The flammability hazard posed by lithium-ion batteries can be doused with a graphene-based solution devised by researchers from the U.K. and China.

These batteries can be susceptible to thermal runaway, where excessive heat causes power device failure and can result in fires or explosions. The risk of such occurrences can be mitigated by use of the graphene current collectors engineered to dissipate heat and block the exothermal reactions responsible for thermal runaway.

A continuous thermal pressing process, which can be applied on a commercial scale, is used to fabricate defect-free graphene foils with thermal conductivity of up to 1,400.8 W m/K, or about 10 times greater than that offered by traditional copper and aluminum current collectors produced for this application. The process can yield foils in lengths of meters to kilometers, a feat demonstrated in the laboratory by the design of a 17 μm-thick, 200 m-long graphene foil. This device described in Nature Chemical Engineering retained high electrical conductivity even after being bent over 100,000 times, extending its utility for use in flexible electronics and other advanced applications.

The safety record of lithium-ion batteries can be enhanced by the manufacture of graphene foils with customizable thicknesses with this technology advanced by researchers from Wuhan University of Technology (China), Swansea University (Wales), University of Warwick (U.K.) and Tsinghua University (China).

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