A Lithium-Ion Battery That Works Even When It’s on Fire

Again in the early nineteen nineties, when nearby firefighters acquired a contact from Moli Vitality, they knew just the place to head: the company’s battery warehouse. The Vancouver-centered agency was the very first to mass develop rechargeable lithium-metal batteries. But the batteries experienced a nasty practice of exploding, which finally led to a substantial remember that bankrupted the agency.

Thirty many years have passed, but today’s lithium-ion batteries are however wont to blow up. A person perpetrator is the liquid electrolyte, a commonly flammable organic and natural solvent that facilitates the circulation of ions amongst a battery’s electrodes. Changing this flamable content with a reliable, some argue, could develop safer batteries. 

The fact, however, is never as very simple. Stable-state electrolytes, while undoubtedly significantly less flammable than their liquid counterparts, aren’t entirely immune to fires possibly. But that could now modify, many thanks to new know-how designed by a staff led by Yi Cui, a products scientist at Stanford University.