solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) tagged posts

Fast ‘green’ process revives essential battery components for reuse. How many rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are you wearing? How many are in your general vicinity?

Probably more than a few, and they’re great for powering all the things important to modern lives: cellphones, watches, computers, cars and so much more.

But where they go when they fail is a growing problem. Rice University scientists believe they have a partial solution that relies on the unique “-flash” Joule heating process they developed to produce graphene from waste.

The Rice lab of chemist James Tour has reconfigured the process to quickly regenerate graphite anode materials found in lithium-ion batteries, removing impurities so they can be used again and again.

The lab’s work appears in Advanced Ma...

Rechargeable lithium metal batteries with increased energy density, performance, and safety may be possible with a newly-developed, solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI), according to Penn State researchers. As the demand for higher-energy-density lithium metal batteries increases – for electric vehicles, smartphones, and drones – stability of the SEI has been a critical issue halting their advancement because a salt layer on the surface of the battery’s lithium electrode insulates it and conducts lithium ions.

“This layer is very i...