Researchers working on battery development have typically seen water as the enemy. It had previously been thought that lithium-ion batteries generally needed to be produced under extremely dry conditions in order for them to hold large amounts of charge.
Now, a research team at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has developed a new battery electrolyte that can hold a thousand times more water than conventional electrolytes, according to Argonne senior battery chemist Zhengcheng 'John' Zhang.
“We’ve always thought that water was going to cause major problems for a lithium-ion battery," he said. "However, it turns out that our formulation can hold dramatically more than previously known, which could help reduce costs in battery fabrication.”
In a battery, ions move between the two electrodes to balance the electrical charge created during charging and discharging, a process that is made possible by electrolytes...