Finding failure inside lithium-metal batteries

Lithium-metal batteries have potential in automotive applications because of their ability to store as much as 50% more energy than lithium-ion batteries. But their deployment is hampered due to issues related to failures such as fires and explosions. For this reason, a team at Sandia National Laboratories decided to look into lithium-metal batteries - literally.

The Sandia scientists, collaborating with personnel from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the University of Oregon and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, worked to determine just how short-circuits occur in lithium-metal batteries. The notion had been that lithium dendrites would “grow” through the polymer separator used in the battery, resulting in the short-circuits when the separator is breached by the dendrites, which would act like spikes puncturing the barrier.