An Environmentally Benign Electrolyte for High Energy Lithium Metal Batteries

 

Water is very much seen to be the enemy of the lithium ion battery. Typically these batteries need to be produced under extremely dry conditions if they’re going to hold large amounts of charge. Lithium reacts well with water and can cause serious fires. Researchers at US Department of Energy have discovered a new specific type of lithium ion battery that can work if there are some amounts of water in them. This new battery has a different electrolyte composed of two kinds of salts a lithium salt and an ionic liquid. By using this type of battery lithium batteries can be made cheaper because they don’t need such stringent and he water moisture controls in the production. This could make the production of battery’s cheaper easier and more environmentally friendly.

Qian Liu, Wei Jiang, Zhenzhen Yang, and Zhengcheng Zhang; An Environmentally Benign Electrolyte for High Energy Lithium Metal Batteries; ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2021, 13, 48, 58229–58237



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