A playful experiment at home led Gabriel Veith, a researcher at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), to a breakthrough in battery safety. Scientists at ORNL have long explored the complex chemistry and materials that power lithium-ion batteries.
Inside these batteries, a thin plastic layer separates the electrodes, the points where electricity flows. If that layer is damaged, the electrodes can touch, causing the liquid electrolyte to ignite and the battery to burst into flames.
Veith’s inspiration came while playing with his children and a mix of cornstarch and water called oobleck. The mixture behaves like a liquid until pressure is applied, then solidifies before returning to a liquid state. Veith realized this reversible property, known as shear thickening, could be used to create a protective additive that instantly hardens under impact, dramatically reducing the risk of fires in…
