Researchers from the University of Waterloo, Canada, who are members of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), headquartered at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, have discovered a new solid electrolyte that offers several important advantages.
This electrolyte, composed of lithium, scandium, indium and chlorine, conducts lithium ions well but electrons poorly. This combination is essential to creating an all-solid-state battery that functions without significantly losing capacity for over a hundred cycles at high voltage (above 4 volts) and thousands of cycles at intermediate voltage. The chloride nature of the electrolyte is key to its stability at operating conditions above 4 volts — meaning it is suitable for typical cathode materials that form the mainstay of today’s lithium-ion cells.
“The main attraction of a solid-state electrolyte is that it can’t catch fire, and it allows for efficient placement in the battery cell; we were pleased to demonstrate stable high-voltage operation,” said Linda Nazar, a Distinguished Research Professor of Chemistry at UWaterloo and a long-time member of JCESR.
https://www.anl.gov/article/scientists-discover-new-electrolyte-for-solidstate-lithiumion-batteries
The original scientific paper can be found at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00952-0 Additionally, scandium can be used also as an additive to increase cyclability of the LMO cathode of the lithium ion batteries. Can be found at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013468619301732