The United States has developed a new cathode material for lithium batteries, which can alleviate the problem of tight battery material supply chain

A team of scientists led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has developed a new cathode design for lithium-ion batteries that will provide a range of different materials for further research. The team hopes that this research can be quickly scaled up to ease the problem of tight battery material supply chains.

Energy storage plays an important role in the transition to clean, renewable energy. While there are other battery types and other forms of storage, lithium-ion is likely to account for the largest share of storage projects connecting the world's power grids and powering electric vehicles and other important technologies.

This has caused many people to pay attention to the materials commonly used in today's lithium-ion batteries, and the search for alternative materials has become a focus of scientists and research and development teams around the world.

A team of scientists led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States studied a material called disordered rock salt with excess lithium. They developed a cathode design based on a different type of reaction than currently produced lithium-ion batteries to accommodate as many lithium ions as possible and developed a range of potential materials to reduce dependence on cobalt, nickel and other more expensive materials.

“Disordered rock-salt materials offer tremendous compositional flexibility, which is very powerful because not only can you use a wide variety of abundant metals in the disordered rock-salt cathode, but you can also use these metals to solve problems that might arise in the early stages of designing a new battery. That’s why we’re so excited,” explained Berkeley Lab scientist Gerbrand Ceder.

A topological reaction is a reaction that changes the crystal structure of a material, and is also the type of reaction that current lithium-ion batteries can charge and discharge. Traditionally, it is believed that a perfect topological system is more conducive to the rapid transport of lithium ions.

"Contrary to conventional wisdom, we demonstrate a clear improvement in the rate performance of cation-disordered rocksalt cathodes using non-topological reactions," the team explained. "We believe that the carefully engineered non-topological nature provides new opportunities for designing high-capacity cathode materials."

Although it may take 20 years or more for new battery materials to reach commercialization, the team hopes to accelerate that time frame with the disordered rocksalt material, noting that other groups in Europe and Asia have already begun research projects on similar materials. "Advances in battery technology and energy storage require continued breakthroughs in the fundamental science of materials," said Jeff Neaton, Berkeley Lab's associate director for energy sciences. "Berkeley Lab's expertise, unique facilities, and advanced imaging, computational, and synthetic capabilities allow us to study materials at the atomic and electronic scales. We are well prepared to accelerate the development of promising materials like disordered rocksalt for clean energy applications."