A major hurdle in the race toward cleaner, more affordable batteries has been the reliance on expensive, hard-to-source metals like cobalt and nickel.
These elements power the cathodes in most lithium-ion batteries but carry environmental, ethical, and financial costs.
Now, researchers at McGill University, working with scientists from the U.S. and South Korea, have developed a new method to manufacture high-performance cathode materials that could remove the need for cobalt and nickel altogether.
Their breakthrough offers a scalable, energy-efficient way to produce ‘disordered rock-salt’ (DRX) cathodes, an alternative that has long shown promise but remained tricky to industrialize.
Molten salt process unlocks precision
A two-step molten salt method lies at the heart of the team’s success.
By controlling the environment in which DRX particles form, researchers achieved fine-tuned nucleation followed by…
