Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have developed a new electrolyte that allows lithium-sulfur, lithium-metal and lithium-air batteries to operate at 99% efficiency, while having a high current density and without growing dendrites that short-circuit rechargeable batteries. An open-access paper on their work is published in the journal Nature Communications . “ This new discovery could kick-start the development of powerful and practical next-generation rechargeable batteries such as lithium-sulfur, lithium-air and lithium-metal batteries ,” said PNNL physicist Ji-Guang Zhang, corresponding author of the paper. Lithium (Li) metal is an ideal anode material for rechargeable Li batteries due to its extremely high theoretical specific capacity (3,860 mAh g −1 ), low density (0.534 g cm −3 ) and the […]