LGES & partners develop lithium metal battery with liquid electrolyte

Lithium-metal batteries are often referred to in connection with solid-state batteries. This case is different: LG Energy Solution and KAIST are working on a Li-metal battery with an explicitly liquid electrolyte. The South Korean company published their research results in a recent issue of the journal Nature Energy. According to the article, the lithium metal battery developed by the team should enable a range of 900 kilometres in electric cars and more than 400 charge/discharge cycles. According to the researchers, this is guaranteed by a previously unknown borate-pyran-based liquid electrolyte.

To put this into context: in lithium metal batteries, the graphite-based anode material is replaced by lithium metal, which reduces the weight and volume of the anode and improves the charging and discharging efficiency. Lithium-metal batteries offer a higher energy density and greater safety than lithium-ion batteries, but their commercialization has so far failed due to their tendency to form dendrites, among other things. LGES also describes the corrosion caused by the liquid electrolyte and the scaling of production as a problem.

Researchers from the battery manufacturer and KAIST spent two years working on this topic at a research centre called the Frontier Research Laboratory (FRL) in Korea. They claim to have “developed a technology that drastically improves the energy density of Li-metal batteries”. Compared to solid-state batteries, high temperatures and high pressure are not required to put the battery cells into operation.

“This technology is significant in that it has overcome a major hurdle to the commercialization of lithium-metal batteries using liquid electrolytes,” said Jung Geun-chang, vice president and head of LG Energy’s Future Technology Center.

“The research results proved the feasibility of liquid electrolyte-based lithium-metal batteries, previously considered impossible,” said Kim Hee-tak, Professor of Life Sciences at KAIST.

kedglobal.com, koreatimes.co.kr, pulsenews.co.kr, news.kaist.ac.kr (in Korean)