity, Lin Gu, Guo-Xing Miao, Gihua Yu and Jagadish S Mudera, 17 August Gust 2020, Nature Materials.
DOI: 10.1038 / s41563-020-0756-y
