A Stable Lithium Anode – the “Holy Grail” of Battery Design

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

A Stanford University team of researchers, including Nobel Prize winner and former U. S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Yi Cui, long familiar to CAFE Blog readers, are using carbon nanospheres to coat lithium electrodes and help them resist expansion problems that formerly fractured them, and to keep elements in the battery’s reactive electrolytes from dissolving them. This approach has enabled the team to craft a pure lithium anode, with all the promise of high energy density that such an electrode holds.   It’s also stable, a boon to longevity for these cells. As reported in the news release By Andrew Myers for the Stanford Engineering School, “’Of all the materials that one might use in an anode, lithium has the greatest potential. Some call it the Holy Grail,’ said Cui, a professor of Material Science and Engineering and leader of the research team. ‘It is very lightweight and it has the highest energy density. You get more power per …