Alloying anodes represent a promising class of material for enabling increased energy density for lithium-ion batteries. However, most research in this space has focused upon the development of powders for use in blade-cast anodes. In this work, we develop a robust framework for understanding the implementation of alloying materials as foil anodes, surveying the full range of elemental metals to identify viable materials systems, and contextualizing their potential impact on performance. Aluminum, indium, tin, and lead are highlighted as promising candidates for direct use as active materials, with each offering the potential for a 40−50% improvement in energy density over graphite-based systems. Interestingly, aluminum, tin, and indium offer not only high capacities but also display remarkable formation efficiencies ranging from 90 to 98%. The stability of each material was also benchmarked across a range of utilizations, laying the groundwork for future efforts in designing stable foil anodes for high-energy-density batteries.

In this work, nanostructured foils are generated by cold-rolling two-phase metal alloys. This unique electrode architecture exemplifies a highly practical approach for the development of next-generation high-energy-density batteries.

Quantification of ammonia in whole blood has applications in the diagnosis and management of many hepatic diseases, including cirrhosis and rare urea cycle disorders, amounting to more than 5 million patients in the United States. Current techniques for ammonia measurement suffer from limited range, poor resolution, false positives or large, complex sensor set-ups. Here we demonstrate a technique utilizing inexpensive reagents and simple methods for quantifying ammonia in 100 μl of whole blood. The sensor comprises a modified form of the indophenol reaction, which resists sources of destructive interference in blood, in conjunction with a cation-exchange membrane. The presented sensing scheme is selective against other amine containing molecules such as amino acids and has a shelf life of at least 50 days. Additionally, the resulting system has high sensitivity and allows for the accurate reliable quantification of ammonia in whole human blood samples at a minimum range of 25 to 500 μM, which is clinically for rare hyperammonemic disorders and liver disease. Furthermore, concentrations of 50 and 100 μM ammonia could be reliably discerned with p=0.0001.

An interdigitated eutectic alloy (IdEA) foil is presented as a framework for the development of alloy anodes with a capacity that is significantly higher than that of the traditional graphite/copper assembly. It is a simple, low-cost approach that can be applied to a broad range of alloy systems with various working ions such as Li, Na, or Mg.

Tin foils have an impressive lithium-storage capacity more than triple that of graphite anodes, and their adoption could facilitate a drastic improvement in battery energy density. However, implementation of a dense foil electrode architecture represents a significant departure from the standard blade-cast geometry with a distinct electrochemical environment, and this has led to confusion with regards to the first cycle efficiency of the system. In this work, we investigate the unique behavior of a tin active material in a foil architecture to understand its performance as an anode. We find shallow cycling of the foil results in an irreversible formation (< 40 %) due to diffusional trapping, but intermediate and complete utilization allows for a remarkably reversible formation reaction (> 90 %). This striking nonlinearity stems from an in-situ transformation from bulk metal to porous electrode that occurs during formation cycles and defines electrode-level lithium-transport on subsequent cycles. An alternative cycling procedure for assessing the stability of foils is proposed to account for this chemomechanical effect.