Lithium-ion

Although lithium can be found in hard mineral ores, it's more often extracted from very salty (aka briny) groundwater. The latter task could soon be much quicker and eco-friendlier, thanks to a new string-based extraction technique.

Scientists at Stanford University have cooked up a new electrolyte recipe that tackles battery flammability in a highly promising way, leaning on extra salt content to circumvent problematic chemical reactions.

The many cells that make up a lithium battery pack are not all equal; some will degrade and die faster than others. New research out of Stanford has found that the whole battery can live much longer if each cell gets an individual charging treatment.

Scientists at the University of Buffalo experimenting with next-generation battery designs have demonstrated how magnetism might be used to bring a new level of precision to the way we monitor a battery's state of charge.

Ampirus has shipped the first batch of what it calls the most energy-dense lithium batteries available today. These silicon anode cells hold 73 percent more energy than Tesla's Model 3 cells by weight, and take up 37 percent less volume.

This year served up a stellar crop of battery advances that resulted from researchers thinking outside the box, reimagining these devices and the way they function. Let's take a look at the most creative and interesting examples.

A team led by the Nobel-Prize-winning inventor of rechargeable lithium batteries has come up with a way to boost their capacity, developing a novel coating that protects against significant losses at the outset.

While electric vehicles are greener than their fuel-burning counterparts, their battery packs still aren't as recyclable as they could be. A new process could help, by more efficiently extracting reusable materials from old lithium-ion batteries.

By better understanding the intricacies of how lithium batteries operate, scientists can more easily identify opportunities to improve their performance, and scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed a powerful new tool for the job.

Scientists have made a breakthrough that overcomes a technical issue that has held back highly promising lithium-metal battery architecture, which could pave the way for batteries with as much as 10 times the capacity of today's devices.

A technique is allowing researchers to measure endogenous lithium concentrations in the human brain for the very first time. Researchers found natural lithium levels in white matter were lower in suicidal subjects than healthy controls.

An MIT team has developed an electrolyte solution that can accommodate high-capacity lithium-metal battery chemistry, paving the way for electric cars and mobile devices that could last far longer on each charge.