Microsphere anode enhances the capacity of lithium batteries by three times in an experiment

Apr, 2021 - By SMI

In an experiment at Russia's National University of Science and Technology MISIS by Evgeny Kolesnikov and a team of material scientists developed a new anode for increasing the capacity of lithium batteries.

In a recent study, scientists in Russia came to the conclusion that battery concept with a range of promising performance advantages, especially the triple power of modern solutions. The invention comes from changing the equipment used on one of the battery electrodes to reflect nanospheres that allow the device as well as hold a large amount of charge to remain stable.

Lithium-ion batteries power everything from smartphones to laptops to electric vehicles, and they do this by using graphite as an anode - the negative electrode of the device. Anode is an important point of focus for scientists who want to improve battery performance. By means of a process called ultrasonic spray pyrolysis, in which special metal ions are converted to fog through ultrasound and then water evaporates at high temperatures, the group was able to create very small spheres with empty spaces, which appear to be about the same size. This was combined with lithium batteries as an anode and is being tested, where the team has seen many performance benefits. The new material gives the battery several times the most common power of standard lithium ion batteries, owing to the anode output space is maintained around 1,000 charging cycles. This has the effect of maintaining the volume change that occurs during charging, helping the battery to remain stable for longer.

"Porous nanostructured microspheres (with the structure Cu0.4Zn0.6Fe2O4), which we have built, are used as an anode material that provides three times as much power as existing batteries on the market," says research author Evgeny Kolesnikov. Moreover, such high power and high performance cycling stability are the most desirable features when it comes to next-generation batteries, so research opens up a promising way for field scientists to explore.