New Polymer Coating Could Extend Lifetime of Lithium-Ion Batteries

­Lithium-ion batteries are becoming the lifeblood of our new electrified future – especially on the automotive side – and a new conductive polymer coating -- called HOS-PFM -- could enable longer lasting, more powerful lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.

It’s hard to sneeze these days without running into lithium-ion batteries. Used in everything from portable consumer widgets to medical devices, electric vehicles, and a ton more, these batteries are completely ubiquitous. And the numbers bear that out.

In 2020, even during a global pandemic, the global lithium-ion battery market was valued at $40.5 billion U.S. – actually, with everyone sheltering in-place and playing with their portable devices, that may have actually accelerated lithium-ion batteries…

It’s been estimated that the lithion-ion market will grow at a GACR of 14.6 percent, reaching nearly $92 billion U.S. by 2026. So the need is undoubtedly there…which makes this development from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory all the more significant.

Scientists there developed a HOS-PFM coating that “conducts both electrons and ions at the same time,” ensuring “battery stability and high charge/discharge rates while enhancing battery life.”

By using the coating as a battery adhesive, you could extend the lifetime of a lithium-ion battery from an average of 10 years to about 15 years. 

Normally, using silicon and aluminum as electrode materials causes them to wear down after multiple charge/discharge cycles.

But according to the researchers, “the HOS-PFM coating significantly prevents silicon- and aluminum-based electrodes from degrading during battery cycling while delivering high battery capacity over 300 cycles.”

The team plans to work with companies to scale up their findings for mass production.