Chinese team makes ‘decisive step’ towards holy grail of next-gen batteries

Scientists say they have cracked the biggest challenge to creating the holy grail of next-generation batteries – a design that could power everything from smartphones to electric cars up to three times longer on a single charge.

The team, led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed a self-healing interface that works like a liquid seal. It flows to fill tiny gaps, keeping the battery’s internal layers tightly joined without the heavy pressure and bulky devices previously needed to hold them together.

This development could bring solid-state batteries out of the lab and into practical use, delivering safer and more efficient power for products ranging from humanoid robots to electric aircraft and vehicles, the researchers reported in Nature Sustainability on Tuesday.

Chunsheng Wang, a solid-state battery expert at the University of Maryland, College Park who was not involved in the study, said it had “resolved the key bottleneck that has long hindered the commercialisation of all-solid-state batteries, marking a decisive step towards their practical application”.

While conventional designs require more than 5 megapascals – about 50 atmospheres – of external pressure to keep the internal layers stable, the Chinese team’s technology “fundamentally changed this predicament”, Wang told state-run Science and Technology Daily.

China’s first humanoid robot that can change its own batteries

Unlike today’s lithium-ion batteries, which use a flammable liquid to move charge between a positive side and a negative side, solid-state batteries use a solid material instead. That change not only eliminates the risk of leaks or fires, but also allows the use of pure lithium metal, which can store two to three times more energy in the same weight.

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