Scientists use copper selenide nanoclusters to design a new generation of lithium batteries

  According to the physics website, electronic devices are becoming smaller and more powerful, requiring faster, smaller, and more stable batteries. Currently, the University of Illinois chemists have recently developed a solid superionic conductor that will become a new generation of lithium. The basis of the design of the battery.

In a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications, the University of Illinois professor of chemistry, Prashant Jain, graduate students Sarah White, and PrognaBanerjee described This substance - miniature selenide copper nanoclusters.

Jain pointed out that at present we have witnessed the rapid development of nanoelectronic devices. We need micro batteries to be placed on the chip, but the use of liquid electrolytes is impossible. We use nanostructure materials to realize the core characteristics of lithium ion battery technology. Thermal and mechanical stability, there is no leakage problem, we can make a very thin electrolyte layer, so we can make the battery miniaturized.

Standard lithium-ion and other ion batteries are filled with a liquid electrolyte in which lithium ions can move, and when the battery is used, ions flow in one direction and flow in the opposite direction when the battery is charged. However, liquid electrolytes have some drawbacks: with the degradation process of battery recycling, the battery requires a large volume, is easy to leak and is highly flammable. This will cause explosions in mobile phones, laptops and other electronic devices, but solid electrolytes are more stable, and ions move more slowly in them, greatly reducing the effectiveness of battery applications.

Copper selenide nanoclusters combine the advantages of liquid and solid electrolytes: the stability of solids, which can move freely like in a liquid electrolyte. Copper selenide is considered to be a superionic conductor at high temperatures, but this micro-nano cluster demonstrates for the first time that the material is a superionic conductor at room temperature.