Fully Charged in Just 12 Minutes! Korean Scientists Develop Next-Gen Lithium

DGIST researchers developed a nitrogen-doped carbon material to boost the performance of lithium–sulfur batteries, achieving faster charging, improved capacity, and long-term stability, paving the way for their commercialization.

Professor Jong-sung Yu’s team developed a nitrogen-doped porous carbon material that boosts lithium–sulfur battery performance, achieving rapid charging (12 minutes) and long-term stability (82% capacity retention after 1,000 cycles). This breakthrough could accelerate battery commercialization.

A research team led by Professor Jong-sung Yu from the DGIST Department of Energy Science and Engineering, under President Kunwoo Lee, has developed a groundbreaking technology to dramatically improve the charging speed of lithium-sulfur batteries. The team introduced an innovative nitrogen-doped porous carbon material to overcome the slow charging limitations that have stalled the commercialization of lithium-sulfur batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries, while essential for eco-friendly technologies like electric vehicles, face challenges due to their limited energy storage capacity and high production costs. In contrast, lithium-sulfur batteries have emerged as a promising alternative, offering higher energy density and benefiting from the affordability of sulfur as a key material. However, their commercial viability has been hampered by inefficient sulfur utilization during rapid charging, leading to reduced battery capacity.

Another issue is the lithium polysulfides produced during the discharge process. These compounds migrate within the battery, degrading its performance. To address this, researchers have been developing batteries by incorporating sulfur into porous carbon structures. However, they have yet to achieve performance levels suitable for commercialization.

To solve these challenges, Professor Yu’s team synthesized a novel highly graphitic, multiporous carbon material doped with nitrogen and applied it to the cathode of a lithium–sulfur battery. This technology successfully maintained high energy capacity even under rapid charging conditions.

The newly developed carbon material was synthesized by employing a thermal reduction method that involves magnesium and ZIF-8.

ZIF-8 is a metal-organic framework (MOF) formed by the coordination of metal ions and organic ligands. It is characterized by its high thermal and chemical stability, as well as its distinctive porous structure.

At high temperatures, magnesium reacts with the nitrogen in ZIF-8, making the carbon structure more stable and robust while creating a diverse pore structure. This structure not only allows for higher sulfur loading but also improves the contact between sulfur and the electrolyte, significantly enhancing battery performance.

The lithium–sulfur battery developed in this study utilized the multifunctional carbon material synthesized, through the simple magnesium-assisted thermal reduction method, as a sulfur host. Even under rapid charging conditions with a full charge time of just 12 minutes, the battery achieved a high capacity of 705 mAh g⁻¹, which is a 1.6-fold improvement over conventional batteries. Furthermore, nitrogen doping on the carbon surface effectively suppressed lithium polysulfide migration, allowing the battery to retain 82% capacity even after 1,000 charge–discharge cycles, demonstrating excellent stability.

During the research, the collaborative team, led by Dr. Khalil Amine of Argonne National Laboratory, performed advanced microscopic analyses. These analyses confirmed that lithium sulfide (Li₂S) was formed in a specific orientation within the layered structures of the newly developed carbon material. This finding validated that nitrogen doping and the porous carbon structure enhanced sulfur loading, while the graphitic nature of the carbon accelerated sulfur reactions, thereby improving charging speed.

Professor Jong-sung Yu remarked, “This research focused on improving the charging speed of lithium–sulfur batteries using a simple synthesis method involving magnesium. We hope this study will accelerate the commercialization of lithium–sulfur batteries.”

“Tailoring-Orientated Deposition of Li2S for Extreme Fast-Charging Lithium–Sulfur Batteries”

by Jeong-Hoon Yu, Byong-June Lee, Shiyuan Zhou, Jong Hun Sung, Chen Zhao, Cheol-Hwan Shin, Bo Yu, Gui-Liang Xu, Khalil Amine and Jong-Sung Yu, 7 November 2024, ACS Nano.

This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea’s Mid-Career Researcher Support Program.

The #1 reason I got an EV is because I live in the south and can utilize the Alabama sun to generate most of the power we need (I said "most" because not days like today with solar panels covered in snow LOL). I wish I could produce my own oil and refine it to gas, but I can't. I wish I could produce my own natural gas, but I can't.

I'm a bit fearful of the political class' manipulation of energy regulations to control us, at least through pricing of energy. Particularly the Dims. So a few months after Biden took office and issued EO's making it harder to drill for oil and natural gas, I started doing the math on my particular situation and if solar would be good to take away part of the burden. (It's very much a custom analysis thing, don't do it just because it works for me.) I had a small solar system for a year to play with it, liked the throughput and the results, and upgraded it in 2022. That was the same year it was time to replace my wife's gas crossover anyway, so I replaced it with an EV crossover. (Again, if you do the same and if it's going to be your new car and thus your favorite for taking road trips, make sure it's best for most of your trips like I did.) I also converted my two natural gas appliances to electric ones, making the new appliances being very efficient, doing other energy efficiency improvements on the home, and incorporating data from my solar inverters (which I imported into a SQL Server database so I could query the stew out of it). The added power load of the EV and the new electrical appliances was part of the math on how much to upgrade the solar without going too far (I wanted to utilize economies of scale, but not fight the law of diminishing returns).

End result: 80% of our power consumption is from solar. Only 20% of our power has to be pulled from the grid (most of that during the 4 coldest months). That's for a 2,300 sq ft all electric home and charging the EV to drive 16K miles (just the home charged miles, not counting the road trip charged miles). All of that means my power bills last year totaled $1,010, averaging $84/month. (Call it about $1,100, or $97/month if I wasn't making a little money selling excess power to the grid, especially during the summer months.) No natural gas bills. And almost no gasoline costs (what little we drive the gas pickup).

No bureaucrat is ever going to do that kind of research to figure out what's best for your situation and make it cost efficient. I'm as drill,baby,drill as it gets (I also believe we should mine too, not just coal but rare earths). But how long is Trump going to be in office? IMHO the best long term solutions to our problems with the political class is for each of us to do what we can to make ourselves more independent of the things the govt over regulates. Right now, energy is their favorite weapon to over regulate and control us a little more and a little more like slow boiling the frog. And the EV helps me escape most of that by utilizing the only energy I can produce on my own: electricity.

Here's another way to put it. Of the 22,000+ kWh I consumed last year, because only 4,000+ kWh was pulled from the grid, the govt doesn't know about the other 18,000 kWh consumed.

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