Lithium batteries are what allow electric vehicles to travel several hundred miles on one charge. Their capacity for energy storage is well known, but so is their tendency to occasionally catch on fire – an occurrence known to battery researchers as “thermal runaway.” These fires occur most frequently when the batteries overheat or cycle rapidly. […]
Nano-Sandwiching Improves Heat Transfer, Prevents Overheating in Nanoelectronics
Sandwiching two-dimensional materials used in nanoelectronic devices between their three-dimensional silicon bases and an ultrathin layer of aluminum oxide can significantly reduce the risk of component failure due to overheating, according to a new study published in the journal of Advanced Materials led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Engineering. Many of […]
Finding 2D Materials To Make Batteries Cheaper, Better
The University of Illinois at Chicago has received a $1.44 million National Science Foundation grant to discover new 2D materials that can be used to manufacture better and cheaper batteries. Two-dimensional materials, of which graphene is the most common, are extremely strong, lightweight, flexible, and excellent conductors of heat and electricity. Graphene is one million […]
Making Lithium-Ion Batteries Safer, Stronger
Today’s rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are good, but they could be much better in the future. That’s what University of Illinois at Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory researchers have concluded, following extensive studies using real-time transmission electron microscopy, or TEM. The technique, they report in Nature Communications, is the most effective way to understand the electrochemical reactions of lithium-ion […]
Newly-Discovered Semiconductor Dynamics May Help Improve Energy Efficiency
Researchers examining the flow of electricity through semiconductors have uncovered another reason these materials seem to lose their ability to carry a charge as they become more densely “doped.” Their results, which may help engineers design faster semiconductors in the future, are published online in the journal ACS Nano. Semiconductors are found in just about every […]
Researchers Peer Into Atom-Sized Tunnels In Hunt For Better Battery
Battery researchers seeking improved electrode materials have focused on “tunneled” structures that make it easier for charge-carrying ions to move in and out of the electrode. Now a team led by a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago has used a special electron microscope with atomic-level resolution to show that certain large ions […]
Supersonic Spray Yields New Nanomaterial for Bendable, Wearable Electronics
A new, ultrathin film that is both transparent and highly conductive to electric current has been produced by a cheap and simple method devised by an international team of nanomaterials researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Korea University. The film is also bendable and stretchable, offering potential applications in roll-up touchscreen displays, […]
Breakthrough Solar Cell Captures CO2 & Sunlight, Produces Burnable Fuel
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have engineered a potentially game-changing solar cell that cheaply and efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide directly into usable hydrocarbon fuel, using only sunlight for energy. The finding is reported in the July 29 issue ofScience and was funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of […]
Breakthrough Solar Cell Captures CO2 and Sunlight, Produces Burnable Fuel
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have engineered a potentially game-changing solar cell that cheaply and efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide directly into usable hydrocarbon fuel, using only sunlight for energy. The finding is reported in the July 29 issue of Science and was funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of […]
Germs Add Ripples to Make ‘Groovy’ Graphene
Graphene, a two-dimensional wonder-material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms linked in a hexagonal chicken-wire pattern, has attracted intense interest for its phenomenal ability to conduct electricity. Now University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have used rod-shaped bacteria — precisely aligned in an electric field, then vacuum-shrunk under a graphene sheet — to […]