Arranging the flakes

In this case, changing the way anodes work turned into the key to fulfillment. Anodes are crafted from graphite, i.e. carbon, organized in tiny, densely packed flakes, similar in look to dark grey cornflakes haphazardly compressed, as in a granola bar. when a Li-ion battery is charging, lithium ions skip from the cathode, or fine metallic oxide electrode, via an electrolyte fluid to the anode, wherein they are stored within the graphite bar. when the battery is in use and for this reason discharging, the lithium ions bypass lower back to the cathode but are forced to take many detours through the densely packed mass of graphite flakes, compromising battery performance.

Those detours are in large part avoidable if the flakes are organized vertically in the course of the anode manufacturing method so that they're massed parallel to each other, pointing from the electrode plane in the path of the cathode. Adapting a technique already used in the production of artificial composite materials, this alignment changed into finished by means of André Studart and a team of research professionals inside the subject of cloth nanostructuration on the ETH Zurich. The method includes coating the graphite flakes with nanoparticles of iron oxide touchy to a magnetic field and suspending them in ethanol. The suspended and already magnetized flakes are ultimately subjected to a magnetic field of 100 millitesla-approximately the power of a fridge magnet. André Studart explains that "through rotating the magnet at some point of this procedure, the platelets now not handiest align vertically but in parallel formation to one another, like books on a shelf. As a end result, they are flawlessly ordered, decreasing the diffusion distances blanketed through the lithium ions to a minimal."