"Lithium Metal Batteries, Just 2 Minutes Needed"... GIST Breaks Through the 'Dendrite Barrier' Blocking Fast Charging [Reading Science]

24-fold improvement in lithium transport and 900-hour stable operation... A step closer to commercializing next-generation batteries for EVs and ESS

The biggest reason lithium metal batteries, long hailed as the ultimate next-generation electric vehicle battery, have repeatedly stalled at the threshold of commercialization has been anode instability, especially the formation of dendrites. A Korean research team has now proposed a technology that can solve this challenge with a process lasting just 2 minutes, experimentally demonstrating the feasibility of lithium metal batteries that achieve both fast charging and long cycle life.

Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) announced on the 9th that the research team led by Professor Eom Kwangseop in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has developed a technology to form the anode interface of lithium metal batteries in 2 minutes using an electrochemical pulse process that applies short electrical signals repeatedly. The key is that lithium mobility and interfacial stability are simultaneously enhanced without complex processes or structural redesign.

Conceptual diagram of the lithium plating stage. In the SCN current collector fabricated by pulse electrochemical deposition, during the initial charge and discharge cycles a lithium-tin alloy and an SEI dominated by inorganic components form simultaneously, allowing lithium ions to diffuse uniformly and resulting in dendrite-free deposition. Provided by the research team.

Anode interface completed in 2 minutes... Tackling the biggest challenge of lithium metal batteries head-on

The research team introduced an extremely small, atomic-level amount of tin (Sn) into the surface of copper (Cu), which is used as the anode current collector in batteries, thereby creating a tin-doped copper nanowire precursor (SCN) structure that is far thinner than a human hair. This nanostructure guides lithium metal to deposit uniformly instead of concentrating at specific spots, effectively suppressing dendrite growth.

In particular, it was confirmed that during the initial charging stage this nanostructure naturally transforms into a solid electrolyte interphase (SEI), forming pathways through which lithium ions can move quickly and stably. As a result, the lithium-ion transport rate improved by about 24 times compared with conventional copper interfaces.

Eom Kwangseop, professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Lee Changhyun, a doctoral student, are conducting an experiment. Provided by GIST

Capacity retention of 98.2% after 480 fast charge-discharge cycles... Demonstrating applicability to EVs and ESS

The lithium metal battery employing this interfacial structure operated stably for more than 900 hours. In full-cell tests using a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode, it retained 98.2% of its initial capacity after 480 cycles under charge-discharge conditions of less than 1 hour (1.0C). This shows that there is virtually no degradation in cycle life even under fast-charging conditions.

This indicates that lithium metal batteries can move beyond the laboratory stage and meet the requirements of real industrial applications such as electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage systems (ESS). In particular, because the process time is under 2 minutes, it can be directly applied to existing battery manufacturing lines, which is why its commercialization potential is considered high.

Professor Eom Kwangseop said, "It is significant that we have demonstrated that the dendrite problem, long regarded as the biggest obstacle to the commercialization of lithium metal batteries, can be solved solely through electrochemical interface design," adding, "By securing both fast charging and long cycle life through a simple process, this becomes a practical technology that can be directly adopted in real battery manufacturing processes."

This research was carried out with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea, and the results were published online in the international journal Energy Storage Materials on January 29. GIST explained that it is also in talks on technology transfer, with industrial utilization of the technology in mind.

Given that lithium metal batteries, once regarded only as a "possibility" for next-generation batteries, have begun to satisfy the three key requirements of process compatibility, performance, and cycle life at the same time, this achievement is being evaluated as a turning point in the technological transition of electric vehicle batteries.