The engineers say the trick is to use a surface that lithium officially “dislikes” for growing crystals. Dense homogeneous layers of metallic lithium develop from these seed crystals. Even the lithium metal layers are of great interest to battery researchers because they have no battery-damaging spikes called dendrites. Dendrite formation in battery anodes has been a longstanding obstacle to rapid charging of ultra-high-energy lithium metal batteries.
The new approach allows lithium metal batteries to be charged in about an hour; this is competitive speed compared to modern lithium-ion batteries.
“We challenged the conventional idea of what kind of surface is needed to grow lithium crystals,” the researchers write. “The substrate we use doesn’t like lithium.”
Source: Ferra
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