UNIST Develops Novel Tech for Doubling Lithium Rechargeable Battery Capacity

The Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has developed a new graphene coating technique with which the capacity of a lithium secondary battery can be more than doubled.

Professor Song Hyeon-gon at the Energy and Chemical Engineering Department recently announced that his research team created very small and flexible graphene layers. They employed the ball milling method for making graphene by breaking graphite physically while uniformly coating a manganese oxide-based electrode active material with the layers to double the battery capacity.

The research result was published in the international edition of Angewandte Chemie on April 9. “The graphene coating technique we developed this time is a highly-innovative source technology that can be applied to not only lithium secondary batteries but various electrode materials like fuel cells and photovoltaic cells,” the professor explained, adding, “We hope that the technology will play an important part in dealing with the environment and the energy problems that the entire world is facing.”