A research group at Drexel University has developed a set of material that show promise in increasing the energy storage capacity and charge/discharge speeds of lithium ion batteries. Batteries with greater storage capacity could be used to decrease the weight and energy efficiency of electric cars, for example. These materials consist of stacked sheets that are just a single atom thick.  These sheets are made of chemical compounds that contain a metal combined with either carbon or nitrogen.   They call materials like this “MXene.”

The folks at Inside Science made a video about this stuff.  Happy Friday!  Enjoy!