Designing for hard and brittle lithium needles may lead to safer batteries

Summary author: Walter Beckwith

2026-03-12

(Press-News.org) Contrary to previous assumptions, a new study finds that the needle-like lithium dendrites that grow in lithium (Li)-metal batteries are surprisingly strong and brittle, quite unlike soft bulk Li. According to the authors, understanding this brittle fracture behavior provides insights for suppressing dead Li formation and electrolyte cracking, enabling safer and more reliable Li-metal batteries. Li-metal anodes offer the highest specific capacity and the lowest electrochemical potential among all known anode materials, making them highly attractive for use in next-generation battery technologies. However, the use of Li-metal anodes poses significant safety challenges. During battery operation, lithium can grow into needle-like structures called dendrites that pierce the separator inside the battery, leading to internal short circuits and even explosions. It has been assumed that Li dendrites are soft and deformable, like bulk Li, leading to strategies focused on stiffening electrolytes. Yet, confusingly, recent experiments show that Li dendrites – supposedly soft – can fracture hard solid electrolyte materials that are much stronger. Understanding why this happens is central to improving Li-metal battery performance and safety.

Here, Qing Ai and colleagues developed a specialized technique to measure the mechanical properties of Li dendrites formed under realistic battery conditions. Using a nanomanipulator within a scanning electron microscope, Ai et al. carefully extracted dendrites grown in a coin cell and transferred them to a miniature mechanical testing device. The findings revealed that Li dendrites behave very differently from bulk Li metal. Rather than being soft and deformable, Li dendrites are strong and brittle, fracturing at tensile strengths greater than ~150 megapascals (MPa), far higher than the ~0.6 MPa strength of bulk Li. Imaging with cryogenic electron microscopy reveals that each dendrite consists of a single-crystal Li core surrounded by a thin solid electrolyte interface layer. Modeling and materials analyses show that this nanoscale structure is what gives dendrites their strength. According to Ai et al., the findings suggest that tailoring the solid electrolyte microstructures in future Li-metal batteries may be a viable approach to mitigate battery failure and improve safety.

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Inside the brains of seals and sea lions with complex vocal behavior learning

2026-03-12

By mapping the brains of seals and sea lions, researchers have uncovered specialized neural circuits that have evolved to support the control of complex vocal behavior and learning in the species. Humans are vocal learners, but they are not unique; some birds, bats and some marine mammals have demonstrated the ability to modify or acquire new vocalizations that fall outside of their inherited repertoire through experience or by mimicking novel sounds. Among marine mammals, pinnipeds, a group of mammals that includes seals (phocids) and sea lions (otariids), show clear behavioral evidence of different components of vocal flexibility, ranging from highly ...

Watching a lifetime in motion reveals the architecture of aging

2026-03-12

By midlife, an animal’s everyday behaviors can signal how long it is likely to live. That is the striking conclusion of a new study supported by the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, in which researchers put scores of short-lived fish under continuous, lifelong surveillance to explore how behavior and aging are linked. Individual fish aged in markedly different ways, despite having similar genetics and living in a carefully controlled ...

Rapid evolution can ‘rescue’ species from climate change

2026-03-12

ITHACA, N.Y. – A potted scarlet monkeyflower would die within a few days without water. But multiple natural populations of the species survived an extreme, four-year drought in California, and researchers now know why: The flowers were rescued by their own rapid evolution. In the study, under embargo until 2pm ET on March 12, 2026 in Science, researchers tracked scarlet monkeyflower populations in Oregon and California for more than a decade and found that the populations rapidly evolved in ...

Molecular garbage on tumors makes easy target for antibody drugs

2026-03-12

For five decades, scientists have known about a notorious cancer-causing enzyme called SRC. But they always assumed it only appeared on the inside of cells, where it sent signals that fueled tumor growth and stayed hidden from the immune system. But now researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered that the SRC enzyme also appears like a flag on the surface of bladder, colorectal, breast, pancreatic and probably many other tumor cells. As cancer cells furiously divide, they produce a lot of garbage. In healthy cells, the trash gets broken down. But in tumors, the recycling ...

New strategy intercepts pancreatic cancer by eliminating microscopic lesions before they become cancer

2026-03-12

PHILADELPHIA – A new preclinical study in mice shows that precancerous cells in the pancreas can be eliminated before they have the chance to become tumors. Using an experimental therapy to target microscopic precancerous lesions in the pancreas nearly doubled survival in mouse models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) compared to the same treatment given after cancer developed. The research, published today in Science, was led by physician-scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center. It’s the first time scientists have shown that a medical intervention could stop growth of pre-cancerous ...

Embryogenesis in 4D: a developmental atlas for genes and cells

2026-03-12

How does a tiny cluster of cells become an embryo with a head, trunk, and tail? And how do thousands of genes coordinate this development? A new imaging method makes it possible to visualize the activity of thousands of genes simultaneously throughout the entire zebrafish embryo. Using this technology, a research team at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has created an atlas of all genes and cells involved in turning a cluster of cells into an embryo. The interplay between genes and cells during the development of a fertilized egg into an embryo is highly complex. Previous methods captured gene activity only in 2D slices, making whole-embryo visualization impossible and ...

CNIO research links fertility with immune cells in the brain

2026-03-12

The study is published online in Science. It is led by Eva González-Suárez, researcher at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre. The team has unexpectedly discovered that cells from the brain defence system play a role in the sexual maturation process. The link between them is RANK, a protein involved in mammary development. The research has been carried out in animal models, but it has also found genetic mutations associated with a rare syndrome related to infertility in humans. The kick off signal for puberty begins in the brain. Specifically, in the hypothalamus, where ...

Why do lithium-ion batteries fail? Scientists find clues in microscopic metal 'thorns'

2026-03-12

For the first time, scientists have observed how tiny metal "thorns" called dendrites sprout inside lithium-ion batteries, which can cause the batteries to short-circuit. Their findings, published Mar. 12 in the journal Science, shed light on previously unknown mechanical properties of lithium dendrites as they grow. Scientists have long studied lithium dendrites, but did not fully understand how these structures behave inside batteries. Dendrites form at the nanoscale; their growth is challenging to observe in the closed system of a working battery, but has been linked to battery decline and failure. The new study, an international ...

Surface treatment of wood may keep harmful bacteria at bay

2026-03-12

A recent study suggests that bacteria thrive more readily on untreated than treated wood surfaces. The finding has implications for hygiene in both homes and public spaces. A University of Helsinki study investigated bacterial adhesion, survival and transmission on untreated and treated wood surfaces under both laboratory and field conditions. The laboratory work focused on Staphylococcus epidermidis, a bacterium that forms part of the skin’s normal microbiota; and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, ...

Carsten Bönnemann, MD, joins St. Jude to expand research on pediatric catastrophic neurological disorders

2026-03-12

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – March 12, 2026) – St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital today announced the appointment of Carsten Bönnemann, MD, as a faculty member to lead and chair the hospital’s newly created Department of Genomic and Translational Neuroscience. Bönnemann, who specializes in pediatric neuromuscular and neurogenetic disorders, comes to St. Jude from the National Institutes of Health, where he served as a physician-researcher and chief of the Neuromuscular and Neurogenetic Disorders of ...

Designing for hard and brittle lithium needles may lead to safer batteries

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: