Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The sun shined bright outside the window.
Lu Zhou had fallen asleep at the table. He woke up and rubbed his eyes. He then moved his stiff arms as he stood up.
Then, he quickly went over to check on the digital microscope.
No explosions, no smoke.
Lu Zhou was glad to see that the sample was intact. He then looked at the computer next to it and flipped through the photos.
“It’s done!”
He squeezed his fist tightly and he nearly screamed out loud.
Since yesterday, he had completed four sets of charge and discharge cycles and there was no lithium dendrite!
The lithium ions that traveled to the negative electrode did not form white tree ridges. Under the PDMS material, a layer of moss-like pleats was stacked on one another.
From the data on BK-6808, the coulomb efficiency was maintained at a fairly high level!
These results surprised Lu Zhou.
He originally thought that the PDMS material and the carbon nanospheres had to be combined to completely solve the lithium dendrite problem. Yet, the effect was amazing with just the PDMS material alone.
As for the carbon nanospheres, Lu Zhou guessed that it was to accelerate the deposition rate of lithium ions and to use to “level” the folds under the PDMS material.
As for the mossy “pleats”, while it definitely had an effect on the performance of the battery, it was much better than the deadly lithium dendrite!
Without the nanospheres, the battery’s charge cycle would intensify the wrinkling phenomenon. It would also result in the coulomb cycle decreasing and reduced battery life.
Perhaps this was unacceptable for an advanced civilization, but on Earth, this was negligible.
As long as the battery was safe, any company would love to implement this technology!
Someone could use their phone for a week straight.
Of course, many other factors would also affect the performance of the battery. The battery life depended on how the battery chip was designed, and this part was out of Lu Zhou’s expertise.
However, there was no doubt that this new anode material would revolutionize the battery industry!
Whether it was the lithium borate battery or a lithium manganese cobalt battery, the negative electrodes were mainly graphite. As for the lithium-sulfur battery that was still lying in the laboratory, that was inhibited by the lithium dendrites.
Therefore, Lu Zhou knew that what his experiment results meant.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“System, what will those carbon nanospheres do?”
The system did not answer.
When Lu Zhou opened his eyes, he looked at the sample under the microscope.
“As expected…”
As expected, the carbon nanospheres technology was beyond his material science level. He did not have access to the information.
Nonetheless, this did not matter.
He had the data from the debris, so he did not have to rely on the system to solve the problem.
When he had his own laboratory, he would hire a team of researchers to do the experiments for him.
Lu Zhou unplugged the power supply and placed the battery sample into a small box.
Then, he saved all of the photos from the BK-6808 into his USB and as a precaution, he deleted all of the data.
Lu Zhou cleaned the laboratory and made sure that he did not leave anything behind. He then walked out and planned to return the keys to Professor Wang.
When he stepped outside, he bumped into Brother Qian.
When Brother Qian saw Lu Zhou, he waved and asked, “Is the experiment done?”
Lu Zhou smiled and replied, “It’s done.”
He suddenly thought of something and asked, “Oh yeah, are you studying electrode materials?”
Last year when Lu Zhou was helping Professor Li, he heard that they were going to do an electrode material experiment this year.
“Yeah,” replied Brother Qian as he nodded. With a smile, he asked, “Interested?”
Lu Zhou answered with another question, “What research project is it?”
Brother Qian replied casually, “The positive electrode material of lithium-sulfur battery. The latest research results of MIT found that the sulfur is fixed in the mesoporous carbon material as the positive electrode material and it effectively slows down the growth of the lithium dendrites of the negative electrode. I can’t say anything else since I signed a confidentiality agreement. If you’re interested, Professor Li will definitely welcome you to join our team.”
“I’m fine. Anyway, Professor Lu would not be happy to see me doing experiments,” said Lu Zhou with a smile. He then said, “Also, I don’t think this is a good choice… I’ve read the thesis you talked about as I’m doing a similar research experiment…”
Lu Zhou continued to speak, “… I think that if the discovery was so important, the team from MIT wouldn’t publish it so easily.”
Technology that had been published could not be patented, as it would conflict with national patent laws.
Generally, those laboratories with investment in enterprises (mainly engineering), would usually register the first patent in order to protect the results from the research. It was only after they registered that they would publish the thesis.
Anything that was published was unreliable and similar things had happened in the battery industry.
In 2011, Cornell University’s L-Archer research group published a paper on aluminum-ion batteries. They proposed a battery model in which Al was used as a positive electrode for V2O5 which was once used as a battery model. The “breakthrough” was reported and it was even reported by the famous “Science” journal.
However, the final outcome was unpleasant.
In the MRS 1 meeting, Cornell’s people were attacked by a man named Luke Reid…
Lu Zhou did not know if the MIT results were correct, but he knew that there was no way to inhibit the growth of lithium dendrites from the cathode.
He knew this because he had already solved this problem.
He was even about to register a patent.
Brother Qian shook his head and said, “We’ll still run experiments, just to see how it goes.”
Lu Zhou sighed, “Then… I wish you good luck.”
He could not reveal anything more.
No one would believe him and they might even get offended.
He could only warn them.
However, he did not worry too much. He wondered what Professor Li would say to him after he published his thesis.
He could register his patent by next year, and after that, he could start writing his thesis.
He would be in Princeton by then.
Maybe, by then, Professor Li would give up on this research project.