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To understand why electric plane batteries lose power over time, one might not think to turn to an approach that biologists have used for decades to study the structure and function of the components of living organisms. But it turns out that omics, a field that has helped scientists unlock the secrets of the human genome, could soon play a key role in making carbon-free air travel a reality.
In a new study In the journal Joule, a team of researchers led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) used omics techniques to study the complex interactions within the anode, cathode, and electrolyte of aircraft electric batteries. One of the most important findings was the discovery that certain salts mixed with the battery electrolyte formed a protective coating on the cathode particles, making them much more resistant to corrosion, thereby increasing the battery’s lifespan.
The research team, comprised of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and industry partners ABA (Palo Alto, CA) and 24M (Cambridge, MA), then designed and tested an electric aircraft battery using their new electrolyte solution. The battery demonstrated a four-fold increase over conventional batteries in the number of cycles over which it could maintain the power-to-energy ratio required for electric flight. The next step in the project will be for the team to manufacture enough batteries (approximately 100 kWh of total capacity) for a test flight planned for 2025.
“Heavy transport sectors, including aviation, have been underexplored in terms of electrification. Our work redefines what is possible, pushing the boundaries of battery technology to enable deeper decarbonization.”
– Brett Helms
“Heavy-duty transportation sectors, including aviation, have been underexplored in terms of electrification,” said Brett Helms, corresponding author of the study and senior scientist at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry. “Our work redefines what’s possible, pushing the boundaries of battery technology to enable further decarbonization.”
Electric air transport presents unique challenges
Unlike electric vehicle batteries, which prioritize sustainable energy over long distances, electric aircraft batteries face the unique challenge of high energy requirements for takeoff and landing, combined with high energy density for extended flight.
“In an electric vehicle, you focus on the decay of power over time,” says Youngmin Ko, a postdoctoral researcher at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry and lead author of the study. “But for airplanes, it’s the decay that’s crucial: the ability to consistently achieve high power during takeoff and landing.”
Traditional battery designs fall short in this regard, Ko said, largely due to a lack of understanding of what happens at the interfaces between the electrolyte, anodes and cathodes. Ko said that’s where the omics approach comes in, a methodology borrowed from the biological sciences to decipher patterns from changes in chemical signatures in complex systems.
“Biologists use omics to study the complex relationship between things like gene expression and DNA structure,” Helms said. “So we wanted to see if we could use a similar approach to look at the chemical signatures of battery components and identify which reactions were contributing to power loss and where they were occurring.”
The researchers focused their analysis on lithium metal batteries with high-voltage, high-density layered oxides containing nickel, manganese, and cobalt. Unlike previous research, which generally assumed that the power loss problem resulted from an event occurring in the anode of the battery, the team observed that the power loss came primarily from the cathode side. That’s where the particles cracked and corroded over time, impeding charge flow and reducing the battery’s efficiency. Additionally, the researchers found that specific electrolytes could control the rate of corrosion at the cathode interface.
“This result was not obvious,” Ko said. “We found that mixing salts in the electrolyte could suppress the reactivity of the typically reactive species, which formed a stabilizing and corrosion-resistant coating.”
After developing their new electrolyte, the researchers tested it in a high-capacity battery. It showed excellent energy retention during a realistic electric vertical takeoff and landing mission. The team hopes to have the batteries in production for flight testing in a prototype aircraft built by four eVTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) partners by the end of the year. Helms and Ko said the team and their collaborators plan to expand the use of omics in battery research, exploring the interactions of various electrolyte components to better understand and tailor battery performance to current and emerging use cases in transportation and the grid.
The Molecular Foundry is a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Berkeley Lab.
This work was supported by DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) and the DOE Office of Science.
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