Dr Daniel Martin-Yerga, EU Marie Curie Fellowship
Nanoscale Dendrite Formation and Mitigation in High-Energy Density Metal Anodes (NANODENDRITE)
Sustainable energy storage and conversion technologies are essential for replacing our current carbon-based systems – which will support the global transition to clean and affordable energy.
Batteries are in a perfect position to achieve the clean electrification of the transportation, domestic and industrial energy systems, but improved battery technologies with larger storage capacities using safe, inexpensive and abundant materials will be required over the coming decades.
Eliminating the need for a graphite host
Lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) currently dominate the market in portable electronics, electric vehicles and short-duration grid-scale storage. Conventional LiBs use graphite as a host material to store lithium atoms. However, storing the lithium directly as metal, without the need for a graphite host, would increase the energy density of these devices and would allow to meet the energy demands of future applications.
Unfortunately, however, the commercial success of lithium metal batteries has been impeded by the uncontrolled growth of dendritic structures (a tree-like structure of crystals), which causes serious capacity losses by the death of active material and results in potential safety issues.
In metallurgy, a dendrite is a tree-like structure of crystals. They can cause serious capacity losses by the death of active material and results in potential safety issues.
The mechanisms of dendrite formation still remain unclear, so their understanding would be a critical breakthrough to control and prevent the formation of these detrimental structures, helping make this technology commercially viable
An electric car charges at night. Lithium-ion batteries currently dominate the electric vehicle market, but storing lithium directly as a metal, removing the need for a graphite host, would increase the energy density of these vehicles.
Understanding how metal dendrites are formed
The NANODENDRITE project will aim to uncover how and when metal dendrites are formed, and how formation can be mitigated.
To achieve this challenging goal, Dr Daniel Martin-Yerga from the Department of Chemistry will use state-of-the-art nanoscale electrochemical microscopy and fabrication techniques with high-resolution correlative surface microscopy.
This approach will reveal phenomena governing dendrite formation, will unveil how nucleation sites work together to achieve dendrite mitigation in nano-engineered surfaces and will enable the rational design of battery materials to be used in a proof-of-concept dendrite-free battery.