Lithium-air batteries given boost at Berkeley

First proposed in the 1970s, lithium-air batteries have huge potential due to their high energy density, but face many technical obstacles before they can become a commercial reality. One such obstacle is an exact understanding of how lithium and oxygen react. Now MIT researchers have developed a tool that can examine the chemistry that could help to produce technology with up to four times the capacity of current lithium-ion batteries.

The technique to view the lithium-oxygen reactions directly utilises high-intensity X-ray illumination at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.