According to the team, modifying and pulverising a promising group of compounds has increased their current carrying capacity and broadened their operating temperature range so they are useful in real-world environments.
The first advance was said to have come when the team found the original compounds – made primarily of hydrogen, boron and either lithium or sodium – were better at carrying current with a slight change to their chemical makeup. Replacing one boron atom with a carbon atom improved the ability to conduct ions by a factor of 10.
However, while the compounds conducted ions well enough to operate in a battery, they only did so at temperatures in excess of 100°C. One solution turned out to be crushing the compounds into nanometre scale particles. Once crushed, the compounds performed well at room temperature and below.
“This approach can remove worries about whether batteries incorporating these types of materials will perform as expected, even on the coldest winter day,” said Terrence Udovic of NIST’s Center for Neutron Research, who collaborated with Tohoku University, the University of Maryland and Sandia National Laboratories. “We are currently exploring their use in next-generation batteries and, in the process, hope to convince people of their great potential.”
