AsianScientist (Nov. 7, 2016) – Researchers from China and the UK have developed a next-generation lithium-sulfur battery inspired by the cells lining the human intestine. Details of the study were published in Advanced Functional Materials.
In the human body, the finger-like protrusions which line the small intestine called villi are used to absorb the products of digestion and increase the surface area over which this process can take place.
The team, consisting of researchers at Cambridge University and the Beijing Institute of Technology, developed and tested a lightweight nanostructured material which resembles villi. The new lithium-sulfur battery has a layer of material with a villi-like structure, which is made from tiny zinc oxide wires and placed on the surface of one of the battery’s electrodes. This villi-like layer can trap fragments of the active material when they break off, keeping them electrochemically-accessible and allowing the material to be reused.
The batteries, if commercially developed, would have five times the energy density of the lithium-ion batteries used in smartphones and other electronics. For the time being, the device is a proof of principle, so commercially-available lithium-sulfur batteries are still some years away.
Additionally, the number of charge-discharge cycles are also lower than that of a lithium-ion battery. However, since a lithium-sulfur battery does not need to be charged as often as a lithium-ion battery, it may be the case that the increase in energy density cancels out the lower total number of charge-discharge cycles.
The article can be found at: Zhao et al. (2016) Advanced Lithium-Sulfur Batteries Enabled by a Bio-Inspired Polysulfide Adsorptive Brush.
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Source: Cambridge University; Photo: Pixabay.
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