Some papers you read and think, “ok, more of the same.” Others make you question things you thought were already settled. This work by Dr. Dirk Uwe Sauer and his team is definitely in the second category. They took one of the biggest hidden villains in lithium ion batteries, lithium plating, and showed that it is not just about dendrites growing into graphite, but a much more complex process with unexpected consequences.
Ary L. C. Assunção, DSc. reviews this paper:
Heinrich Ditler, Thorsten Tegetmeyer-Kleine, Gereon Stahl, Christiane Rahe, Dirk Uwe Sauer, Lithium plating in commercial lithium-ion cells: An extensive study combining electrical methods with post-mortem analysis, Journal of Energy Storage, Volume 132, Part C, 2025
The study went far beyond classical electrical analysis. The team combined real time measurements with autopsies of more than 60 commercial cells. First they identified the signs of plating through relaxation and differential voltage analysis. Then they opened the cells and confirmed that the shiny structures were indeed metallic lithium. And not just any lithium: for the first time in commercial cells they observed a polyhedral morphology, a rhombic dodecahedron, very different from the sharp dendrites that dominate the literature. That observation changes how we understand nucleation and the kinetics of the phenomenon.
They also showed how temperature reshapes the story. Below minus 10 °C plating grows aggressively, but some of it can re-intercalate into graphite during rest. At higher temperatures it turns into dead lithium or reacts with the electrolyte to form LiF and carbonates, an irreversible loss of capacity. Plating is also not evenly distributed. It tends to form more at electrode edges and overhang regions, proving that small details in manufacturing can dictate the safety and lifetime of an entire pack.
What makes this work so compelling is how it connects everything. From voltage curves to electron microscopy, through spectroscopy and calorimetry, the pieces fit together to show that plating is not just a defect. It is a dynamic process, partly reversible, that determines whether a cell will live long or fail with an internal short in a few cycles.
And here comes the market provocation. Every time someone promises ultra fast charging in ten minutes, the question is not whether the battery can handle it. The question is how much plating we are willing to accept and how we will manage it. The real disruption will not be about eliminating the phenomenon, but about domesticating it, measuring, controlling and designing cells that can live with it in a predictable way.
Maybe the most powerful lesson is this: there is no future in ignoring inconvenient details. Progress means facing the mechanisms that never show up in glossy slides but ultimately decide whether a battery will remain a promise or become a reality.
References
- Heinrich Ditler, Thorsten Tegetmeyer-Kleine, Gereon Stahl, Christiane Rahe, Dirk Uwe Sauer, Lithium plating in commercial lithium-ion cells: An extensive study combining electrical methods with post-mortem analysis, Journal of Energy Storage, Volume 132, Part C, 2025
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