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Nickelblock: an element's love-hate relationship with battery electrodes
http://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=946[font face=Serif][font size=5]Nickelblock: an element's love-hate relationship with battery electrodes[/font]
September 27, 2012
[font size=4]Images show how nickel, which enhances battery capacity, also appears to hinder charging rates[/font]
[font size=3]RICHLAND, Wash. – Anyone who owns an electronic device knows that lithium ion batteries could work better and last longer. Now, scientists examining battery materials on the nano-scale reveal how nickel forms a physical barrier that impedes the shuttling of lithium ions in the electrode, reducing how fast the materials charge and discharge. Published last week in Nano Letters, the research also suggests a way to improve the materials.
The researchers, led by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Chongmin Wang, created high-resolution 3D images of electrode materials made from lithium-nickel-manganese oxide layered nanoparticles, mapping the individual elements. These maps showed that nickel formed clumps at certain spots in the nanoparticles. A higher magnification view showed the nickel blocking the channels through which lithium ions normally travel when batteries are charged and discharged.
"We were surprised to see the nickel selectively segregate like it did. When the moving lithium ions hit the segregated nickel-rich layer, they essentially encounter a barrier that appears to slow them down," said Wang, a materials scientist based at EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE user facility on PNNL's campus. "The block forms in the manufacturing process, and we'd like to find a way to prevent it."
Lithium ions are positively charged atoms that move between negative and positive electrodes when a battery is being charged or is in use. They essentially catch or release the negatively charged electrons, whose movement through a device such as a laptop forms the electric current.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl302249vSeptember 27, 2012
[font size=4]Images show how nickel, which enhances battery capacity, also appears to hinder charging rates[/font]
[font size=3]RICHLAND, Wash. – Anyone who owns an electronic device knows that lithium ion batteries could work better and last longer. Now, scientists examining battery materials on the nano-scale reveal how nickel forms a physical barrier that impedes the shuttling of lithium ions in the electrode, reducing how fast the materials charge and discharge. Published last week in Nano Letters, the research also suggests a way to improve the materials.
The researchers, led by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Chongmin Wang, created high-resolution 3D images of electrode materials made from lithium-nickel-manganese oxide layered nanoparticles, mapping the individual elements. These maps showed that nickel formed clumps at certain spots in the nanoparticles. A higher magnification view showed the nickel blocking the channels through which lithium ions normally travel when batteries are charged and discharged.
"We were surprised to see the nickel selectively segregate like it did. When the moving lithium ions hit the segregated nickel-rich layer, they essentially encounter a barrier that appears to slow them down," said Wang, a materials scientist based at EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE user facility on PNNL's campus. "The block forms in the manufacturing process, and we'd like to find a way to prevent it."
Lithium ions are positively charged atoms that move between negative and positive electrodes when a battery is being charged or is in use. They essentially catch or release the negatively charged electrons, whose movement through a device such as a laptop forms the electric current.
…[/font][/font]
3 replies
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Companies don't fund battery research unless they can achieve solid patents, and when they do this often inhibits commercial production or further research along similar lines.
What we need is government funding of this research and the release of promising results to the public domain.
But, oh no, that would be some kind of socialism. If the big corporations can't make money off of research, it's wrong...
