Recipe for safer batteries—just add diamonds

said braka 6:01 AM
Yury Gogotsi, PhD, Distinguished University and Bach

professor in the College of Engineering, and his research team from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, recently published their work—entitled "Nanodiamonds Suppress Growth of Lithium Dendrites"—in the journal Nature Communications. In it, they describe a process by which nanodiamonds—tiny diamond particles 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a hair—curtail the electrochemical deposition, called plating, that can lead to hazardous short-circuiting of  ion batteries.
As batteries are used and charged, the electrochemical reaction results in the movement of ions between the two electrodes of a battery, which is the essence of an electrical current. Over time, this repositioning of ions can create tendril-like buildups—almost like stalactites forming inside a cave. These battery buildups, called dendrites, are one of the main causes of lithium battery malfunction. As dendrites form inside the battery over time, they can reach the point where they push through the separator, a porous polymer film that prevents the positively charged part of a battery from touching the negatively charged part. When the separator is breached, a short-circuit can occur, which can also lead to a fire since the electrolyte solution in most  is highly flammable.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-recipe-safer-batteriesjust-diamonds.html#jCp