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Lithium-metal batteries

Lithium quantified, dead or alive

Nature Energy volume 7, pages 1005–1006 (2022)Cite this article

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Lithium-metal batteries offer great energy density improvement over lithium-ion, but understanding their cyclability is a daunting task. Now, an analytical method is reported to quantify lithium in its electrochemically inactive and active forms, enabling insights about the anode reversibility throughout cycling.

Increasing the energy density of today’s lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is critical to enable electrification of weight-sensitive industries including aviation and shipping and will likewise advance technologies such as mobile electronics and electric vehicles. Among several promising candidates, lithium-metal batteries (LMBs) with metallic lithium anodes offer a prospect of achieving over 500 Wh kg-1 that nearly doubles the energy density of current LIBs1.

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Fig. 1: Distinguishing active and inactive lithium metal (Li0) in batteries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Zachary M. Konz & Bryan D. McCloskey

  2. Energy Storage & Distributed Resources Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Bryan D. McCloskey

Authors
  1. Zachary M. Konz
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  2. Bryan D. McCloskey
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Correspondence to Bryan D. McCloskey.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Konz, Z.M., McCloskey, B.D. Lithium quantified, dead or alive. Nat Energy 7, 1005–1006 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01142-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01142-2

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