Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

SOLID-STATE BATTERIES

The devil is in the electrons

Nature Energy volume 4, pages 174–175 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

The development of solid-state lithium batteries is largely hindered by the undesired lithium dendrite propagation during battery operations. High electronic conductivity of solid electrolytes is now revealed to be the main culprit.

Current lithium (Li)-ion batteries face great challenges posed by the energy storage requirements of applications such as electric vehicles and grid-scale storage systems. Many types of next-generation batteries have been proposed to improve energy density and to mitigate safety hazards, among which solid-state batteries with metallic lithium anodes and nonflammable solid-state electrolytes (SSEs) are widely accepted as a promising approach1. However, metallic Li dendrites can be easily induced at the interface between the Li anode and most SSEs (for example, the garnet-structured Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZO) and the sulfide-based glassy Li2S-P2S5 (LPS)) due to their insufficient physical contact, and/or pristine defects on the surface of SSEs, such as voids, cracks and grain boundaries2. Great efforts have been made to improve the interfaces to suppress Li dendrite formation and propagation, but only limited success has been achieved3. For some other SSEs, such as amorphous lithium phosphorus oxynitride (LiPON), however, there is no sign of Li dendrite growth and propagation regardless of the abovementioned interfacial and surface defects4. The apparent SSE-dependent Li propagation behaviour therefore requires an in-depth understanding. Furthermore, despite many studies, the origin of Li propagation is still not well understood. Writing in Nature Energy5, Chunsheng Wang, Howard Wang, Nancy Dudney and colleagues from University of Maryland and Oak Ridge National Laboratory now reconcile the SSE-dependent features and uncover high electronic conductivity of SSEs as the predominant factor for the Li propagation.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Fig. 1: Mechanisms of Li propagation inside SSEs.

References

  1. Janek, J. & Zeier, W. G. Nat. Energy 1, 16141 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Porz, L. et al. Adv. Energy Mater. 7, 1701003 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Sharafi, A., Haslam, C. G., Kerns, R. D., Wolfenstine, J. & Sakamoto, J. J. Mater. Chem. A 5, 21491–21504 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Bates, J. B., Dudney, N. J., Neudecker, B., Ueda, A. & Evans, C. D. Solid State Ion. 135, 33–45 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Han, F. et al. Nat. Energy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-018-0312-z (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Nanostructure and Nanotechnology, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China

    Junpei Yue & Yu-Guo Guo

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yu-Guo Guo

Authors
  1. Junpei Yue
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yu-Guo Guo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yu-Guo Guo.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yue, J., Guo, YG. The devil is in the electrons. Nat Energy 4, 174–175 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0335-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0335-0

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing