PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Getting to know the ​‘ghost’ inside batteries

Argonne researchers complete an in-depth examination of soft-shorts, a phenomenon that is an early step toward permanent failure in a battery

2024-02-07
(Press-News.org) An Argonne team developing materials for solid-state batteries took an unexpected detour to investigate tiny short-circuits known as soft-shorts. Their insights will benefit battery researchers around the world.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have shed important new light on what the early signs of battery failure look like. Their study — which relates to a condition called soft-shorts — provides the research community with valuable knowledge and methods to design better electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

The Argonne team’s research focused on all-solid batteries with anodes (negative electrodes) made of lithium metal. Many view such devices as the ​“holy grail” of battery technologies. Why? Because lithium metal can store a large amount of charge in a small space. That means it can enable much longer electric vehicle driving ranges than traditional lithium-ion batteries made with graphite anodes.

However, lithium metal presents operational challenges because it can be highly reactive with the liquid electrolytes in traditional batteries. Electrolytes are materials that move charged particles known as ions between a battery’s two electrodes, converting stored energy into electricity.

“With typical battery testing in the lab, researchers may only measure voltage every minute or so. During that time, you could have missed the formation and death of thousands of soft-shorts. They’re like little ghosts that are destroying your battery without you knowing it.” — Michael Counihan, Argonne postdoctoral appointee

As a normally functioning battery discharges, ions flow from the anode through the electrolyte to the cathode (positive electrode). At the same time, electrons flow from the anode to an external device — like a phone or EV motor — and then return to the cathode. The electron flow is what powers the device. When a battery is charging, these flows are reversed.

The use of lithium metal tends to disrupt this process. During charging, lithium filaments can grow off the anode and penetrate the electrolyte. If these growths become large enough and extend all the way to the cathode, they create a permanent ​“wire” between the electrodes. Eventually, all the electrons in the battery flow through this wire from one electrode to the other without exiting the battery to power a device. This process also stops the flow of ions between the electrodes.

“This is called an internal short-circuit,” said Michael Counihan, an Argonne postdoctoral appointee and the lead researcher on the team. ​“The battery has failed, and the electrons are no longer powering your device.

Putting lithium metal anodes in solid-state batteries — in other words, batteries with solid electrolytes — can potentially reduce filament-related challenges while still retaining lithium’s benefits.

An unexpected detour into soft-shorts

The Argonne team was developing a new solid electrolyte for EV batteries and noticed an unusual behavior.

“When we operated our batteries in the lab, we observed very small, very brief voltage fluctuations,” said Counihan. ​“We decided to take a deeper look.”

The researchers repeatedly charged and discharged their batteries for hundreds of hours, measuring various electrical parameters like voltage. The team determined that the batteries were experiencing soft-shorts, which are tiny, temporary short-circuits.

With a soft-short, lithium filaments grow from the anode to the cathode. But the amount of growth is smaller than in a permanent short-circuit. While some electrons stay inside the battery, others might flow to an external device. Ion flow between the electrodes might continue. All these flows can vary widely.

The team worked with Argonne computational experts to develop models that predict the amount of ion and electron flows during soft-shorts. The models account for factors such as the size of the lithium filaments and the electrolyte’s properties.

Batteries with soft-shorts can continue operating for hours, days or even weeks. But as the Argonne team discovered, the filaments generally grow in number over time and ultimately lead to battery failure.

“Soft-shorts are the first step off the cliff to permanent battery failure,” said Counihan.

Dynamic behavior

The team’s further examination revealed that soft-shorts have very dynamic behavior. They often form, disappear and reform in just microseconds or milliseconds.

“This is an important takeaway for battery researchers,” said Counihan. ​“With typical battery testing in the lab, researchers may only measure voltage every minute or so. During that time, you could have missed the formation and death of thousands of soft-shorts. They’re like little ghosts that are destroying your battery without you knowing it.”

The most common reason why soft-shorts disappear: heat. When electrons flow through the lithium filaments, heat is generated — similar to the heating that can occur in household appliance wires. The heat can quickly melt the filaments, particularly if the surrounding electrolyte is thermally insulating.

Soft-shorts can dissolve when filaments react with certain electrolytes. Some of the solid electrolytes under investigation by the Argonne team can cut small filaments before they reach the cathode and cause an internal short circuit.

Helping the research community

During its extensive examination of soft-shorts, the Argonne team developed and demonstrated several new methods for detecting and analyzing the phenomenon. For example, one method quantifies how much soft-shorts contribute to a battery’s resistance to current flow. Because different battery components can contribute to this resistance, isolating the contribution from soft-shorts can help researchers better assess the health of their batteries.

