May/June_AMP_Digital

A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | M A Y / J U N E 2 0 1 8 1 4 LITHIUM-ION BATTERY CONSORTIUM DEBUTS Soteria Battery Innovation Group, Greenville, S.C., is forming a consortium to make its lithium battery architecture available to every battery manufac- turer worldwide. By removing excess metal and thermally unstable battery components, the new architecture virtually eliminates the possibility of self-ignition that has plagued lithium- ion batteries in applications such as hoverboards, smartphones, electric ve- hicles, and airplanes. Batteries made with the new technology will be able to pass much more aggressive safety tests than older versions, according to Soter- ia. The new battery design, which may be especially useful in transportation, can be adopted in existing lithium-ion battery plants without significant cap- ital expense. The technology has two compo- nents, each providing weight reduction, improved safety, and reducedmanufac- turing costs. The first is a current collec- tor made of metallized film, eliminating over 90% of the metal in the battery. The second component, a thermally stable separator, is lighter, cheaper to manufacture, and much more stable than traditional ceramic-coated sepa- rators. Because the separators never melt or shrink, a small manufacturing defect will never grow into a large in- ternal short. The new consortium has an open membership policy, with free memberships available to lithium-ion battery manufacturers and companies that manufacture devices using lithium- ion batteries. soteriabig.com. RECORD-SETTING MICRO- SCALE NUCLEAR FUSION Using a compact but powerful la- ser to heat arrays of ordered nanowires, scientists at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, demonstrated microscale nuclear fusion in the lab. Working with ENERGY TRENDS Target chamber and ultra-high density laser used in microscale fusion exper- iments at CSU. Courtesy of Advanced Beam Laboratory. an ultra-fast, high-powered tabletop laser they built from scratch, the team achieved record-setting efficiency for generating neutrons. Researchers used their pulsed laser to irradiate a target of invisible wires made of deuterated polyethylene, instantly creating ex- tremely hot, dense plasmas. They pro- duced a record number of neutrons per unit of laser energy, which is about 500 times more efficient than experi- ments using conventional flat targets of the same material. The material is comparable to widely used polyeth- ylene plastic, but its common hydro- gen atoms are substituted by deuter- ium. Making fusion neutrons effici- ently and at a small scale could lead to advances in neutron-based imag- ing and neutron probes to gain in- sight on the structure and proper- ties of numerous materials. The re- sults will also contribute to under- standing interactions of ultra-intense laser light with matter. engr.source. colostate.edu . Researchers at Penn State, State College, and Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., were awarded a grant totaling $1.2 million over three years by the National Science Foundation. The goal is to identify a material that can most efficiently separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, in order to collect hydrogen as a sustainable fuel source. psu.edu , cornell.edu . BRIEF When a manufacturing defect or dendrite causes an internal short, the thin metal current collectors oxidize andmove away, breaking the short, while the thermally stable separator stays locked in place. Image on right shows the thin metallized current collector after a short event. Red circle indicates size of the short. After the short has been isolated, the rest of the battery keeps working.