Researchers are saying they have discovered the manganese and lithium rich transition metal oxide structure,  materials which could drastically change battery technology today.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have used techniques such as spectroscopy and microscopy to solve the structure of the game-changing battery material which has been highly debatable since it was discovered 10 years ago.

The material’s significance is due to the fact that potentially, batter capacity can be doubled by using it instead of traditional lithium-ion batteries used now, thanks to the additional lithium included within the structure.

Alpesh Khushalchand Shukla, one of the research team leaders, said that there are still problems, such as capacity fade, voltage fade and DC resistance rise.

“It is immensely important that we clearly understand the bulk and surface structure of the pristine material. We can’t solve the problem unless we know the problem,” he said.

Current battery storage calling for new materials

A battery such as this with largely increased storage, would change the laptop and mobile phone market as well as electric vehicles (EVS).

The other research team leader Colin Ophus says that the main issue with lithium-ion batteries being used currently in these devices is that they have been pushed to their limit.

“If we’re going to ever double capacity, we need new chemistries,” Mr Ophus said.

The new game-changing battery material has been imaged at atomic resolution by researchers, using advanced electron microscopy methods.

Past studies on the structure have been vague, so researchers analysed the material from different directions in order to overcome this.

Mr Shukla said it was crucial to look at the material in a variety of angles, to avoid ambiguity.

“Misinterpretations from electron microscopy data are possible because individual two-dimensional projections do not give you the three-dimensional information needed to solve a structure,” he stated.

Mr Ophus is an expert in using multiple methods and results to understand structure.

He and Mr Shukla both agree that the game-changing battery material is mostly like a defected single phase structure. The ‘phase’ refers to how the atoms are arranged in respect to others.

“Our paper gives very strong support for the defected single-phase monoclinic model and rules out the two-phase model, at least in the range of compositions used in our study,” Mr Ophus said.

The quality and quantity of studied samples played a large part in the importance of the study.

Samples made in the lab were first used, created by a postdoc whose focus is on lithium-battery research.

A molten-salt method producing discreet and impurity-free particles of a high quality was used, which made the samples perfect for performing fundamental characterization.

By undergoing a less invasive approach, researchers chose to obtain two commercial samples from two varying companies and analyse them.

The research took four years in total to complete, and it was labelled as “tour de force of microscopy” by Ophus because of how thorough it was.

“We could have finished the paper a year earlier, but because there was so much controversy we wanted to make sure we didn’t leave any stone unturned,” said Mr Shukla.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Army RDECOM