The study, published in the Jan. 17 issue of Joule, includes a list of nearly 20 detection and analysis techniques. About a third of these methods come from the team’s recent research. The study’s authors gathered the other methods from informal, unpublished knowledge in the research community.

“We realized that there are no papers in the literature that use more than two of these techniques,” said Counihan. ​“To make the list more useful for researchers, we included information on each method’s advantages and disadvantages. Since soft-shorts are so dynamic, it’s good for researchers to have many tools available to better understand the impacts of soft-shorts.”

The team wanted to provide researchers around the world with insights on soft-shorts to inform their work. For instance, the techniques in the paper can help advance the design of hard solid electrolytes that stem the growth of lithium filaments.

“When researchers understand the dynamics of the soft-shorts in their batteries, they are better equipped to refine their materials to avoid these failure pathways,” said Counihan.

The team made its solid battery electrolytes at Argonne’s Materials Engineering Research Facility and evaluated the materials at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials, a DOE Office of Science user facility. Besides Counihan, the study’s other authors were Kanchan Chavan, Pallab Barai, Devon Powers, Yuepeng Zhang, Venkat Srinivasan and Sanja Tepavcevic. The study was funded by the Vehicle Technologies Office of DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

About Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials
The Center for Nanoscale Materials is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit https://​sci​ence​.osti​.gov/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​-​a​t​-​a​-​G​lance.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Predicting neurodevelopmental disease in children from parent’s traits

Predicting neurodevelopmental disease in children from parent’s traits
2024-02-07
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Predicting the trajectory of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders like autism or schizophrenia is difficult because they can be influenced by many different genetic and environmental factors. A new study, led by Penn State researchers, demonstrates that evaluating parents for their manifestation of traits of these disorders — and related diseases like depression and anxiety — may provide a more accurate method of predicting the prevalence, and potentially severity, of the disorders in affected children than screening for genetic variants alone. This is likely due, at least in part, to genetic variants the parents transmit to the ...

New species of 65 million year old fossil shark discovered in Alabama, USA

New species of 65 million year old fossil shark discovered in Alabama, USA
2024-02-07
Birmingham, AL (February 7, 2024) – Today, a team of scientists is pleased to announce the discovery of a new fossil shark species from Alabama, USA. The team is led by Jun Ebersole, Director of Collections, McWane Science Center, Birmingham, AL, David Cicimurri, Curator of Natural History, South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, and T. Lynn Harrell, Jr., Paleontologist and Fossil Collections Curator at the Geological Survey of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The shark is a new species of Palaeohypotodus (pronounced pale-ee-oh-hype-oh-toe-duss), which means “ancient small-eared tooth,” in reference to the small needle-like fangs present on the sides of the teeth. It has ...

Time to treatment with intravenous thrombolysis before thrombectomy and functional outcomes in acute ischemic stroke

2024-02-07
About The Study: In patients presenting at thrombectomy-capable stroke centers, the benefit associated with intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) plus thrombectomy versus thrombectomy alone was time dependent and statistically significant only if the time from symptom onset to expected administration of IVT was short in this individual participant data meta-analysis (n = 2,313) of six randomized clinical trials.  Authors: Johannes Kaesmacher, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Bern in Bern, Switzerland, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

Many hookah manufacturers have not complied with FDA-mandated nicotine warning labels

2024-02-07
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 7, 2024 Contact: Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu ## Many Hookah Manufacturers Have Not Complied with FDA-Mandated Nicotine Warning Labels Only half of the hookah packages assessed in a new study included the required nicotine warnings, two years after this federal regulation was implemented to alert consumers about the health risks of nicotine addiction. Since August 2018, the US Food & Drug Administration has mandated that all hookah (also known as waterpipe tobacco or shisha) manufacturers include a nicotine warning ...

Endovascular thrombectomy for large ischemic stroke across ischemic injury and penumbra profiles

2024-02-07
About The Study: In this exploratory analysis of a randomized clinical trial of 336 patients with extensive ischemic stroke, endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) improved clinical outcomes across a wide spectrum of infarct volumes, although enrollment of patients with minimal penumbra volume was low. In EVT-treated patients, clinical outcomes worsened as presenting ischemic injury estimates increased.  Authors: Amrou Sarraj, M.D., of University Hospital Cleveland Medical Center—Case Western ...

