Free Republic

Most of today's batteries are made up of rare lithium mined from the mountains of South America. If the world depletes this source, then battery production could stagnate. Sodium is a very cheap and earth-abundant alternative to using lithium-ion batteries that is also known to turn purple and combust if exposed to water—even just water in the air. Worldwide efforts to make sodium-ion batteries just as functional as lithium-ion batteries have long since controlled sodium's tendency to explode, but not yet resolved how to prevent sodium-ions from "getting lost" during the first few times a battery charges and discharges. Now,...

This image shows the schematic structure of a new battery cell with lithium metal electrodes developed at Yale and Donghua University. Credit: Yale University ________________________________________________________________________________________ Researchers at Yale and Donghua University in China have developed a new process for creating lithium metal that may boost the energy and capacity of rechargeable batteries. Lithium metal is considered the best option as a material for anodes in high-energy batteries, the researchers said, because of the metal's high potential for providing large amounts of energy and capacity in a given mass. Yet existing lithium metal electrodes, limited by low capacity and utilization efficiency,...