Folded or Cut, This Lithium-Sulfur Battery Keeps Going

To address stability and safety issues, researchers have designed a lithium-sulfur battery that features an improved iron sulfide cathode. One prototype remains highly stable over 300 charge-discharge cycles, and another provides power even after being folded or cut. Read on to learn more.

3D-Printed Engines Propel Next Industrial Revolution

The new possibility of 3D-printed aluminum engine parts will mean significant savings for NASA in terms of time, money, and, most importantly, the weight of future spacecraft. Elementum 3D Inc., a partner on the project, is now bringing the benefits of that technology to its customers.

Next-Generation Batteries Incorporate Cells with Silicon Anodes

Researchers have developed better rechargeable batteries by applying silicon to the batteries’ cathodes. Read on to learn more about it.

Coating Hides Temperature Change from Infrared Cameras

If the outside of clothing or a vehicle were covered with the coating, an infrared camera would have a harder time distinguishing what is underneath. Read on to learn what this means.

Pure Lithium Bets on Vanadium Cathodes to Save U.S. Battery Independence

Continuing a common theme among some presenters at The Battery Show North America, Emilie Bodoin, the CEO and Co-Founder of Pure Lithium, which is betting on lithium...

A New Way to Enhance Durability of Lithium Batteries

Researchers have been developing batteries with higher energy storage density, and thus, longer driving range. Other goals include shorter charging times, greater tolerance to low temperatures, and safer operation. One of the more promising such batteries has a lithium-containing cathode supplemented with nickel, manganese, and cobalt (NMC). Read on to learn more.

Iron Could Be Key to Less Expensive, Greener Lithium-Ion Batteries

Researchers are hoping to spark a green battery revolution by showing that iron instead of cobalt and nickel can be used as a cathode material in lithium-ion batteries. Read on to learn more.

Anode-Free Sodium Solid-State Battery

A team has created the world’s first anode-free sodium solid-state battery. This research has brought the reality of inexpensive, fast-charging, high-capacity batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage closer than ever. Read on to learn more.

RTV Silicone Sealing Method for Component Interfaces

The RTV sealing method may benefit terrestrial applications that may demand cure-in-place internal seals. The method could also innovate manufacturing processes for components by enhancing the speed of assembly while increasing seal integrity. Read on to learn more.

How a Shear Manufacturer Improved Accuracy While Reducing Costs

Learn about the Force Control Model LC, a form of closed loop positioning control. It reads the machine position on each stop and adjusts, in real time, where to signal the stop for the next part/cycle. Read on.

Designing Safer, Higher-Performance Lithium Batteries

Examining lithium metal batteries using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy may help in the design of new electrolytes and anode surfaces for high-performance batteries. Read on to learn more.

Sodium Battery Is Capable of Rapid Charging in Just a Few Seconds

A research team has developed a high-energy, high-power hybrid sodium-ion battery capable of rapid charging. The innovative hybrid energy storage system integrates anode materials typically used in batteries with cathodes suitable for supercapacitors. Read on to learn more.

Volvo Trucks’ Battery Chemistry of Choice: NCA

While Daimler Truck and Paccar are pursuing LFP battery cells, Volvo Trucks employs lithium-ion batteries in which lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide (NCA) is used as the cathode — for now anyway. The Swedish truck maker is continuously exploring other battery technologies. Read on to learn more.

An All-Liquid Iron Flow Battery for Better Energy Storage

Flow batteries can serve as backup generators for the electric grid. Flow batteries are one of the key pillars of a decarbonization strategy to store energy from renewable energy resources. Their advantage is that they can be built at any scale, from the lab-bench scale, as in this PNNL study, to the size of a city block.

A New Material That Excels at Trapping Hydrogen

The advance, detailed in a paper published recently in the journal Physica Scripta, could enable more efficient compact fusion reactors that are easier to repair and maintain.

NASA’s Invention Puts a New Spin on Automotive Brake Rotors

NASA’s invention inspired an innovative design for a better automobile disc brake that’s much lighter and drastically improves the braking performance.

New Cathode Material for Sodium-Ion Batteries

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have invented and patented a new cathode material that replaces lithium ions with sodium and would be significantly cheaper.

An Affordable, Sustainable Solution for Flat-Panel Displays and Wearable Tech

A research team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has developed “supramolecular ink,” a new technology for use in OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays or other electronic devices.

New Phase Shifter to Reduce Antenna Signal Loss

Researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed a new type of high-performance “phase shifter” using a liquid gallium alloy — which varies the phase angle of microwave and millimeter-wave radio signals — for use in advanced phase array antenna systems.

Light-Based Tech to Navigate the Moon

RMIT University’s Arnan Mitchell and University of Adelaide’s Dr. Andy Boes led an international team to review lithium niobate’s capabilities and potential applications in the journal Science. The team is working to make navigation systems that help rovers drive on the Moon — where GPS is unable to work — later this decade.

Miniscule Robots of Metal and Plastic

A technique enables manufacturing of minuscule robots by interlocking multiple materials in a complex way.

Additive Manufacturing Model-Based Process Metrics

Inventors at the NASA Langley Research Center have developed a novel method to model and ingest point-wise process data to evaluate an additive manufacturing build and its file for issues by highlighting potential anomalies or other areas where the build may have issues with fusion of the material.

Making Conductive, Biodegradable Wires from Designed Proteins

The miniscule wires — the size of transistors on silicon chips or one thousandth of the breadth of the finest human hair — are made completely of natural amino acids and heme molecules, found in proteins such as hemoglobin, which transports oxygen in red blood cells.

Using Lasers to ‘Heat and Beat’ 3D-Printed Steel to Help Reduce Costs

A new method for metal 3D printing aims to make more efficient use of resources by allowing structural modifications to be “programmed” into metal alloys during 3D printing, fine-tuning their properties without the “heating and beating” process that’s been in use for thousands of years.

Buzzing Loop-Current Leads to Break in Quantum Matter

A series of buzzing “loop-currents” could explain a recently discovered, never-before-seen phenomenon in a type of quantum material. The quantum material is known by the chemical formula Mn 3Si2Te6, but it’s safe to call it “honeycomb.” Read on to learn more.

3D Battery Imaging Reveals Real-Time Life of Lithium Metal Cells

A team from Chalmers University of Technology has succeeded in observing how the lithium metal in the cell behaves as it charges and discharges. The new method may contribute to batteries with higher capacity and increased safety in our future cars and devices.

Optimizing a Chemical Vapor Deposition Process for a High-Performance Tungsten Material

To make fusion power not only physically possible but also economically possible, we need to develop high-performance fusion reactors. However, these reactors call for high-performance materials.

New Technique for Environmentally Friendly Battery Recycling

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have created a new and efficient way to recycle metals from spent electric vehicle (EV) batteries. The method allows recovery of 100 percent of the aluminum and 98 percent of the lithium in EV batteries.