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Lithium ion batteries carry decades fulfilling its role on day -to -day devices. They are still very valid for mobile, consoles and other small devices, but the arrival of the electric car has promoted a change. The industry is looking at some solid state batteries that have become In the best asset For car electrification.
Promise much older autonomiesa longer life, faster loads, lower weight and greater security. There are many companies like Huawei, Samsung, Sling either Fordamong others, investigating the development of these batteries And, although marks like BMW don’t want to hear anything about them At the moment, others such as Mercedes have begun to implement them in test models.
And the Technical University of Munich believes having found the key to accelerating the development and adoption of solid state batteries: a new material that “dopa” lithium and lithium conducts its ions 30% faster than any other material.
Doping lithium to accelerate solid state batteries
Despite all its promises, solid state batteries have faced historically a key bottleneck: The low ionic conductivity at room temperaturewhich limits loading and unloading speed. In liquid electrolytes, lithium ions move easily, but in solids, the crystalline network and interionic forces They hinder That movement, slowing down the process. Therefore, much of the current research It focuses on finding materials that allow a more efficient ionic migration
The Energy Research team of the TUM has published a study in which it is detailed how they have achieved that improvement in conductivity. The key has been a new material that achieves the greatest ionic conductivity ever registered in this field thanks to eliminating part of the lithium and replacing it with Scandio.
This substitution generates holes in the crystalline network that are called “vacancies”, and by reducing that density, the movement of lithium ions is freer. Therefore, conductivity increases significantly. According to his tests, this new compound of lithium, antimony and scandio drives ions 30% faster That any other material known to date and Professor Thomas F. Fäsler, team leader, points out that the material not only allows that higher speed, but also an improvement in thermal stability.
“By incorporating small amounts of Scandio, we have discovered a new principle that could serve as a model for other elementary combinations,” says Fäsler. “The materials that conduct both ions and electrons are especially suitable as additives in the electrodes and, due to their promising practical applications, we have already requested a patent to develop it,” he continues.
Apart from this new material, during the investigation they realized that there are other substances that work well with other materials. Jingwen Jiang is one of the authors of the study and states that his combination “is based on lithium and antimony, but the same concept can be easily applied to lithium and phosphorus systems. In previous record it was based on lithium and sulfur and required Five additional elements for optimization, but we have only needed scandio as an additional component. ”
He also states that his discovery could have broader implications to improve conductivity in other materials, but Fäsler confesses that although they are optimistic, “many tests are still needed before the new material can be used in battery cells.”
Therefore, it seems that There is time for these solid state batteries to impose themselvesand it is also logical to think that, little by little, they will optimize them much more. At the moment the interesting thing is so much that they have improved that ionic communication and, above all, that they have done so simplifying the processes with simpler compositions.
Images Robert Linder, Tum
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