Researcher ORCID Identifier

0000-0002-6275-310X

Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Physics & Astronomy

Reader 1

David Tanenbaum

Reader 2

Phil Choi

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2024 Lukas Karapin-Springorum

Abstract

Energy storage will play a crucial role in efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. Lithium metal batteries using solid electrolytes like Li7La3Zr2O12 have higher energy density than lithium-ion batteries, which may enable a more rapid and complete electrification of transportation. However, lithium metal batteries suffer from undesirable short-circuiting when metallic lithium deposits connect the two electrodes. It has been debated whether these lithium dendrites generally grow directionally from the anode or are generated by the reduction of lithium ions inside the solid electrolyte, but a recently proposed model may allow for a unification of these two competing theories by focusing on hollow voids in the interior of the electrolyte as the origin of dendrite nucleation. Clear approaches for the suppression of dendrite nucleation arise from this new theory, including the densification of the electrolyte or the use of lithium alloys as the anode. If additional experiments can further corroborate basic elements of this model, it could be extended to include the electronic and mechanical properties of grain boundaries in polycrystalline solid electrolytes like Li7La3Zr2O12 and thereby gain additional predictive power.

Comments

Thesis co-advised by Dr. David M. Stewart at the University of Maryland.

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