Dendrites Grow Like Kudzu

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Getting your fiber is a good idea for digestion and general health, but what if those fibers get you first?  Or at least destroy your battery?  This is the situation as described by a report from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in which the writer tells us that dendrites are hairy little lithium fibers that “sprout from the surface of the lithium electrode and spread like kudzu across the electrolyte until they reach the other electrode.” These 3D reconstructions show how dendritic structures that can short-circuit a battery form deep within a lithium electrode, break through the surface and spread across the electrolyte. Besides resembling a fast-growing invasive plant, the dendrite bridge across the electrodes can cause an internal short circuit and possible fires in the battery, making dendrites extremely unwanted intruders. Because they pop up from the surface of electrodes, dendrites might easily have been understood as a surface phenomenom.  Nitash Balsara, …