Living with dead lithium-ion batteries with an AI electrolyte solution

Ai finds a ‘magic potion’ to bring dead batteries in life

by You xioying edited to Andrea Thompson

A group of Chinese researchers found a way of Bring dead batteries to lithium-ion back to lifePotentially reduced waste amounts that are easily attached from spent electricity batteries (EV) batteries and need to make many new ones.

“The work of the team is the revolutionary because it provides a new idea to reuse life’s batteries,” as the reconciliation of the new study of the battery, which has not been involved in new study Nature.

The amount of spent lithium-ion batteries that should be sold expected to heal from an estimate of 900,000 metric tons this year by 20.5 million metric tons of 2040, according to a report Released by the United Nations development program in September. As in the world president In EVS deployment, China has already attempted 2.8 million metric tons of cells of the year, according to Huang JianzhongChairman of China Electronic Energy Energy Technology Association, an approved government trade.

In support of science journalism

If you enjoy this article, think about supporting our winning journalism in Subscribe. By purchasing a subscription you helped to ensure the future of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas that make our world today.

With consumer markets and garbage waste rapidly, Yue Gao, a chemist of Fudan University in Shanghai, and his companions expect an increase in need lithium-ion batteries.

STUDY EV battery Usually reach the end of its life, or if its capacity falls Less than 80 percentage of its original level, after eight to 10 years. Battery accounts for about 40 percentage of the cost of the whole vehicle.

Gao and his colleagues want to find a molecule that can increase a dead cell by destroying its lithium ions. But “We don’t know what kinds of molecules can do that job or what their chemical structures, so we use the engineer to help us,” says Chihao Zhao, a Ph.D. Fudan University student, which is a member of Gao’s team but not a co-author of the new study.

Researchers use an artificial intelligence model trained by Chemistry rules. They feed it a database of electrochemical reactions and searches it for molecules to achieve their needs, such as the electrolyte solution and relatively cheap to produce. The model recommends three candidates, and the team recognizes one of them, a salt called lithium triflucomomethaneshasesulmesulmpines (loo₂Cf₃), as well.

Researchers have tried this salt in lithium-ion by eliminating it in an electrolyte solution, allowing ions to pass between positive and negative terminals in a cell. Gao likes it to give a human patient to an IV. “If we give someone sick to help them recover,” he said, “Why don’t we have a magic potion for sinking batteries?”

Gao and his companions learned that chemical mixture could be more expanding the life of a battery cell on the irons. An LFP battery power of an EV is typically charged and then remove about 2,000 times before it is considered “dead” (if its capacity is under 80 percentage). By adding to the electrolyte whenever the battery approaches the threshold, the team can restore most of the cell’s ability each time – and it keeps working as a new battery. At the end of the experiment, the cell has been completed 96 percent capacity after nearly 12,000 cycles.

A follow-up experiment shows the method that also works with NMC (NCEL, Mananese and Cobalt) batteries in Lithium, GAO.

Fudan University is now Works with China-based Chinese-based battery zhejiang Yongtai new material To commercialize the procedure, according to a social media post published by Yongtai. Gao is thinking of a massive system of “battery stations” where EV owners can bring death sources to be restored.

The idea of ​​”promised,” said Chenguang Liu in Xi’an Jiaatong-Weatongol University in China and did not participate in the study. But he talks about some challenges. For example, the procedure should be compatible with different battery chemists – and the safety of living cells should be tested.

And the power of EV is not from one, simple cells but from a battery pack can contain hundreds or even thousands of cells and other substances. “We just perform experiments with cells, and we need to find a way to apply it to a whole battery pack,” Gao said.

His team’s approach is the closest item to a “direct-recycling process” for Chinese batteries. crushed and driven by industrial waste called “black mass“From valuable raw materials, such as lithium and graphically, can be harvested.)

Melin believes that there is commercial opportunities for researchers’ suggestions – even if it’s the market is probably small because the life of an EV battery can be 15 years. It also needs battery packs designed in a way to allow electrolyte injections, he noticed.

“The question,” he added, “If the benefits it is worth if (the necessary changes) in some way to interfere with other aspects of the plot needed for the plot.”