Samsung Reveals New Solid State Lithium Metal Battery With 900Wh/L Density

August 2nd, 2020 by Kyle Field

Global battery powerhouse Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) and the Samsung R&D Institute Japan (SRJ) just published a new study highlighting its next generation solid state battery. The new lithium metal solid state battery delivers better energy density than more traditional lithium-ion batteries and promises to usher in a new generation of batteries to power all our devices.

Samsung’s new lithium metal formulation does away with liquid electrolytes, drastically improving the safety of the battery. In the past, lithium metal batteries have been prone to chemical degradation as dendrites grow on the anodes, but Samsung believes it has unlocked the key to mitigating dendrite growth thanks to a new silver-carbon (Ag-C) coating on the anode.

The 5 micrometer coating was sufficient to prevent anode degradation in Samsung’s prototype cells, enabling an increased energy density of up to 900Wh/L. That translates to a battery that’s 50% smaller by volume than current lithium-ion battery tech. Granted, the new chemistry is still going to be in development for quite some time, but we’re talking about a global battery and consumer electronics powerhouse here, not just a college laboratory that’s years away from production.

Samsung specifically believes its new pouch cell batteries have the potential to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and speak to the rapid pace of R&D the global energy storage market is seeing. It’s still early days, folks.

“The product of this study could be a seed technology for safer, high-performance batteries of the future,” Dongmin Im, Master at SAIT’s Next Generation Battery Lab and the leader of the project said. “Going forward, we will continue to develop and refine all-solid-state battery materials and manufacturing technologies to help take EV battery innovation to the next level.”









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