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.

LI-ION BATTERIES

Anode-less

Nature Energy volume 4, pages 637–638 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

A conventional lithium-ion battery makes use of both an anode and a cathode. Now, a new design of batteries with no anodes in their initial state is shown to be promising for practical applications.

Writing in Nature Energy, Jeff Dahn and co-workers in Canada now report a new LIB design by completely removing the Li metal anode in its initial state (Fig. 1c)4. During the initial charging process, Li ions are extracted from the cathode and electrodeposited as metallic Li onto the current collector (Cu). During the subsequent discharging process, Li ions are stripped from the Cu current collector and intercalated back into the cathode. Because there is no Li metal at the anode side of the as-assembled batteries or fully discharged batteries, the safety hazard often posed by the presence of large amounts of Li metal in a typical Li metal battery is greatly reduced.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing 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: Schematics of battery design.

References

  1. Whittingham, M. S. Proc. IEEE 100, 1518–1534 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Goodenough, J. B. & Park, K.-S. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135, 1167–1176 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Xu, W. et al. Energy Environ. Sci. 7, 513–537 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Weber, R. et al. Nat. Energy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0428-9 (2019).

  5. Neudecker, B. J., Dudney, N. J. & Bates, J. B. J. Electrochem. Soc. 147, 517–523 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Qian, J. et al. Adv. Funct. Mater. 26, 7094–7102 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Milien, M. S., Hoffmann, J., Payne, M. & Lucht, B. L. J. Electrochem. Soc. 165, A3925–A3931 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

    Ji-Guang Zhang

Authors
  1. Ji-Guang Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ji-Guang Zhang.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zhang, JG. Anode-less. Nat Energy 4, 637–638 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0449-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0449-4

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