http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsenergylett.6b00029
Researchers at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) said
that’s exactly what they were doing when they discovered how to increase
the tensile strength of nanowires that could be used to make
lithium-ion batteries last virtually forever.
Researchers have pursued using nanowires in batteries for years
because the filaments, thousands of times thinner than a human hair, are
highly conductive and have a large surface area for the storage and
transfer of electrons.
The problem they have encountered, however, is that nanowires are
also extremely fragile and don’t hold up well to repeated discharging
and recharging, known as “cycling.” For example, in a typical
lithium-ion battery, they expand and grow brittle, which leads to
cracking.
UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai solved the brittleness
conundrum by coating a gold nanowire in a manganese dioxide shell and
encasing the assembly in an electrolyte made of a Plexiglas-like gel.
The combination, they said, is reliable and resistant to failure.
No comments:
Post a Comment