Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




ENERGY TECH
Study sheds new light on why batteries go bad
by Staff Writers
Menlo Park CA (SPX) Sep 16, 2014


This is an apparatus used to charge lithium ion coin cell batteries at various rates with different levels of current at the Stanford Institute for Materials Science and Engineering. The results indicate that the benefits of slow draining and charging may have been overestimated. Image courtesy SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

A comprehensive look at how tiny particles in a lithium ion battery electrode behave shows that rapid-charging the battery and using it to do high-power, rapidly draining work may not be as damaging as researchers had thought - and that the benefits of slow draining and charging may have been overestimated.

The results challenge the prevailing view that "supercharging" batteries is always harder on battery electrodes than charging at slower rates, according to researchers from Stanford University and the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES) at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

They also suggest that scientists may be able to modify electrodes or change the way batteries are charged to promote more uniform charging and discharging and extend battery life.

"The fine detail of what happens in an electrode during charging and discharging is just one of many factors that determine battery life, but it's one that, until this study, was not adequately understood," said William Chueh of SIMES, an assistant professor at Stanford's Department of Materials Science and Engineering and senior author of the study. "We have found a new way to think about battery degradation."

The results, he said, can be directly applied to many oxide and graphite electrodes used in today's commercial lithium ion batteries and in about half of those under development.

His team described the study September 14, 2014, in Natural Materials. The team included collaborators from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sandia National Laboratories, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology America and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Watching Ions in Battery Slices
One important source of battery wear and tear is the swelling and shrinking of the negative and positive electrodes as they absorb and release ions from the electrolyte during charging and discharging.

For this study scientists looked at a positive electrode made of billions of nanoparticles of lithium iron phosphate. If most or all of these particles actively participate in charging and discharging, they'll absorb and release ions more gently and uniformly. But if only a small percentage of particles sop up all the ions, they're more likely to crack and get ruined, degrading the battery's performance.

Previous studies produced conflicting views of how the nanoparticles behaved. To probe further, researchers made small coin cell batteries, charged them with different levels of current for various periods of time, quickly took them apart and rinsed the components to stop the charge/discharge process.

Then they cut the electrode into extremely thin slices and took them to Berkeley Lab for examination with intense X-rays from the Advanced Light Source synchrotron, a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

New Insights on Faster Discharging
"We were able to look at thousands of electrode nanoparticles at a time and get snapshots of them at different stages during charging and discharging," said Stanford graduate student Yiyang Li, lead author of the report. "This study is the first to do that comprehensively, under many charging and discharging conditions."

Analyzing the data using a sophisticated model developed at MIT, the researchers discovered that only a small percentage of nanoparticles absorbed and released ions during charging, even when it was done very rapidly. But when the batteries discharged, an interesting thing happened: As the discharge rate increased above a certain threshold, more and more particles started to absorb ions simultaneously, switching to a more uniform and less damaging mode.

This suggests that scientists may be able to tweak the electrode material or the process to get faster rates of charging and discharging while maintaining long battery life.

The next step, Li said, is to run the battery electrodes through hundreds to thousands of cycles to mimic real-world performance. The scientists also hope to take snapshots of the battery while it's charging and discharging, rather than stopping the process and taking it apart.

This should yield a more realistic view, and can be done at synchrotrons such as ALS or SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, also a DOE Office of Science User Facility. Li said the group has also been working with industry to see how these findings might apply in the transportation and consumer electronics sectors.

.


Related Links
DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle




Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News





ENERGY TECH
Plugged-in to the future
Novi MI (SPX) Sep 15, 2014
Electric vehicle and advanced battery specialists, engineers and executives will be gathering next week at The Battery Show / Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo and Conference in Novi, Michigan to discuss solutions to meet the evolving demands of their cutting-edge industry. This year's bumper show boasts 20% more exhibitors, double the floor space, upwards of 20% more registratio ... read more


ENERGY TECH
Year's final supermoon is a Harvest Moon

China Aims for the Moon, Plans to Bring Back Lunar Soil

Electric Sparks May Alter Evolution of Lunar Soil

China to test recoverable moon orbiter

ENERGY TECH
Flash-Memory Reformat On Opportunity Underway

Mars Rover Opportunity's Vista Includes Long Tracks

MAVEN Spacecraft Makes Final Preparations For Mars

Robots do battle over Mars exploration

ENERGY TECH
Top trends at IFA 2014, Europe's biggest gadget fair

Tech giants bet on 'smart home' revolution

More Than Meets the Eye: NASA Scientists Listen to Data

Aurora Season Has Started

ENERGY TECH
China to launch second space lab in 2016: official

China's Space Station is Still On Track

China launches remote sensing satellite

China launches two satellites via one rocket

ENERGY TECH
Science Continues on Orbital Lab While Trio Prepares for Departure

International Space Station accidentally launches satellites on its own

NASA Launches New Era of Earth Science from ISS

Geopolitical Tensions Not to Affect ISS Cooperation

ENERGY TECH
MEASAT-3b and Optus 10 given go-ahead for Ariane 5 Sept 11 launch

SpaceX launches AsiaSat 6 satellite

SpaceX launches second satellite in the past month

Sea Launch Takes Proactive Steps to Address Manifest Gap

ENERGY TECH
First evidence for water ice clouds found outside solar system

NRL Scientist Explores Birth of a Planet

How NASA's New Carbon Observatory Will Help Us Understand Alien Worlds

Orion Rocks! Pebble-Size Particles May Jump-Start Planet Formation

ENERGY TECH
Microsoft powers up game platform with 'Minecraft'

Hewlett-Packard buys cloud-computing firm Eucalyptus

Math Tools Maximizing Value of Scientific Data and Accelerating Discovery

Scientists review new ways to process and analyze Big Data




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.