Let’s talk batteries. You know those parts of gadgets and electronics that give them power or electricity are always important. You can have all those premium specs on a device but without any reliable battery, it’s good as nothing. Today, the bigger the battery is inside a phone, it usually means better or longer battery life. There’s also the issue that phone batteries must be removable so they can easily be replaced.
Truth is, all batteries will eventually wear out. They take up so much space inside any device and yet they’re the ones that should be replaced first most of the time. In the recent years though, battery makers have been working hard to pack more power in small forms. Lithium-ion batteries are most common in gadgets these days but there are still issues of them overheating.
How safe are batteries? They usually are but there are still a lot of items to improve on when it comes to safety and battery technology. And soon enough, we might see some revolutionary changes in the industry as Samsung and MIT researchers recently discovered a new approach to the electrolyte. As one of the three basic components of a battery, the electrolyte is very important. But instead of liquid electrolyte, the researchers are now suggesting that solid electrolyte might be better.
MIT researchers said that solid-state could very well improve battery safety, longevity, and add to the amount of power that could be stored even in such a small space. It could also work under frigid temperatures. It was Professor Gerbrand Ceder who published the results in Nature Materials science journal. Ceder worked with five other researchers who helped in studying this new approach.
This new approach in making solid-state electrolytes is expected to really improve on lithium-ion battery technology. It’s not only phone makers who would benefit from this development but also those car manufacturers who have started to work on electric vehicles. If this phase becomes a success, a solid-state electrolyte based battery would greatly improve just about any device, vehicle, or even some industries in the near future.
It may be too early to tell but developments in battery technology would definitely improve safety, quality, and longevity of batteries among others. The Computational and Experimental Design of Emerging materials Research group (CEDER) is working harder on this one and is currently searching for new solid materials that could be efficient in conducting ions as quickly as possible.
The MIT research team started working with Samsung, specifically the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The partnership has also lead to some more advances like the “use of quantum-dot materials to create highly efficient solar cells and sodium batteries” as shared by Professor Ceder.
There’s so much hope for this research effort because the team working on this has a “long, outstanding track record in computational materials science” according to University of California at San Diego’s nano-engineering professor Ying Shirley Meng. She further said this study “provides some very significant design principles for designing and optimizing new solid state electrode (SSE) materials”.
Now let’s hope the researchers and professors finally discover what solid state material to use best. Exciting times for the battery tech industry but it might take a while. We’ll see.
VIA: MIT News
