Building a Better Battery

摘要: Innovations in the battery field are infrequent and hard-won. New electrochemical systems (a new positive or negative electrode, electrolyte, combination thereof) reach marketplace only once every few years, energy density of lithium-ion batteries as a class has increased on average by 8 to 9% per year since early 1990s. Thus, burgeoning nanoscale electrode materials, skepticism regarding claims is perhaps not surprising because many requirements that any must simultaneously meet be commercialized. One route which performance can compromised mechanical failure due large volume changes associated with charge-discharge cycle. On page 1515 this issue, Huang et al. ( 1 ) report an ingenious situ transmission electron microscope (TEM) experiment uses low–vapor pressure ionic liquid electrolyte allow imaging SnO2 nanowire “open” cell. They observe reaction mechanism nanowires progresses sequentially along from end end, allowing them accommodate ∼250% change without fracturing at practical charging rates. These intriguing results raise question whether such one-dimensional phase transformations induced other materials.