Researcher Develops Explosion-Proof Lithium Metal Battery With 2X Power of Lithium-Ion (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: Tufts University professor and founder of Ionic Materials, Mike Zimmerman, hopes that his resilient ionic battery technology will finally replace Lithium Ion. The reason scientists and researchers pay so much attention to battery design is because today's lithium-ion technologies have several downsides, as we saw recently with Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 recall. If you were to take apart a lithium-ion battery, you'd find a positive electrode called the anode and a negatively charged electrode called the cathode. There's a thin separator that sits between the anode and cathode. Everything else is filled up with liquid, or electrolyte. Charging the battery causes positively charged ions to flow through the liquid from the negative side to the positive side. As you use the battery, the ions flow in the opposite direction. However, the electrolyte is extremely flammable and they can explode when pierced or overheated. Zimmerman's ionic battery trades the flammable liquid for a piece of plastic film to serve as the electrolyte. It isn't prone to overheating and catching fire. The same goes for piercing, cutting or otherwise destroying the battery. Also, unlike lithium-ion batteries, Zimmerman's ionic batteries use actual lithium-metal, which can store twice as much power. Lithium-ion batteries don't contain lithium-metal because they're even more prone to overheating and exploding than lithium-ion, but that risk is removed by Zimmerman swapping out the liquid electrolyte for a solid. Further reading: Yahoo News

Comments

Re:Illogical

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Harry Mudd will sort things out.

Uh, thanks.

[fahrbot-bot]

If you were to take apart a lithium-ion battery, you'd find a positive electrode called the anode and a negatively charged electrode called the cathode. There's a thin separator that sits between the anode and cathode. Everything else is filled up with liquid, or electrolyte. Charging the battery causes positively charged ions to flow through the liquid from the negative side to the positive side. As you use the battery, the ions flow in the opposite direction.

Dear Editors, Thanks for explaining, on a tech site, how, basically, every battery works.

Re:Uh, thanks.

[Greystripe]

They put you inside, shut the door, and then they lock the door. If you are lucky it is a padded, single occupant cell, if not well I'm sure others can fill you in on what that's like.

Re:Battery meet science experiment.

[Nkwe]

Zimmerman's ionic batteries use actual lithium-metal, ...

Just don't drop it in water if it ever gets damaged.

Or feed it after midnight

Re:Drumpf

[dgatwood]

Nuclear war is coming. Get out of the us while you still can.

In the event of an actual nuclear war, the only safe place will be ISS... and even then, only until the food runs out. That's when the cannibalism starts, and after that, it's survival of the fittest. In the end, there can be only one.