LGES, KAIST enable EVs to go 900km on single charge

LG Energy Solution (LGES) and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) jointly developed a technology that can improve the performance of lithium metal batteries significantly, enabling electric vehicles (EVs) to travel up to 900 kilometers on a single charge, the joint research team said Thursday.

Their research paper was published in Nature Energy, one of the world’s most renowned scientific journals.

The research team explained that they used “borate-pyran electrolyte” to prevent corrosion from impacting the durability of the battery.

Although lithium metal batteries are considered to have superior energy density to lithium-ion batteries, corrosion has made it difficult to use the next-generation batteries for EVs.

“We stepped closer to the commercialization of lithium metal batteries by solving the most serious problem in collaboration with KAIST,” said LGES Executive Vice President Chung Keun-chang, head of the company’s Future Technology Center.

Kim Hee-tak, a professor of KAIST Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering who directed the project, emphasized that the research proved the feasibility of lithium metal batteries using electrolytes.

Kwon Hyeok-jin, the paper’s lead author who is a doctoral student at KAIST, said the study showed how to overcome difficulties in using lithium metal batteries.

According to LGES, the latest achievement is the result of a twoyear study by the Frontier Research Laboratory (FRL), which was established in 2021 jointly by the company and the university to develop technologies for lithium metal batteries.

The battery maker also runs several other FRLs in collaboration with the University of California San Diego in the U.S., and the University of Munster and the Helmholtz Institute in Germany.