According to foreign media reports, a research team at South Korea’s National Research Council of Science and Technology has developed a breakthrough transfer technology that can form a thin protective layer on the surface of lithium metal – an innovation that is expected to solve the dendrite problem that has long plagued the next generation of lithium metal batteries.
Image source: KRICT
Dr. Jungdon Suk’s team at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)’s Advanced Battery Research Center successfully transferred a hybrid protective layer composed of solid polymers and ceramics to lithium metal using a solvent-free process. The relevant research paper was published in the journal Energy Storage Materials.
Unlike traditional wet coating methods, this technology achieves uniform coating over a large area without damaging the active lithium surface, marking a significant step towards commercial viability.
Lithium metal batteries are the next generation of energy storage systems that use lithium metal instead of graphite as an anode. The theoretical capacity of lithium metal anodes is ten times that of traditional lithium-ion batteries, and it is a key material for high-energy-density solid-state batteries and lithium-sulfur batteries.
