July 22, 2019, Research Highlights

Lipophilic Additives for Highly Concentrated Electrolytes in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Developed a lipophilic additive, tetrabutylammonium iodide (TBAI), for highly concentrated electrolytes and tested its electrochemical performance in lithium-sulfur batteries. Read More

March 21, 2019, Research Highlights

Understanding the Reaction Mechanism of Lithium-Sulfur Batteries by In situ/Operando XAS

We presented the recent progress in the application of in situ/operando XAS in the understanding of the redox mechanism of lithium sulfur batteries, which is of great significance for the development of high-performance lithium sulfur batteries. Read More

August 13, 2018, Research Highlights

Tuning Lithium-Sulfur Battery Electrolytes for Improved Performance

The electrolyte of the lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery was tuned to both overcome the need for a high electrolyte/sulfur ratio and inhibit the lithium dendrite growth on the anode at the same time. Read More

July 9, 2018, Research Highlights

Novel ALD Chemistry Enabled Low-Temperature Synthesis of Lithium Fluoride Coatings for Durable Lithium Anodes

The team developed an atomic layer deposition (ALD) method to deposit lithium fluoride (LiF) films on lithium metal anodes. These LiF films enable a stable Coulombic efficiency as high as 99.5% for over 170 cycles, about 4 times longer than that of bare lithium anodes. Read More

May 10, 2018, Research Highlights

Tailored Reaction Route by Micropore Confinement for Li-S Batteries under Lean Electrolyte Conditions

Li2S2 is experimentally verified by ex-situ S K‐edge X‐ray absorption spectroscopy to be stable in the micropores during discharging in Li-S cells. A new reversible electrochemical pathway is thus proposed, based on the inherent self‐healing capacity for Li2S2, under lean electrolyte conditions. Read More

February 23, 2018, Research Highlights

Addressing Passivation in Lithium-Sulfur Battery Under Lean Electrolyte Condition

Identification and understanding of cycle life limiting factors of Li-S batteries under lean electrolyte conditions; Identification of a NH4TFSI additive to effectively mitigate the uncontrollable passivation issue arising from accumulation of insulating Li2S. Read More

February 20, 2018, Research Highlights

Nanostructured Electrolytes for Stabilizing Lithium Metal Anodes

The addition of salt to block copolymers results in the spontaneous and surprising formation of well-ordered lamellae in a sample that originally had a disordered morphology. Read More

January 24, 2018, Research Highlights

The Nanoscale Structure of the Electrolyte-metal Oxide Interface

Observation of molecular layering and insight into Li-ion salt concentration dependence of molecular orientation at metal-oxide electrolyte interfaces relevant to Li-ion batteries. Read More

November 14, 2017, Research Highlights

Improved Performance through Tight Coupling of Redox Cycles of Sulfur and 2,6-Polyanthraquinone in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

We showed that the incorporation of an all-organic redox-active polymer 2,6-polyanthraquinone (PAQ) into the cathode improves capacity retention in galvanostatic cycling and inhibits Li corrosion and S deposition. Redox reactions of this polymer are shown to be strongly coupled to S redox cycle. Read More

November 7, 2017, Research Highlights

Lithium Self-Discharge and its Prevention: Direct Visualization through In-Situ Electrochemical STEM

We show that Li anode morphology and solid electrolyte interphase structure is dependent on surface compression, which affects the amount of self-discharge for an exciting solvent-in-salt electrolyte. Additionally, we show that coatings can suppress self-discharge. Read More