Editor’s note: This story is part of ‘Meet a UChicagoan,’ a regular series focusing on the people who make UChicago a distinct intellectual community. Read about the others here.
With more than a trillion tons of carbon dioxide now circulating in the atmosphere, and global temperatures projected to rise anywhere from 2 degrees to 9.7 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 80 years, switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy is a subject of critical attention. To make that switch, humanity will need entirely new methods for storing energy.
The current standard, lithium-ion batteries, rely on flammable electrolytes and can only be recharged about a thousand times before their capacity is dramatically reduced. Other potential successors have their own issues. Lithium metal batteries, for example, suffer from a short lifespan due to long needle-like deformities called…
Creating the building blocks for next-generation batteries
