DAEJEON < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

(Daejeon = Yonhap News) Reporter Jun-ho Kim = Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced on the 24th that a research team led by Professor Nam-soon Choi from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Professor Seung-bum Hong from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has developed a technology to resolve 'interfacial instability,' the greatest challenge of lithium metal batteries, at the electronic structure level.

Interfacial instability is a phenomenon where the boundary surface between the electrode and the electrolyte is not maintained evenly during charging and discharging processes. This leads to the formation of dendrites, which grow like needles from the lithium, resulting in reduced battery life, internal short circuits, and fire risks. This has been identified as the fundamental cause hindering the commercialization of lithium metal batteries.

In collaboration with Professor Sang-kyu Kwak’s team at Korea University, the research team implemented an 'intelligent protective layer' on the electrode surface through which lithium ions can move stably by adding 'Thiophene' to the battery electrolyte.

This protective layer features the characteristic of its electronic structure rearranging itself.

Similar to a smart traffic system that adjusts lanes according to traffic volume, the charge distribution within the protective layer changes flexibly whenever lithium ions move, creating an optimal pathway.

As a result, the research team explained that they succeeded in effectively suppressing dendrite growth even in high-speed charging environments and significantly extending battery life.

The research team added that this is significant in that it provides a breakthrough to fundamentally solve the ultra-fast charging problem (simultaneous implementation of fast charging within 12 minutes and high-current driving of 8 mA/cm2 or more), which was the biggest barrier to the commercialization of lithium metal batteries.

Professor Nam-soon Choi said, "This will be a core foundational technology for next-generation electric vehicle (EV) batteries that realize both high-speed charging and long life. It will be utilized in various future industrial fields that require high-performance batteries, such as ultra-long-range EVs, Urban Air Mobility (UAM), and next-generation high-density energy storage systems."

psjpsj@yna.co.kr



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Source Text

Source: Yonhap News (February 24, 2026)

** This article was translated from Korean.