materialsscienceandengineering: Increasing conductivity in...

materialsscienceandengineering:

Increasing conductivity in new battery materials

The high energy density of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries make them a popular energy storage technology, especially in mobile applications such as personal electronics and electric cars. However, the materials currently used in Li-ion batteries are expensive, while many of them, like lithium cobalt oxide, are also difficult to handle and dispose of. What is more, batteries using these materials have relatively short lifetimes.

These shortcomings have led scientists to develop novel materials for next generation Li-ion batteries: two promising electrode materials are lithium titanate and lithium iron phosphate. The materials are readily available, safe to use, and easy to dispose of or recycle. Most importantly, batteries manufactured using these materials have significantly longer cycle and calendar lifetimes compared to current battery technologies. However, these new materials are currently hampered by their low electrical conductivity.

Scientists at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) in Kuopio have now come up with a potential solution to this low conductivity problem, which is reported in a paper in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds.

“The electric conductivity problem can be solved by producing nanosized, high surface area crystalline materials, or by modifying the material composition with highly conductive dopants, ” explains Tommi Karhunen, a researcher in the UEF Fine Particle and Aerosol Technology Laboratory. “We have succeeded in doing both for lithium titanate in a simple, one-step gas phase process developed here at the UEF Fine Particle and Aerosol Technology Laboratory.”

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Important research.

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materialsscienceandengineering: Pentanuclear iron catalyst...

materialsscienceandengineering: Arsenopyrite and pyrite in...

materialsscienceandengineering:

Arsenopyrite and pyrite in gangue
by Mr. Ivan Jimenez Boone

Characteristic rhombic crystals of arsenopyrite in gangue.

These are pretty. I wish I could make sense of them.

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materialsscienceandengineering: Cleaner, safer medical...

materialsscienceandengineering:

Cleaner, safer medical equipment with metallic glass coatings

Cells, like social teenagers, like to get together in groups. Some gatherings are harmless, but in medical settings the cells’ get-togethers are less like carefree soda-fuelled game nights, and more like hanging out in dark alleys committing acts of violence – if the alleys were catheters and syringes. When cells stick to medical devices they can cause potentially lethal problems like bacterial infections, cancer metastases and blood clots. To prevent cells of all kinds from hanging out in medical equipment, researchers at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology have recently developed a novel anti-adhesive coating that can be easily sputtered onto a variety of medical tools.

The coating is a zirconium-based thin film metallic glass (TFMG), said Jinn P. Chu, a professor at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Metallic glasses are metals that have a disordered atomic structure. They conduct electricity like crystalline metals, but, like glass, they soften and flow easily with heating, which makes them easy to process.

“Our coatings are used as functional materials, such as diffusion barriers in electronic devices and hydrophobic coatings,” Chu said. “The reason for using zirconium as the main component in TFMGs is mainly because of its good glass-forming ability and non-toxic properties.” Chu and his colleagues will speak about their research during the AVS 62nd International Symposium and Exhibition, held Oct. 18-23 in San Jose, Calif.

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This is awesome.

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materialsscienceandengineering: Caution: Weird material...

materialsscienceandengineering:

Caution: Weird material shrinks when warm

Most materials swell when they warm, but some do the opposite; quantum effects could explain why

Most materials swell when they warm, and shrink when they cool. But UConn physicist Jason Hancock has been investigating a substance that responds in reverse: it shrinks when it warms.

Although thermal expansion, and the cracking and warping that often result, are an everyday occurrence – in buildings, bridges, electronics, and almost anything else exposed to wide temperature swings – physicists have trouble explaining why solids behave that way.

Research by Hancock and his colleagues into scandium trifluoride, a material that has negative thermal expansion, published 1 October in Physical Review B, may lead to a better understanding of why materials change volume with temperature at all, with potential applications such as more durable electronics.

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What.

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materialsscienceandengineering: A sample of iodine above pure...

materialsscienceandengineering:

A sample of iodine above pure crystals of the element evaporating into its signature purple gas, as well as the base centered orthorhombic crystal structure the element favors. 

Sources: Crystals, Gas, Structure

Truly beautiful. And science.

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Black Phosphorus Batteries

materialsscienceandengineering:

Future electronics: Black phosphorus surges ahead of graphene

Superior conductor may be mass produced for electronic and optoelectronics devices
A Korean team of scientists tune BP’s band gap to form a superior conductor, allowing for the application to be mass produced for electronic and optoelectronics devices.
The research team operating out of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), affiliated with the Institute for Basic Science’s (IBS) Center for Artificial Low Dimensional Electronic Systems (CALDES), reported a tunable band gap in BP, effectively modifying the semiconducting material into a unique state of matter with anisotropic dispersion. This research outcome potentially allows for great flexibility in the design and optimization of electronic and optoelectronic devices like solar panels and telecommunication lasers.
To truly understand the significance of the team’s findings, it’s instrumental to understand the nature of two-dimensional (2-D) materials, and for that one must go back to 2010 when the world of 2-D materials was dominated by a simple thin sheet of carbon, a layered form of carbon atoms constructed to resemble honeycomb, called graphene. Graphene was globally heralded as a wonder-material thanks to the work of two British scientists who won the Nobel Prize for Physics for their research on it.

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Interesting. Honestly, though, whatever material or technology we use, I just want the battery breakthrough to happen soon.


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