Advance in Lithium technology??

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3...;et_cid=1615272

As a poor, but honest, archaeologist, I don't pretendto fully understand all of the above article (or even the abstract), but I post it here so that others more informed than me (trust me, that's a pretty low bar) can enlighten...

Last place I worked new people would be sent to meetings to learn about our product. And the meeting content would be like reading that paper. They use english words but it could take years to get to a point of understanding anything about the topic.

Being sent to the meeting was considered "training."

Near as I can figure the article is describing an idea that they are exploring 3 dimensional geometry inside lithium batteries to get better performance.

In lithium rechargeables material travels between the electrodes. The direction depends on whether you charging or using the current. Liquid electrolytes allow the material to deposit freely. Unfortunately lithium tends to grow whiskers between the electrodes. Solid state lithium rechargeables prevent that but have trouble because the traveling material cause the electrodes to retract from the solid electrolyte. That is a problem because the it reduces the surface that has contact to the electrolyte (and the useable current in return).
The new technology combines a 3D structure to increase suface and a quasi solid electrolyte that keeps contact like a liquid while still preventing the whiskers from shorting the electrodes.