A new lithium-carbon dioxide battery can survive temperatures from a freezing -30°C to a scorching 60°C without losing power.
April 25, 2026
Original Paper
Weakly Solvated Li+ Chemistry within MXene Nanochannels Enables All-Climate 2-Electron Oxalate-Routine Li-CO2 Battery
SSRN · 6642487
The Takeaway
Most batteries die or become dangerously unstable when they get too cold or too hot because their internal chemistry stops working. Researchers solved this by using MXene nanochannels to force the lithium ions into a new chemical pathway that does not clog up the battery's internals. This all-climate design ensures the battery can discharge energy reliably regardless of the weather outside. It could be the key to building energy storage for the most extreme environments on Earth or even other planets. This technology would allow for electric vehicles and power grids that never fail during a deep winter freeze or a record-breaking heatwave.
From the abstract
Extreme-temperature operation of lithium-carbon dioxide (Li-CO2) batteries is fundamentally limited by high Li+ desolvation barriers and irreversible cathode passivation by Li2CO3. Here, we demonstrate that synergistic solvation-confinement regulation, achieved by integrating a dual-ionic-liquid/DMSO electrolyte with a surface-terminated MXene cathode, can fundamentally reprogram Li+ transport and CO2 electrochemistry. Competitive coordination of TFSI-/BF4- anions reconstructs the primary Li+ so