Research by Rice scientists who have developed the next step toward the deployment of powerful, rechargeable lithium metal batteries by making them safer and simpler to manufacture is featured. James Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry and a professor of computer science and of materials science and nanoengineering, is quoted.

Researchers made test cells with a coat of red phosphorus on the separator that keeps the anode and cathode electrodes apart. The phosphorus acts as a spy for management systems that charge and monitor batteries by detecting the formation of dendrites, protrusions of lithium that can cause them to fail.

Futurity (This article also appeared in eeNewsPower and Digital Day News.)

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