Lithium-ion battery fires in Boeing 787 Dreamliners and Tesla Model S vehicles could have a solution thanks to new research led by Joseph DeSimone of the University of North Carolina.

Researchers in DeSimone’s lab found that the electrolyte, the flammable component of the lithium ion battery, could be replaced by another material. That discovery came by accident. DeSimone, a chemistry professor, was researching a way to prevent marine life from sticking to the bottom of ships. The material he was studying turned out to be a suitable, nonflammable electrolyte replacement.

“We think it’s a big deal,” DeSimone said. “I think it changes the way people think about batteries, lithium-ion batteries and the safety of batteries.”

Lithium-ion batteries are all around us powering our consumer electronics. In these batteries, lithium ions move through the electrolyte from one electrode to the other when the battery is being charged. An overcharge can lead to the electrolyte catching fires and the batteries can spontaneously combust.

Researchers have been looking to replace this electrolyte. But DeSimone says no one had ever thought to use a material called perfluoropolyether, or PFPE, as the main electrolyte material in lithium-ion batteries.

The research was published in the Feb. 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Although much work remains to be done, we believe this work represents a significant step toward safer, high-energy lithium batteries and opens the door for the development of new electrolytes that can be tailored to address the persistent challenges of lithium-ion technologies,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

PFPE has long been used as a lubricant for gears in industrial machinery. It also has a similar chemical structure to a polymeric electrolyte commonly studied for lithium-ion batteries. The UNC researchers discovered they could dissolve lithium salt in the polymer. DeSimone’s lab collaborated with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, which studied lithium-ion transport within the electrolyte and found compatible electrodes to assembly a battery.

DeSimone’s lab came upon PFPE’s as a possible electrolyte replacement while doing marine research for the Office of Naval Research. PFPE actually works to prevent marine life from sticking to ships. But DeSimone says that’s a low-volume application of the material.

“It’s interesting but it’s not the kind of thing that’s going to get a whole lot of attention,” he said. “It’s not like the implications in battery technology.”

Tesla, for example has a distance cap of about 200 miles per charge for its lithium-ion batteries, DeSimone said. But industry observers want battery capacity that will allow an electric car to travel the roughly 500 miles a car can get from a tank of gasoline. The battery technology that the Department of Energy is looking at for this application is the lithium air battery. But DeSimone said that the electrolyte is not compatible with this class of batteries. PFPE should be compatible.

DeSimone said UNC is already filing patents for the technology. The university has also started pursuing discussions with potential commercial partners. DeSimone, whose research has led to the founding of other companies including Research Triangle Park-based nanotechnology company Liquidia Technologies, left open the possibility that yet another company could be spun off from the research.

“This is going to change the way people think about batteries,” he said. “Whether, we’re the ones to do that or we do that in partnership with someone else, we’re still trying to figure out.”