Apixaban to prevent recurrence after cryptogenic stroke in patients with atrial cardiopathy

2024-02-07
About The Study: In patients with cryptogenic stroke and evidence of atrial cardiopathy without atrial fibrillation, oral anticoagulant therapy with apixaban did not significantly reduce recurrent stroke risk compared with aspirin in this randomized clinical trial that included 1,015 participants.  Authors: Hooman Kamel, M.D., of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2023.27188) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...

MD Anderson research highlights for February 7, 2024

2024-02-07
HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights showcases the latest breakthroughs in cancer care, research and prevention. These advances are made possible through seamless collaboration between MD Anderson’s world-leading clinicians and scientists, bringing discoveries from the lab to the clinic and back. Recent developments at MD Anderson include a combination treatment for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the discovery of a molecular driver in metastatic breast cancer, an oral combination therapy for high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), a novel method to mechanically destroy ...

UW-developed smart earrings can monitor a person’s temperature

UW-developed smart earrings can monitor a person’s temperature
2024-02-07
Smart accessories are increasingly common. Rings and watches track vitals, while Ray-Bans now come with cameras and microphones. Wearable tech has even broached brooches. Yet certain accessories have yet to get the smart touch. University of Washington researchers introduced the Thermal Earring, a wireless wearable that continuously monitors a user’s earlobe temperature. In a study of six users, the earring outperformed a smartwatch at sensing skin temperature during periods of rest. It also showed promise for monitoring signs of stress, eating, exercise and ovulation. The smart earring prototype is about ...

Quantum simulation with ultracold fermions unveils pairing pseudogap

Quantum simulation with ultracold fermions unveils pairing pseudogap
2024-02-07
A research team led by Professors PAN Jianwei, YAO Xingcan, and CHEN Yu'ao from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have for the first time observed and quantitatively characterized the many-body pairing pseudogap in unitary Fermi gases. This achievement, pursued by the ultracold atomic community for nearly two decades, resolves longstanding debates regarding the existence of a pairing pseudogap in these gases. It also supports ...

New research uncovers biological drivers of heart disease risk

2024-02-07
New gene mapping technique reveals how genetic alterations in cells lining blood vessels contribute to coronary artery disease, with implications for diagnostic and treatment strategies. KEY TAKEAWAYS Researchers from the Brigham, the Broad Institute, and Stanford Medicine studied how "deleting" individual genes associated with coronary artery disease (CAD) impacted the expression of all the other genes in a cell to better understand underlying biology of CAD. The study focused on endothelial cells, which line blood vessels and are increasingly understood to influence CAD risk. The researchers highlighted a previously unrecognized role for the TLNRD1 gene ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Chung-Ang University researchers unveil the biogenesis and role of transfer RNA fragments in cancer progression

Secret of the female orgasm uncovered by psychologists

Breakthrough in zinc-based rechargeable batteries: A safer, sustainable alternative

"Superman" bacteria offer a sustainable boost to chemical production

FunMap reveals a functional network of genes and proteins in human cancer

First full characterization of kidney microbiome unlocks potential to prevent kidney stones

IMDEA Software researchers present MixBuy, a protocol for secure and privacy-preserving digital purchases

Having a good breakfast reduces cardiovascular risk

New study reveals provincial and territorial inequities and inadequacies in access to medications and treatment for cardiovascular conditions in Canada

Pre-seed funding to recolor the world greener

New research unlocks jaw-dropping evolution of lizards and snakes

Cardiorespiratory fitness linked to preservation of cognitive abilities in older age

Around 1 in 5 of the world’s under 50s living with genital herpes (HSV)

Cutting early life exposure to parental smoking may lower MS risk in genetically prone

High-flow nasal oxygen vs noninvasive ventilation in patients with acute respiratory failure

Flexible hibernation could help hedgehogs adapt to environmental changes

What is a unit of nature? New framework shows the challenges involved with establishing a biodiversity credit market

NYCEDC and NYU Tandon launch applications for new digital game design incubator

Soda taxes don’t just affect sales. They help change people’s minds.

Early restrictive vs liberal oxygen for trauma patients

Enabling AI to explain its predictions in plain language

A greener, cleaner way to extract cobalt from ‘junk’ materials

Better environmental performance boosts profits and cuts costs

Making self-driving cars safer, less accident prone

Rethinking the quantum chip

When does waiting stop being worth it?

Nationwide study looks at when and where EV owners use public charging stations

A new discovery about the source of the vast energy in cosmic rays

Cancer ‘fingerprint’ can improve early detection

Rethinking the brain pacemaker: How better materials can improve signals

[Press-News.org] Getting to know the ​‘ghost’ inside batteries
Argonne researchers complete an in-depth examination of soft-shorts, a phenomenon that is an early step toward permanent failure in a battery