Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Engineers Develop Safe and Long-Cyclable Lithium Metal Battery for High Temperatures

In recent years, batteries have become ubiquitous in consumers’ daily lives. However, existing commercial battery technologies, which use liquid electrolytes and carbonaceous anodes, have certain drawbacks such as safety concerns, limited lifespan, and inadequate power density particularly at high temperatures.

Yet, there is an increasing need for batteries that can operate in extreme conditions, such as the high temperatures required in various industrial sectors, including medical device sterilization, subsurface exploration, and thermal reactors.

This has prompted researchers to search for solid electrolytes that are safe and compatible with lithium metal anodes, which are known for their high theoretical specific power capacity.

A research team led by Professor Dong-Myeon...

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Nanoscale Trilayer Exhibits Ultrafast Charge Transfer in Semiconductor Materials

An illustration of charge movement in a mixed-dimensionality hetero-trilayer material, with different-colored dots and lines representing photoexcited electrons, holes, and carbon nanotubes.
Charge movement in a mixed-dimensionality hetero-trilayer material: Photoexcited electrons and holes travel from the transition metal dichalcogenide layer (top) through single-walled carbon nanotubes (middle), resulting in a long charge recombination lifetime of 1.2 microseconds, which has potential applications in optoelectronics and energy harvesting. Image by Alexis Myers, NREL

Successfully innovating optoelectronic semiconductor devices depends a lot on moving charges and excitons—electron-hole pairs—in specified directions for the purpose of creating fuels or electricity.

In photosynthesis, pigment molecules absorb and transfer solar energy to a reaction center, where the energy is converted and used...

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Novel Electrode for Improving Flowless Zinc-Bromine Battery

Image title: Nitrogen-Doped Mesoporous Carbon-Coated Graphite Felt Electrodes
Image caption: The novel electrodes effectively suppress the crossover of bromine and bromine complexe
s, thus preventing self-discharge and enhancing the electrochemical performance and cycling stability of flowless zinc-bromine batteries.
Image credit: Chanho Pak from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
License type: Original Content
Usage restrictions: Cannot be reused without permission

Researchers developed a novel electrode that effectively suppresses the harmful self-discharge phenomenon in flowless zinc-bromine batteries. The flowless zinc-bromine battery (FLZBB) is a promising alternative to flammable lithium-ion batteries due to its use of non-flammable electrolytes...

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Could High-Temperature Single Crystals enable Electric Vehicles capable of Traveling up to One Million Km?

A research team led by Professor Kyu-Young Park from the Graduate Institute of Ferrous & Eco Materials Technology and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Kyoung Eun Lee, a PhD candidate, and alumna Yura Kim from the Graduate Institute of Ferrous & Eco Materials Technology at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), in collaboration with the POSCO Holdings N.EX.T Hub, has recently demonstrated a single-crystal synthesis technology that significantly extends the lifespan of cathode materials for electric vehicles. This research was published in the online edition of ACS Materials & Interfaces, an international journal in the materials science field.

Lithium (Li) secondary batteries, commonly used in electric vehicles, store energy by converting elect...

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