Lithium metal battery sets new standards
Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and a partner have come up with an innovation: Their novel lithium metal battery has an energy density of 560 watt-hours per kilogram.
560 watt hours per kilogram with remarkably good stability. This is offered by a novel lithium metal battery developed by researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, cf. http://kit.edu). According to the scientists, a promising combination of cathode and electrolyte is used: the nickel-rich layered cathode (NCM88) allows a lot of energy to be stored per mass, while the ionic liquid electrolyte with two anions ensures that the capacity is largely retained over many charging cycles.
Goal carbon neutral mobility
According to the experts, the lithium metal battery initially has a storage capacity of 214 milliampere hours per gram; over 1000 charging cycles, 88 percent of the capacity is retained. The so-called Coulomb efficiency, which indicates the ratio between withdrawn and added capacity, averages 99.94 percent. Since the battery presented is also characterized by a high level of safety, the Karlsruhe researchers say they have succeeded in taking an important step on the road to carbon-neutral mobility.
With the commonly used and commercially available organic electrolyte (LP30), stability has so far left much to be desired. The storage capacity decreases as the number of charging cycles increases. Stefano Passerini, director of the Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU), which was involved in the development, explains why: "Particle cracks form at the cathode in the LP30 electrolyte. Within these cracks, the electrolyte reacts and destroys the structure. In addition, a thick moss-like lithium-containing layer forms on the cathode."
Text: pressetext.redaktion, Florian Fügemann
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