Over the years, human beings have evolved to excel in many different areas, and yet they still can’t do anything better than growing on a consistent basis. This tendency to improve, no matter the situation, has brought the world some huge milestones, with technology emerging as quite a major member of the group. The reason why we hold technology in such a high regard is, by and large, based on its skill-set, which guided us towards a reality nobody could have ever imagined otherwise. Nevertheless, if we look beyond the surface for a second, it will become clear how the whole runner was also very much inspired from the way we applied those skills across a real world environment. The latter component, in fact, did a lot to give the creation a spectrum-wide presence and start what was a full-blown tech revolution. Of course, this revolution then went on to scale up the human experience from all conceivable directions, but even after achieving such a monumental feat, technology will somehow continue to bring out the right goods. The same has turned more and more evident in recent times, and assuming a newly-discovered technique pans out just the way we envision, it should only put that trend on a higher pedestal moving forward.

The battery researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have officially extended their support to a new technique for manufacturing solid-stated batteries. To understand the significance of this discovery, we must start by acknowledging the problem that started it all. You see, when a battery charges or discharges under the current technological arrangement, ions move through an electrolyte between its positive and negative poles, which are made from thin layers of metal. As for the electrolyte, it is a type of liquid, and the concern here is how the stated liquid can spill or ignite rather easily, if the separation between battery layers is compromised. Enter isostatic press, a technique that has been around and uses fluids and gases like water, oil or argon inside a machine to apply consistent pressure across a battery component, thus creating a highly-uniformed electrolyte material. The said uniformity ensures enough contact between the layers to facilitate smooth ion movement. Furthermore, the researchers also found the technique to work well alongside a variety of battery compositions at different temperatures and pressures. For instance, isostatic pressing was observed as extremely efficient at low temperatures and with soft electrolyte materials, materials that are easier to process and have favorable crystal structures for ion movement. This is exactly what sets the whole effort apart, because even though isostatic pressing has been tested out before, it was done mostly at extreme ends i.e. very high temperatures or at a standard room temperature.

“All these materials have their unique advantages that researchers would like to exploit. That’s why it’s important that you can do isostatic pressing at anywhere from room temperature to several thousand degrees Fahrenheit: It means you can use anything from polymers to oxides, the whole range of materials,” said Marm Dixit, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Till date, Isostatic pressing has delivered a bigger chunk of its utility in fusion bonding and joining materials. Apart from that, the technique is now being used to eliminate voids and anomalies in 3D-printed parts. Now, while both the use cases are significant in their own right, what this method achieves around the battery manufacturing space will determine a lot of our progress across some key sectors.

“Effectively addressing this challenge would leapfrog present-day battery technology into the next decades by enabling energy-dense solid-state batteries to meet the burgeoning demands of portable electronics, grid storage, electric vehicles and even (aviation) applications,” the researching team wrote in a focus review paper for ACS Energy Letters.