Scientists experimenting with key components in lithium batteries have come up with a promising new design that could one day see electric vehicles charge much faster, and offer twice the range at the same time. The breakthrough centers on a new, thickened electrode made up of vertically stacked layers that allows for easier transport of lithium ions.

Led by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin, the work was carried out in pursuit of high-power energy storage systems that could be put to use in electric vehicles of the future. One approach to this type of design involves using stacked layers of very fine two-dimensional materials to form the battery’s electrodes, but this does have its limits.

Thicker electrodes might mean more energy storage potential, but they also mean more ground for the lithium ions to cover. Horizontally aligned layers of electrode material forces the ions to snake back and forth as they exit and enter the electrodes, which leads to slower charge times.

“Two-dimensional materials are commonly believed as a promising candidate for high-rate energy storage applications because it only needs to be several nanometers thick for rapid charge transport,” said study author Guihua Yu. “However, for thick-electrode-design-based next-generation, high-energy batteries, the re-stacking of nanosheets as building blocks can cause significant bottlenecks in charge transport, leading to difficulty in achieving both high energy and fast charging.”